Bitcoin Forum

https://i.imgur.com/suqArPM.jpg
credits to @CryptoManiaks FB page in regards to the image

Imagine if you've invested it in Bitcoin instead of a fad that can be replaced in just a year or even not in the course of a year because another one will be out. An iPhone 4 at that time is most likely the price of what the iPhone X's by now but look how much price depreciation it brought over time, always be good on your decision guys and gals.

The thing is that most didn't know about Bitcoin when iPhone 4 was launched.
And this makes the image, although nice, basically useless.
Also some will prefer to invest, some others will prefer to spend, few will find a good balance between the two.
And I will end with: it's counterproductive to spend much time on "what would have happened if..."; it's better to focus on doing better in the future.

2,857 BTC for iPhone 4. I wonder if someone actually bought using BTC.

Not investing on phones that normally gets obsolete after a year. Thats a good lesson to learn, I'd stay with Samsung that lasted for more than two years now. I wasted $43K since I bought iPhone 7 when it was released and then got broken for approving some IOS updates. Worse is that non can repair it.

This is the effect of material careless spending. Some people delight in material buying and spending. The iPhone 4 is like the guy who bought pizza with bitcoin 11 years ago haha. More people are going to do more careless spending with bitcoin or altcoins that they think are not valuable now but we are all going to be surprised in another ten years.

This is why i do never make use of my coins on buying out something specially with gadget or things that do really depreciates fast and instead do stick with fiat and save up those coins instead.

You do know the profit potential in the future and its just dumb for you on actively spending it through the years and when the time comes where it did really make out some price rise then

it would really be leaving out a regrettable feeling.If you do really like to buy a phone then you could always use your money or fiat itself.

I know what you mean but this was just the sake for example but I think the release of iPhone 7 and 8 people already take a notice to Bitcoin, and probably the rich kids does. One more thing, it will really a regrettable decision if one individual already take notice and still wanted the iPhone than investing it in Bitcoin.

The fact is not, the prominent purchase of an item using Bitcoin was that Laszlo's 10k pizza and I think there are other examples of it but spending thousands Bitcoin for an item, I think it haven't repeated, I may be wrong. I think an iPhone 7 doesn't cost that much maybe you're referring on your own denomination of currency.

Iphone 4 was released in June 2010, so I doubt that someone has bought it using BTC.


As long as you can make a call or SMS, smart phones are still of used.

However, comparing Iphone and buying it with BTC is not applicable in my opinion. I would say that be smart, used our money very well, personally the last time I have an Iphone was like 7 years ago and I never bother to buy one again. Might be better to invest my money on others that will give a good returns.

I didn't even know there were so many phones, I tend to buy whatever's the cheapest with the most storage as that's what I always do.

I'd happily buy with Bitcoin if it were cheaper to do so -- I anyway have to sell Bitcoin to buy stuff like that, so there's no difference, and yeah, I know down the line, almost anything I've ever bought in the years past with BTC would have cost far less BTC than in the present.

But if no one bought shit with BTC, would the demand (and price) ever grow so well?

Hugs for Laszlo.

The year when iPhone 4 was launched, there were not that many people that knew about bitcoin but that's hella of bitcoin at that time and the future valuation of bitcoin of bitcoin during that time was still uncertain. I think if I own that much by that time and I think that I can purchase that model of iPhone then I might do the decision that I'll regret forever.

But iPhone to me is just a want and not a need so I'll just keep the current bitcoin that I have or will reinvest it to something that will make me more money. And maybe a few years, we can buy latest iPhones with a thousand of sats.

It may be interesting to go back in time and compare how much something cost in BTC, and because of the very low price of the same, the differences are of course amazing and hard to comprehend. Yet back then, few even tried to buy something directly for BTC, because relatively few people (compared to today) even knew that Bitcoin existed.

Investing in something we need is never a bad thing, and most of us today need a smartphone - so while some prefer cheaper models that will serve them for 1 or 2 years, others are willing to pay a lot more and use such a phone at least 4-5 year. Personally, I don’t see the logic in buying new (expensive) smartphones every year, because the improvements over the older models are mostly in the design and unnecessary improvement of the cameras.

