There were only 3,3% of days In Bitcoin's History That Were Not Profitable

[SuperTA]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases. Yea, it's hard to believe but for an example...It took only 23 days for bitcoin to go from 8390 usd to almost 20.000 usd. In my opinion, even those buyers who bought at the top will eventually be in profit. If they hold of course! So the moral of the story is - just  HODL   Until a massive adoption!

[hatshepsut93]

Cool, but just because Bitcoin was very bullish in the first 10 years, doesn't mean it will keep being bullish forever. Things that actually drive the price are adoption and technological improvement of the protocol, they determine demand and the supply is always known. We are in a good spot now, as adoption is still growing and devs are working hard on making Bitcoin better, but things can change in the future.

[bernardos]

Anyone who bought at $14.000 or above has not been profitable for a long, long time. This percentage keeps rising now. I am curious, what did you use as reference or to calculate those numbers?

[SuperTA]

Anyone who bought at $14.000 or above has not been profitable for a long, long time. This percentage keeps rising now. I am curious, what did you use as reference or to calculate those numbers?

If you consider all days, from the first day that you can trade bitcoin untill now.

[Xardasim]

Can you explain with formulas how you calculate 3,3%? So, based on what price, you have reached this conclusion? For example, if I buy at the current price, what period will I be? Because if I had bought it a month ago, I would have lost. 

[passwordnow]

Those people who bought the 2017 peak are still waiting for the right time to sell but I believe many of them have already cut their losses. Because of most those people who bought during that time were brought by hype and trend of the bullish run. They don't have plans on how long they are willing to stay and their mindset is as long as they have bought bitcoin, they will become rich overnight which is the typical wrong mindset of the new investors.

[1Referee]

It's quite a meaningless figure since it only applies to those who keep holding, which most people don't do. Even in a bull run it's possible for people to actually lose money because of how even then we can experience price drops up to 25%, which people usually sell into because they think the party is over.

This figure is usually what you see perma bulls on social media post. It looks extremely bullish but holds little value if you actually think further than just what they want you to see.

[abeecrypto]

i don't get it. How did you arrive at this? Did you get this from somewhere? or you did figure it all out by yourself? And if you did figure those numbers by yourself, care to share how you did it? is the 'profitability' only applied to those who HODL? sorry for all this my questions. It's just that i don't get your theory.

[SuperTA]

It's quite a meaningless figure since it only applies to those who keep holding, which most people don't do. Even in a bull run it's possible for people to actually lose money because of how even then we can experience price drops up to 25%, which people usually sell into because they think the party is over.

This figure is usually what you see perma bulls on social media post. It looks extremely bullish but holds little value if you actually think further than just what they want you to see.

That's why i said the moral of the story is to HODL!

[SuperTA]

Such information can be gladdening but am struggling to believe it could be absolutely true. 129 days? what of the whole 2018 days? we saw some bad days last year.

Bitcoin went up from 8390 usd to almost 20k in 23 days!

How to calculate, simple, 129 days out from 3857 days is aproximetly 3,33%

[jseverson]

Can you explain with formulas how you calculate 3,3%? So, based on what price, you have reached this conclusion? For example, if I buy at the current price, what period will I be? Because if I had bought it a month ago, I would have lost. 

What it basically means is that Bitcoin is still more expensive now than it was on 96.7% days of its existence. In a vacuum, it implies that Bitcoin is an incredibly safe investment, with past investors having had a 96.7% chance to turn profit. In reality though, lots of people buy in peaks or the middle of bull runs (a lot of which may fall under the 3.3% as more and more people are required to buy in as prices get bigger), so it's quite a meaningless statistic. It's just your run of the mill clickbait, except it's in favor of Bitcoin.

[SuperTA]

Can you explain with formulas how you calculate 3,3%? So, based on what price, you have reached this conclusion? For example, if I buy at the current price, what period will I be? Because if I had bought it a month ago, I would have lost.  

