It’s been a great time to invest over the past five years. Virtually anything investors have touched has turned to gold since 2016, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY) total return over that stretch has been 120.1%.
However, cryptocurrencies have left the stock market in the dust in the past five years. Despite their extreme volatility and a boom and bust cycle in 2017 and 2018, cryptocurrency investors that bought five years ago and held on for the long-term have generated tremendous overall gains.
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Five-Year Winners: Many cryptocurrencies have caught fire in 2021, and some experts and analysts believe cryptos have actually replaced gold as the preferred inflationary hedge among younger investors. Here’s how much $1,000 invested in each of the following cryptocurrencies back in 2016 would be worth today.
- Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), $273,716.
- Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), $148,194.
- Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC), $87,900.
- XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), $267,900.
- Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), $1.03 million.
Benzinga’s Take: If you are one of the many investors who has made a killing in the cryptocurrency market in the past five years, you should certainly feel proud of your financial accomplishments, especially if you had the foresight to buy some of the top-performing cryptos mentioned above.
However, one of the easiest things to do in the financial world is making money during a bull market, so make sure to always manage risk appropriately and be prepared for the next crypto market downturn like the one that happened in 2018.