In addition, the people who invested in BTC at the time mostly kept them in the wrong place, and we know how that ended...

https://i.imgur.com/loIx1oe.png
Source (https://9gag.com/gag/axMMB3b)

This is hilarious. 2857 BTC for only one Apple phone. The man who have brought iPhone 4 with 2857 BTC is still alive after seeing the rise of bitcoin price? Lol
I thought maybe iPhone 4 was launched 2014-2015 . And I was surprised by seeing it. :) But it was launched during 2010  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4)when Bitcoin was new and only few people was know about it. So it was normal according to USD value.

Okay, that's impressive stats even if someone didn't know Bitcoin by that time still if they made investment on Apple shares instead of their products still they could be in huge profits and from this we can understand the importance of investment and delayed gratification when someone wants to be rich and attain financial freedom.

If anyone ever asks you why you think bitcoin will always go up in the long run, you can either show them this, or you can show them the tesla price of it as well. However if we are going to be honest, someone should do one with Apple stock instead of apple products. How did bitcoin performed against apple stock? That is an important part of the deal as well, like for example in the past 5 years, it went up over 8x as well; which is not as good as bitcoin of course, but at least it is not the price of iphone level neither.

If you invested 1k during 2016 to bitcoin or apple, you would have been wildly richer with bitcoin, but it wouldn't be as big of a difference as iphone prices, that is the key here. We made more money than apple stock as well, that is the thing that we should be focusing on, and I believe that we will keep on outperforming the market for a long time as well.

There will be no comparison when assessing the benefits of an item. Some people who bought iPhone4 10 years ago may have made millions of dollars today because they are content creators while some bitcoin holders are not enjoying the return on their investment due to loss of access to the wallet.

Life scenarios are unpredictable. So, prioritize decisions for long-run benefits, not those that look promising in the future.

One thing to consider is that an iPhone 4 was much much cheaper than an iPhone 13. I think the iPhone 4 was only like $500 but how much is the iPhone 13( not mini) it’s basically double that pretty much. I know there is inflation and all but for it to be double is just nuts.

I think the reason they get away with this is because people just get a plan and basically pay for it monthly like it’s a mortgage or a car loan, which is pretty crazy in my opinion.

The new phones are nice and all but I usually just wait until they are about 3-4 years old and buy them second hand for $100-$200. Most people keep it in a case so it looks brand new and the battery is usually about $10 to replace on Amazon.

Some people here are focusing too much on meaningless details such as whether you could buy an iPhone with bitcoin or whether anybody bought it, or whether it was even released back then! These are all pointless.

Things like this simply show how bitcoin's value has significantly grown over the years. Believe it or not some people have a very hard time grasping how something they were told was going to die has gone up so much that it is worth nearly $50000 and the size of this growth is something they can't quite grasp. So comparisons such as this one helps with their tiny brains.

This comparison is created just for the sake of looking cool,not because it's accurate or because it makes any sense from a financial or economical point of view.
Comparing the historical prices of a consumer product being measured in a currency/financial asset,which became incredibly valuable in a really short time frame(a few years). There is no point of doing this.
iPhone is overpriced and it gets old/obsolete pretty quickly.The main reason why the people buy iPhones is to flex around and show how rich and cool they are,in front of their friends and family. ;D

It's so easy to judge people when you know exactly how things have played out over they years, but I can bet you can't predict the next big thing that will show performance similar to Bitcoin in early days. When this thing will emerge, people will be saying that it's a scam, a bubble, it can't work, etc. But at least iPhones and other things bring people immediate gratification.

Instead of spending too much on luxurious gadgets, maybe it's now time to divert all those materialistic desires and turn our ways on bitcoin. Let's think about profitable future of our lives, don't let your world falls on technology advancements. If we need phones and other stuffs, just take only for its purpose and not by fashion.
Bitcoin is a good assurance for gains, so as a trader or holder make it a good decision to choose it wisely instead of ignoring it.