What it basically means is that Bitcoin is still more expensive now than it was on 96.7% days of its existence. In a vacuum, it implies that Bitcoin is an incredibly safe investment, with past investors having had a 96.7% chance to turn profit. In reality though, lots of people buy in peaks or the middle of bull runs (a lot of which may fall under the 3.3% as more and more people are required to buy in as prices get bigger), so it's quite a meaningless statistic. It's just your run of the mill clickbait, except it's in favor of Bitcoin.

Why is that a meaningless statistic? I don't know any other asset that has made so many millionaires like bitcoin did. Even if you were not investing and you were just mining. Can you show me any other asset that has outperformed bitcoin in 10 years of existance? You say more and more people has to buy to maintaine it's growth. Not true! Look at the google trends for bitcoin. There is less interest in bitcoin than before but the price is rising. It's not important how many people invest but how much they invest. And there is a lot of room for adoption cuz majority of people still didn't buy bitcoin. There will be a high demand for bitcoin in the future cuz it's a new digital gold. People will eventually adopt new things.

[jseverson]

-snip-

Why is that a meaningless statistic? I don't know any other asset that has made so many millionaires like bitcoin did. Even if you were not investing and you were just mining. Can you show me any other asset that has outperformed bitcoin in 10 years of existance? You say more and more people has to buy to maintaine it's growth. Not true! Look at the google trends for bitcoin. There is less interest in bitcoin than before but the price is rising. It's not important how many people invest but how much they invest. And there is a lot of room for adoption cuz majority of people still didn't buy bitcoin. There will be a high demand for bitcoin in the future cuz it's a new digital gold. People will eventually adopt new things.

It's meaningless because all it's essentially saying is that we're better off today than most of Bitcoin's days. It's reassuring and puts the current situation into perspective, but then what? What can we do with that tidbit of information?

That's all well and good, but I never said Bitcoin wasn't profitable, just that an average person probably won't have a 96.7% chance to profit like the topic implies.

[rose9696]

With any analysis, I find Bitcoin is a currency that always brings profits to investors, especially for the holders.
We can see that bitcoin is growing every year. It is quite suitable for those who prefer long-term investment.

[ufaiz50]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases. Yea, it's hard to believe but for an example...It took only 23 days for bitcoin to go from 8390 usd to almost 20.000 usd. In my opinion, even those buyers who bought at the top will eventually be in profit. If they hold of course! So the moral of the story is - just  HODL   Until a massive adoption!

How does your analysis that sets 3.3% is an unprofitable condition while others are profitable? even in the year of coming here for a full year is a condition of almost no growth, fluctuations cannot be measured as accurate as such, moreover the current conditions do not guarantee higher growth and with demand that can change easily. In my opinion as a user we also have to have good information, so that we know when HODL, SELL and BUY, I'm sure some users are also very difficult to do HODL / HOLD.

[deisik]

How to calculate, simple, 129 days out from 3857 days is aproximetly 3,33%

Yes, we got it

But how did you get 129 days which were not profitable for Bitcoin? Bitcoin had been sliding down since January 2018 till February 2019, i.e. for more than a year. The way you put it implies that your base period (on which you calculate the financial outcome) is one day. But in that case Bitcoin has seen more losing days than profitable ones simply because price typically rises fast (actually, extremely fast) and then spirals down excruciatingly slow, like for weeks and months (and in a couple of cases, for years)

It's meaningless because all it's essentially saying is that we're better off today than most of Bitcoin's days. It's reassuring and puts the current situation into perspective, but then what? What can we do with that tidbit of information?

That still doesn't account for 129 losing days. In fact, it can be useful but we need to know the methodology used in order to make something tangible out of this information

[Kakmakr]

Also, if people make use of the short-term volatility in Bitcoin, they should be more profitable. A lot of my friends are not day-trading, but they use the short-term volatility to their advantage to be more profitable. Buy at a low price today, wait for the price to increase with say 10% and then sell for a quick profit and then wait for the price to dip with 10% and re-invest the initial amount. <without the profit>

The people who do not profit are those people who are hoarding and waiting for the big pay-day that might never come. They tend to panic when the price dip aggressively and then they sell too early. There are loads of opportunities for people to get some small profits, if they use the short-term volatility.  

