Cryptocurrency had a golden year in 2021, with digital currencies like bitcoin and dogecoin achieving all-time highs and making investors billionaires. The whole crypto market momentarily reached $3 trillion in value, and the rising popularity of digital assets such as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, has helped to mainstream the once-niche technology.
While the technological advancement and scarcity of tokens like bitcoin and dogecoin differ, both enjoyed substantial growth in 2021, along with other leading currencies. Check out what a $1,000 investment in four prominent cryptocurrencies would be worth now if you made it at the start of the year. (All prices are current as of December 28 at 3:30 p.m.)
Dogecoin
Price on Jan.1: $0.0056
Price on Dec.28: $0.18
If you invested $1,000 in Dogecoin at $0.0056 per coin at the start of the year, it would now be worth $32,142 at the current price of 18 cents. Not bad for a digital token that began as a joke inspired by a meme.
In the first half of 2021, the cryptocurrency, whose popularity was fuelled in part by Elon Musk, rose by as much as 12,000 percent. The value of Dogecoin, on the other hand, dropped in the second half of the year.
Solana
Price on Jan.1: $1.53
Price on Dec.28: $181.18
At the beginning of 2021, one coin in Solana blockchain’s only cost $1.53. However, at Tuesday’s price of $181.18, a $1,000 investment in the Solana blockchain’s native cryptocurrency SOL would have risen to nearly $118,418.
Solana, which just launched in 2020, has grown by more than 13,800 percent in the last year. It now has a market worth of over $57 billion and becomes the fifth largest cryptocurrency. Solana is viewed as a rival to Ethereum’s blockchain. Solana was created by its inventor, Anatoly Yakovenko, to allow the production of decentralized applications, or dapps, and smart contracts.
Bitcoin
Price on Jan.1: $29,290
Price on Dec.28: $47,795.40
At the beginning of the year, a $1,000 investment in bitcoin at a price of $29,290 would have purchased you 0.034 tokens. However it would be worth around $1,632 at the current price of $49,150 per coin on Tuesday afternoon.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization had a successful year in 2021, with a 65 percent increase in value between January 1 and late December. It reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion for the first time in February, but has since dropped to around $900 billion.
Ether
Price on Jan.1: $730.30
Price on Dec.28: $3,816.67
Over the last year, the value of a single ether, the Ethereum blockchain’s currency, has increased by more than 400%. A $1,000 Ether buy on Jan. 1 for $730.30 would now be worth around $5,226.16 at the price of $3,816.67 on Tuesday afternoon.
Ethereum supporters claim that the blockchain will become more scalable, safe, and long-lasting following the Eth2 upgrade in 2022. The network will switch to a proof-of-stake (PoS) paradigm. Ethereum currently uses a proof-of-work architecture, in which miners compete to solve hard problems in order to validate transactions. Because it needs a large amount of computer power, this paradigm is regularly chastised for its environmental effect.
Users will be able to validate transactions based on how many bitcoin they own, rather than the energy-intensive mining equipment that are now in use.