Buying an iPhone is fine if its fulfill your satisfaction then so be it, we are investing to buy the things that we want so there’s no wrong about it and beside that time there’s no assurance that Bitcoin can soar like this that’s why very few was able to hold Bitcoin by that time. Though right now, this has been my wake up call not to spend too much on material things that depreciate in just a year, i’d rather invest it for now and buy good things in the future.

I am an iphone user and currently I am using is iphone X (which I bought from bounty in 2018)
there is also a little regret why I bought this iphone, if only I had kept it in bitcoin then my profit was much bigger

I'm curious at what price the iPhone/BTC price comparison is on the iPhone that will be released next

Is that for real? An iPhone 13 only costs about half of what I currently have in bitcoin? That's pretty absurd and such a good comparison on how big the growth of bitcoin is over the years that it has been existing and at the same time being scorned as a fad or a scam back then.

I guess the best thing about bitcoin price is how it is against inflation and how it is increasing so much. However it is also proof that if you can buy right now, even right now then you would be doing fine in the future. People who quit and lost hope in 2018 ended up losing out so much, just because it went from 20k all the way down to 3k didn't mean that it would stay there forever and eventually it made insane profits, it literally went to 64k each at the top.

This is a proof that you are never ever late to bitcoin ownership, you should always buy it, and get some other good cryptos while you are there as well because you will make this kind of profit in 10 years as well.

That's why bitcoin continues to be beaten and weakened by people who have great power, so bitcoin must come down from its current price, for an Iphone class only if it is calculated with Bitcoin there is no price for the iPhone, especially if it is calculated with other items that do not have a selling price like the iPhone, maybe some companies don't want bitcoin to be at the current price, so the product they issue doesn't have a price when multiplied by bitcoin, even though bitcoin is intangible like other goods or products, this is what companies worry about, when bitcoin is getting more and more valuable, then the products/goods they put out are priceless, this is just my assumption, but is this in line with what happened to bitcoin?

From what most people told me. In certain countries and cultures an iPhone is considered a status symbol. I think in USA, nobody really cares whether you have an iPhone or not. Most teenagers got the latest iPhone pretty much these days.

However in certain countries, having an iPhones means “you’ve made it”. Yes it sounds stupid but when I got an new iPhone I sold my old one to some guy that was bringing it overseas somewhere. I had a case I wanted to include with the phone and he didn’t want it? Why.

Because my case covered the iPhone logo on the back, saying that in his country you need to “show off the Apple logo”.

Crazy. Kind of like how someone drives an Escalade or Mercedes in USA.

That's how it should work, potential investment opportunities shouldn't be predictable as making them so will result in exploitation from other people and at the same time, it would be a boring one because you know that there's no risk. That's why if there's something that you're going to hold on to, it better have a good background as and investment since everyone's trying to be the next bitcoin right now.

Although it's good to see, it's nothing new. There was also a comparison between the purchasing power of the dollar and Bitcoin in the shopping basket. Simply put, the value of the Bitcoin, and with it the purchasing power of Bitcoin holders, has increased exponentially. This is something to think about when there are downturns in the market. The rate of price growth will probably slow down in the next few years, because you cannot grow at that rate indefinitely, but the volatility goes hand in hand with this incredible increase in price and purchasing power.

I don't know what's really the point of this. This image is proving nothing really except that gadgets depreciate because technology is fast developing and Bitcoin is rising in value. But that's all.

If you argue that you should have bought Bitcoin instead of an iPhone, you could also argue that you should have bought Bitcoin instead of a car, a house, a book, an apartment, a laptop, etc. One could say the same to their coffee, coat, pair of shoes, pizza, etc. But that is fundamentally wrong.

This is an interesting chart and it can be applied to many things. There are things I purchased in the past where I spent a considerable amount of bitcoin which if I had hodled I would have a lot more money now. I do sometimes feel conflicted about spending my BTC because of this but I always justify it by spending it on things I truly find necessary.

We are not thinking much about what we spent before when the bitcoin price is not at more than $10k but when the price rise and reaches more than $20k-$40k, we realize that we already spent so many bitcoins before.
If we still held until now and sold it when the price is high, maybe we would be rich and have a lot of money.
But we can not blame ourselves as many of us have urgent needs to fill our daily lives by selling our bitcoin.
Maybe we can still manage our Bitcoin and not sell because of something that we really do not need so we can still hold and sell it at the highest price.

