Bitcoin (BTC) becomes the asset with highest ROI year-to-date – how’s this possible?

Bitcoin (BTC) has become the asset with the highest return on investment over the last one year, with a return of over 110%.

According to data released by IceCap Asset Management on 11 November, the largest crypto asset by market cap beat other top assets such as gold to get to the top.

Gold, the asset with the second-highest ROI had 26.6%, far less than half of Bitcoin’s ROI. 

What happened

One interesting thing about this data is that Bitcoin is one of the most recent of the assets listed in the data. It was created in 2009, while assets like gold have been around for centuries. This raises the question of how it could beat much older assets.

First, Bitcoin was created as peer-to-peer digital cash. This means any two persons can transact with it without the need for an intermediary such as a bank. This alone has attracted many people to the digital currency, but there’s more.

Over the years, the use case for Bitcoin seems to have transitioned slowly from being just digital money to being a store of value and hedge against inflation owing to its increasing value over the years.

The most recent reason for Bitcoin’s increasing popularity and hence its high ROI however, is the approval of Bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETFs) in January this year. As a result, investors have gained confidence in the asset, leading to growing interest.

There has been increasing inflow into Bitcoin since the ETFs, which directly leads to price increase that makes it a long-term investment. The asset has been referred to as digital gold because of this, but has performed even better over the years. 

As of November 13, 2024, Bitcoin is being traded at this and that, according to the information share by Coinmarketcap.com.

A market-wide trend 

Although Bitcoin is at the top of the crypto market and some argue that it belongs to a class of its own, this trend isn’t only restricted to it.

The second largest crypto asset, Ethereum also saw the highest daily inflow in its ETFs just a few days ago as the sentiment for Bitcoin spills into the wider market.