[jseverson]

-snip

That still doesn't account for 129 losing days. In fact, it can be useful but we need to know the methodology used in order to make something tangible out of this information

I'm not sure, but I think he might have looked over the historical data and counted the days when Bitcoin's (day average?) price was lower than it is now, meaning he found a grand total of 129 days that fit that criteria. If I understand correctly, what he's trying to say is that if you had picked a day at random (from its inception) to invest in Bitcoin, you'd have around a 96.7% chance to have turned a profit with current prices. It's probably something like this tweet, which gained a fair amount of attention:

You made money if you bought Bitcoin and held it until today in 122 of the 125 months that Bitcoin has been available.

The only three months that have been unprofitable were December 2017 and January / February 2018.

I don't see how that could be useful, but hey, it would be great if it could.

[SuperTA]

How to calculate, simple, 129 days out from 3857 days is aproximetly 3,33%

Yes, we got it

But how did you get 129 days which were not profitable for Bitcoin? Bitcoin had been sliding down since January 2018 till February 2019, i.e. for more than a year. The way you put it implies that your base period (on which you calculate the financial outcome) is one day. But in that case Bitcoin has seen more losing days than profitable ones simply because price typically rises fast (actually, extremely fast) and then spirals down excruciatingly slow, like for weeks and months (and in a couple of cases, for years)

It's meaningless because all it's essentially saying is that we're better off today than most of Bitcoin's days. It's reassuring and puts the current situation into perspective, but then what? What can we do with that tidbit of information?

That still doesn't account for 129 losing days. In fact, it can be useful but we need to know the methodology used in order to make something tangible out of this information

Because we are above that price and you shouldn't count the days below 10k or 9.5k

[deisik]

-snip

That still doesn't account for 129 losing days. In fact, it can be useful but we need to know the methodology used in order to make something tangible out of this information

I'm not sure, but I think he might have looked over the historical data and counted the days when Bitcoin's (day average?) price was lower than it is now, meaning he found a grand total of 129 days that fit that criteria

You likely meant to say higher, right?

That is, there are (were) only 129 or so days when today's price was lower than in those days. Obviously, that refers to the period of the recent spike to nearly 14k as well as the period in November through December of 2017. But this is a ridiculous approach since somewhere near the end of 2017 it could be said that Bitcoin had been profitable throughout its entire lifetime (up to that date)

It's probably something like this tweet, which gained a fair amount of attention:

You made money if you bought Bitcoin and held it until today in 122 of the 125 months that Bitcoin has been available

This train of reasoning is not far from suggesting to ride a time machine and get back to 2010 in order to buy up thousands of bitcoins for pennies

[SuperTA]

It's just a sign how bullish bitcoin is in the longterm. If you look at the bigger timeframe chart, it was always bullish. Not just in dec 2017 but always! If you guys don't see that, something that is so obvious, i cannot help it.

[Lucius]

I will not go into OP numbers, but viewed from a long-term perspective Bitcoin is incredibly profitable for all investors who invest from start and hold until today, with the exception of those who invest in December 2017 - January 2018 when price is over $15 000 since we recently have almost $14 000.

In general you can not lost anything if you hold Bitcoin who is losing value against fiat in short-term, because Bitcoin is always show that it can set new records with time. Just take 2015, price of 1 Bitcoin is around $200, on some exchanges even lower - today value of that Bitcoin is 50 times more in fiat value, and it was 100 times more in late 2017.

Bitcoin is always profitable, it only depends how we can take all advantages that is offer for us. Imagine that just few months ago we are so close to $3000, and look at price today, more then 3 times up.

[milewilda]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases. Yea, it's hard to believe but for an example...It took only 23 days for bitcoin to go from 8390 usd to almost 20.000 usd. In my opinion, even those buyers who bought at the top will eventually be in profit. If they hold of course! So the moral of the story is - just  HODL   Until a massive adoption!