This picture shows how bitcoin is actually growing quite rapidly in the world, this factor is what makes some influential people and companies do not want bitcoin to develop and provide a high selling value at this time, imagine that one of our newest iPhones buys no more than 0.02 Bitcoin, this indicates the price of an item is not more valuable than one BTC, so imagine if bitcoin began to be legalized all over the world and became a medium of exchange to buy anything, it is certain that bitcoin will become the source of life that everyone dreams of, so bitcoin continues to be pressured and influenced not to develop, my thoughts like that in understanding bitcoin in general?

That is because of the price. In some nations dollar is a so highly valued that it comes to few months worth of salary. Just to give an example, in my nation minimum wage is $321, latest iphone pro max is $1100 before taxes.

With taxes it comes down to $2000, I know our tax rate is insanely high and I hate it too, one PS5 costs as much as $900 here. None of these prices makes sense, a nation with such low wage number, a tax rate that is nearly 100% and so forth, in some cases even higher taxes depending on what it is so forth. However, if you do live in a nation like mine, that means if you end up buying the latest iphone, then you paid nearly 6 months worth of minimum wage for it.

For someone who works in USA, that is $15 per hour and it comes down to around 70-75 hours of working, with around 30-40 hours per week, you get it in 2 weeks. Comparing 2 weeks versus 6 months, you can understand why it is a big symbol of richness in some nations. Who would spend 6 months of minimum wage on a phone? Only the rich can.

The price of iPhone against bitcoin has grown gradually with time. This shows the progress in the value of bitcoin. I've similar experience buying a mobile. I bought a phone for $150, when the price of bitcoin was close around $2000. If I haven't bought a phone by that time now the same value could've got me the costliest mobile phone by now.

If you spend your bitcoin into something you think is essential at that time being, then I believe it is already justified. At some point, we need to spend some of our crypto to augment our needs. And there's nothing wrong with that. Not all of us here have hidden wealth where we can tap when we need it. I just look at the idea that if you spend your crypto wisely, then, it is not wasted.

Here in our country, when we hear the word "Iphone" our first expression will like "wow" because for us this thing is very expensive even before the pandemic. Now looking at this image, its very simple yet meaningful. I may not knew crypto during Iphone 4, but around Iphone 6 or 7 I think I am already earning bitcoin which makes me realize now how stupid I was by not holding as many bitcoin as I can during those times. Since bitcoin is not that expensive way back then, it is easier to earn compare today. But I am looking forward that there will be another zero or zeros after the dot (0.002)

Pretty much like a norm and besides trend in first world countries seems fast and things like iPhone is sort has a fast diminishing marginal utility too for some individuals.

The thing is, was you really need the phone at that time over Bitcoin? You pretty know much about it but I know there will be hesitation and it takes courage to something that will still be a speculation over something tangible. I guess I'llbdo the thing when I'm on your situation but if somehow we are educated enough over things like Bitcoin and we know how it is revolutionary for the future then we'd do a good trade-off.

This should be around 2015/16 and after this time the bull of 2017 started. But if you bought phone back then it means you also bought with close to 1 btc  ;D and that is high enough to use on phone then. Maybe you can consider yourself as such.

I can personally attest to this as I once spent somewhere around 1.5 BTC on an iPad mini.  I still have it, but it doesn't really work too well anymore considering how old it is.  I did get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I think given the opportunity to redo that trade, I would probably pass today and use the saved Bitcoin to buy a Tesla or spend a year in the Bahamas.  Still not even close to the most careless use of Bitcoin I've got in my history, sadly. 

This does highlight how literally everything has failed to keep pace with Bitcoin's meteoric rise.  Even the most popular consumer device.

The last Apple product that I bought is an iPad Air 4 with the magic keyboard attachment, and it costed me almost $1000, and I bought it when bitcoin experienced a crash back to $30k a few months back. If only I knew better, I would have waited for a few months before I spent that $1000 on a gadget, but then again necessity forced me to spend for a new tablet as a replacement to a laptop that already broke for me to continue my side hustles.

