I just saw some data that was quite shocking. If someone had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2010, at the price of about $0.08 at the time, they could have bought approximately 12,500 coins. Today? With the current price of $77,800, that investment is now worth about $973 million.

The story behind this number is actually very interesting. Bitcoin rose from less than $1 to nearly $80k, experiencing countless drops of over 70% along the way, but the long-term trend is exponential growth. People who dared to invest that amount in 2010 couldn’t see any institutional backing, no exchanges, almost no one knew what Bitcoin was. That takes incredible faith.

Speaking of early days, Satoshi Nakamoto’s holdings are even more astonishing. Researchers estimate he mined between 6 million and 1.1 million BTC in the first year. At current prices, this asset is worth between $41.3 billion and $75.8 billion. Interestingly, these wallets have remained untouched for over a decade, sparking countless speculations—did he lose the private keys, or is he deliberately silent? Recently, someone transferred 2.56 BTC to the Genesis address, reigniting interest in Satoshi’s holdings.

Even if only a small portion of his coins entered the market, it could cause volatility. This represents one of the largest dormant wealths in financial history.

Want to calculate your own investment returns at different points in time? You can use tools like CoinCodex—enter the investment amount and date, and you’ll see its value today. Comparing the performance of investing $1,000 in 2013, 2017, or 2020 can give a more intuitive understanding of how timing affects returns. The tools also support hypothetical scenarios for future price milestones.

Of course, past performance does not guarantee future results. Bitcoin has experienced multiple severe pullbacks as well as explosive rallies. But that’s precisely why understanding its volatility and growth potential is so important. Few investments in history have turned $1,000 into nearly a billion dollars; that fact alone says everything.