Talking nonsense or nothing special here where you do just simply suggest the word HODL.I dont know about 3.3% statistics on where you do get those numbers when it comes to profitability.
Come to think that not all traders are having similar entries and exits so pointing out about non-profitability would always matter on when you buy and sell it out.

[ene1980]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases.

That is a good way of taking things as i never thought in this way, but i have a small doubt, almost the entire 2018 was a on a bear ride and i am sure it is more than 129 days, so how does this number stand is a mystery  . The fact is that holding bitcoin for a longer period of time will give you a good return and even if you entered the market when the market was at an all time high valuation, the only solution is to hold for the next rally rather than selling it off at a loss.

[fiulpro]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases. Yea, it's hard to believe but for an example...It took only 23 days for bitcoin to go from 8390 usd to almost 20.000 usd. In my opinion, even those buyers who bought at the top will eventually be in profit. If they hold of course! So the moral of the story is - just  HODL   Until a massive adoption!

You are actually missing the point .
The problem is that Bitcoins only 3-4 times a year shows a  upward trend , in 2016-17 we were able to see the most profitable bullish run and after that we nearly waited for 2 years for it to be good again.
So it is actually 2 years now , I don't think your calculations are quite right , you should include everything not just slight upward trend , even if it's a lil up it's still less than 20,000 thus even right now we are actually in a whole lot of problem considering we purchased at the high time.

[sana54210]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases. Yea, it's hard to believe but for an example...It took only 23 days for bitcoin to go from 8390 usd to almost 20.000 usd. In my opinion, even those buyers who bought at the top will eventually be in profit. If they hold of course! So the moral of the story is - just  HODL   Until a massive adoption!

Wow, I never knew this, which means anyone that knows how to also trade daily would benefit more than those that are just Holding, although there is absolutely nothing wrong in holding, it all depends on people’s capability and strength, but anyone with the strength of trading and holding will actually benefit more, imagine having gains on those 3k+ days, I guess this is why we have many traders in the market and I think it is the trading activities that is mostly causing lots of these fluctuations in the market.

I also agree that those who mistakenly invested at the All-time high of the last bitcoin will also benefit this time around because bitcoin will absolutely shoot more than the last value.

[michellee]

Hold will be a good strategy to make a profit from these situations, and I agree with you that now, we could make a profit if we could buy at a low price. But not all people could hold their bitcoin for a long time, even for a short time because many people still panic to see the situations that still change. But now, we have a new story in bitcoin, and we don't know how long bitcoin can increase again, but many people still believe that bitcoin will rise again as what they saw in 2017-2018.

[Janation]

Looking for a long-term perspective, Bitcoin is really profitable investment.

It dumps, it pumps but there are a lot of times that it increases rather than it decreases. Traders will obviously say no to this since most of them are doing a daily trade, in terms of holders, I guess they earned it but I like to be a trader than a holder since Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency where you can earn good profits.

[stompix]

That is, there are (were) only 129 or so days when today's price was lower than in those days. Obviously, that refers to the period of the recent spike to nearly 14k as well as the period in November through December of 2017. But this is a ridiculous approach since somewhere near the end of 2017 it could be said that Bitcoin had been profitable throughout its entire lifetime (up to that date)

Nothing ridiculous more like childish approach
When anything being crypto or stocks reach an all-time high it's impossible for anybody that has bought and hodl to be at a loss.

The main problem would be the number of people involved since OP is counting the days from the first block, but the first-ever trade happened in October, that's a full 10 months or 300 days or 8% of the time when NOBODY bought any coins for fiat.

And how many bought in the first days, and how many in those 100 bad days?
Looking at the volume, we could draw another hasty conclusion, the majority of buyers are unlucky

[shulc7]

It's just a sign how bullish bitcoin is in the longterm. If you look at the bigger timeframe chart, it was always bullish. Not just in dec 2017 but always! If you guys don't see that, something that is so obvious, i cannot help it.

