Returns & Performance
Every rolling four-year return
2010-2025Source: Coinbase Exchange daily candles; Bitstamp and CoinDesk historical series for 2010-2014Each window runs from the close of one calendar year to the close of the year four years later, using the curated year-end close series. The total change is the ratio of the two closes expressed in basis points, and the CAGR is the constant annual rate that would produce that total over four years. Windows overlap by three years, so consecutive entries are not independent observations. The series begins with the 2010-2014 window and ends with 2021-2025; the 2010-2014 window rests on the thinly traded early market, where the year-end figures are widely cited reference points rather than exchange settlement prices. The early years carry the corrected full-year returns of the canonical table: 2010 gained about 385 per cent, 2011 about 1,437 per cent and 2013 about 5,463 per cent, and the 2021 yearly low is the January 2021 intraday low of about $28,130. The same curated year-end close series also supplies the rolling twelve-month extremes: those windows run from the close of one calendar year to the close of the following calendar year, so each window is exactly twelve months and the series covers 2010-2011 through 2024-2025. Because the observation grid is annual, a twelve-month window is a single year-end step and consecutive windows do not overlap; the twelve-month CAGR equals the total change over the window. The 2010-2011 window rests on the thinly traded early market.
Windows measured
12
Overlapping four-year periods
Strongest window
+106567%
2010–2014
Weakest window
+89%
2021–2025
The distribution of four-year outcomes
Each row is a four-year window beginning at a different year end. The windows overlap heavily — consecutive rows share three of their four years — so the table is not a set of independent observations. It is a sliding view of the same record, and its value is that it shows how sensitive the answer is to the choice of start date. A reader who quotes a single four-year figure is quoting one row of this table.
| Window | Start price | End price | Total return | Annualised |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010–2014 | $0 | $320 | +106567% | -968.0% |
| 2011–2015 | $5 | $430 | +9049% | -983.0% |
| 2012–2016 | $14 | $963 | +7033% | -984.0% |
| 2013–2017 | $754 | $14,120 | +1773% | -989.0% |
| 2014–2018 | $320 | $3,744 | +1070% | -990.0% |
| 2015–2019 | $430 | $7,195 | +1573% | -989.0% |
| 2016–2020 | $963 | $29,000 | +2911% | -987.0% |
| 2017–2021 | $14,120 | $46,200 | +227% | -993.0% |
| 2018–2022 | $3,744 | $16,520 | +341% | -992.0% |
| 2019–2023 | $7,195 | $42,260 | +487% | -992.0% |
| 2020–2024 | $29,000 | $93,430 | +222% | -993.0% |
| 2021–2025 | $46,200 | $87,509 | +89% | -994.0% |
2010-2025Source: Coinbase Exchange daily candles; Bitstamp and CoinDesk historical series for 2010-2014
Overlapping windows. These windows are not independent samples. A four-year window starting in 2015 and one starting in 2016 share three years of price history, so a single strong year can lift several consecutive rows at once. That is why the table should be read as a distribution of outcomes for a holder who might have started in any year, not as evidence about how often a four-year holding period succeeds.
What the distribution shows
The range is wide. The strongest window in the table multiplied the price many times over; the weakest produced a fraction of that, and no window in this table finished below its starting price. The spread between the best and worst outcome is the honest answer to the question of what a four-year holding period has produced. It is not a single number, and any claim that reduces it to one is selecting a row.
The pattern within the table is also worth noting. The windows that begin near a peak tend to be the weakest, and the windows that begin near a trough tend to be the strongest. That is not a surprising result, but it is a useful corrective to the idea that the holding period alone determines the outcome. Four years is long enough to capture a full cycle in most cases, and where a window begins within that cycle matters enormously.
The most defensible reading is that a four-year horizon has historically been long enough to produce a positive result from most starting points, and that the size of that result has varied by a factor of many. A reader planning around a four-year horizon should plan for the weak end of the distribution rather than the strong end, because the weak end is what a poorly timed start produces. The holding-period returns page shows the same idea for fixed windows of every length, and the twelve-month extremes page shows the shortest horizon.
Related reading
- ReturnsCalendar-year returns and the long-horizon compounding record.
- Yearly ReturnsOpen, high, low and close for each calendar year since 2010.
- DrawdownsPeak-to-trough declines and how long recovery took.
- Dollar-Cost AveragingWhat steady accumulation has produced over long horizons.
- ROI & CAGRTotal return and compound annual growth across holding periods.
- Risk & VolatilityHow Bitcoin's volatility compares with its own history.