Then again, nobody knew the direction bitcoin’s price will take, yet I can’t help but feel some regrets every now and then.

Same here mate, I practically don't buy anything fancy especially when it comes to phones that every company produces latest techy phones for almost twice a every year. I always prefer Samsung because it is user-friendly, bought myself a Samsung Galaxy S9+ way back 2017 for almost $1.2k and I still use it today without any defect.

Just imagine if you buy a latest iPhone 13 for 0.02 BTC. Although many can afford it but for me, I prefer to invest that btc instead of spending it just for a latest phone just to fit yourself in a social circle when you already had one phone.

Same with me but I don't have any regrets at all because I'm using my phone now for crypto works and its really helpful to have a good phone and beside iPhone last longer compare to any brand this is already proven and tested by me. No matter how expensive iPhones are many are still buying to have and that's a good branding made by Steve same thing with Bitcoin, Satoshi started this one and even if Bitcoin is more expensive now many new investors are still coming it.

the price is so crazy that the price can reach 2,857 BTC. what kind of iphone is its high price has reached a high level. it's really a shame to spend that much money just for fun without providing benefits in a productive and even more consumptive way. I wish I had better use these funds to invest in the future because the future is the same as we think today at least it is still spare money when an unexpected accident occurs.

I think this thing is purposely made for people who have a lot of money, and of course they can buy this very expensive thing thanks to hard work or investment in the past. The purpose of someone investing is to make a profit and be able to have what they want to have. so in my opinion using the investment money to invest again without using it at all is not good because it is the same as ignoring one's own happiness.

^ That wasn't a "gradual" Bitcoin rise actually. It was a rapid growth.
If you take a look at the illustration made by the OP, from the first iPhone it cost around 2,857 to buy one, and eventually reducing the bitcoin value a huge chunk up to this very moment. Take note, iPhone price is increasing as well as Bitcoin price.

On the other hand, I don't believe iPhone is the most durable phone that the other brands. Durability always depends on the user's hands. I also think iPhone belongs to the luxuries, you're not actually paying for the phone features instead you're paying for the brand.

This comparison does not apply to iPhone only, almost all goods and services experience depreciation against BTC every years.
BTC demand growth are rapidly over imagination and growth defeat everything.
back in time people could just dream of the price of BTC going crazy but not tasting when it came true.

Isn't this normal? I mean why are we even comparing it to iphone? We are talking about bitcoin price going up year after year and that means we are going to have situations where we get to see crypto becoming more expensive and stuff worth a lot less in the long run?

Sure, it doesn't guarantee that bitcoin and other crypto will keep going up, but it does create a situation where we end up with something that will be similar to this in the long run, it will be even less bitcoin in 10 years if they are still making iphones during that period. I really hope that we get something different in 10 years, we haven't had a major difference in the mobile phone world.

I mean sure there are more rams and storages and so forth in the phones now but I just keep feeling that we had that power before but we just didn't use it because companies wanted to sell more phones slow by slow instead of selling the maximum stuff. In any case I believe that bitcoin will always go up, and prices of things only go up based on inflation which won't be as high as what bitcoin goes up.

so meaning in the next few years the price of Iphone will be the campaign signature payment for member ranking in bitcoin paying campaign as 0.0003-6? but of course this cannot be computed because Cellphone is more important each given time while Bitcoin can sit in our wallet without using it, meaning the more we use Iphone the more we progress in daily living while in Bitcoin the more we hold is the more we benefits.
In real it is not comparable because phone is base on daily use and bitcoin is based on the longevity of Holding .

Well, not many knows Bitcoin at that time and people tend to spend more on some luxurious things rather than investing into some assets like Bitcoin.
I don't know if that is the nature of most of the people to be satisfied most of the time by buying things that makes them satisfy rather than delayed gratification.

Its a missed opportunity I must say and there is nothing we can do about it. The best thing to do is to balance out everything and prepare for the future. Maybe buy something that you want that will satisfy you and at the same time, invest into some assets. In that way it would be better for you. A win-win situation.