Although I cannot understand why 3+% were not profitable only, I agree that cryptocurrencies are going to grow all the time. Bitcoin, being protected from inflation, will be the leader of this growth. If a person lives in a country where inflation is extremely high, it is much better to invest in crypto even if the crypto market is going to be too volatile in the nearest time.

[SuperTA]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases.

That is a good way of taking things as i never thought in this way, but i have a small doubt, almost the entire 2018 was a on a bear ride and i am sure it is more than 129 days, so how does this number stand is a mystery  .

Yes, there was a bear in 2018. But right now, bitcoin is worth 10k usd. You don't count those days where bitcoin was below 10k. If you bought in 2018 at 6k or 3.2k or 9 k, you are profitable! At the current price.

[TheCoinGrabber]

How did you come up with that statistics? And why would you say those days were not profitable? If it was coz the price dropped then it could still be considered "profitable" if you used the opportunity to grab coins on the cheap.

Even last month, there was a chance for some profit when it hit $12k and then dropped to $9,400.

Of course HODL long-term but the riding the cycles allow accumulation of more BTC, which would be more valuable the longer you stay in.

[SuperTA]

I already mentioned. It's not considered for a day trading but for hodling. There was only 129 days when bitcoin had a lower value.

[deisik]

Okay, guys, here's an explanation for the inquiring minds as to what OP means. And what he actually means by his cryptic posts in this thread is quite simple really. By 129 unprofitable days he obviously means the period of time since the late November 2017 when Bitcoin had first risen above 13k (and then proceeded to an ATH of 20k) till mid-January 2018 when it fell below 13k. If you add to this period the time when Bitcoin was above 13k this year, you will definitely get a couple of months which could be related to as non-profitable days in the entire history of Bitcoin from today's perspective

Whether it makes any sense at all is another question, though

[SuperTA]

Bitcoin was the best major asset for investment. No matter if you look for the 6 months return , 1 year return, 3 year return, 5 year return or 10 year return. I hope you guys get it now. There is no better performing asset if you look at the global major assets.

[roosbit]

3.3% that's a shocker!

Thought the percentage would be higher but seeing the number of days been considered this might be true and the fact that their people out there that still make a profit regardless of a bear or bullish market the stats are quite possible.

[shield132]

Only 129 days out from 3857 days (3,3%) were not profitable in the history of bitcoin's trading. This means if you bought bitcoin, you are profitable. Except if you bought in those 3.3% cases. Yea, it's hard to believe but for an example...It took only 23 days for bitcoin to go from 8390 usd to almost 20.000 usd. In my opinion, even those buyers who bought at the top will eventually be in profit. If they hold of course! So the moral of the story is - just  HODL   Until a massive adoption!

If we think that way, then for satoshi, there were 0 days when bitcoin wasn't profitable. Also there were almost none days for those who bought bitcoin very early. But there were more than 3.3% unprofitable days for most of bitcoin users. Most part of people bought bitcoin when price become 10K and higher, these was days when bitcoin gained huge attention because of it's price rise and this was the time when bitcoin got under massive attention of media. Also there were a lot of redditors who invested when price was on top. Can't understand what's the point of your percentage, don't take it wrongly but it's really meaningless.

[SuperTA]

Exactly! Maybe it's an ordinary thing to you, but please show me any other major asset that was outperforming bitcoin in the last 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years or 10 years. Personally i'm amazed by that.

[lixer]

Bitcoin was the best major asset for investment. No matter if you look for the 6 months return , 1 year return, 3 year return, 5 year return or 10 year return. I hope you guys get it now. There is no better performing asset if you look at the global major assets.

I think that is exactly the message that the op is trying to pass across, it means bitcoin has hard more positive opportunity than the negative some of us do see. The fact that we did not do or assignment very well to find that opportunity does not mean it did not present itself and we can see from the analysis of the op that bitcoin has always been profitable all along.

Bitcoin is going to forever be the best investment which is reason why there should not be anyone that would ever come to the cryptocurrency market to trade or buy coin without first considering bitcoin investment first. This is the only coin that can guarantee anyone of future and stand for him or her even when all other coins has failed such user, investors or such trader of that coin.