Bitcoin vs S&P 500 since 2012

Why compare Bitcoin and S&P 500

This duel sets the highest-volatility asset ever traded against the benchmark almost everything else is measured by. Searchers want to know whether bitcoin's outsized gains justified its outsized risk next to simply owning the U.S. market. The pattern is a difference in kind. The S&P 500 compounds through corporate earnings, with bear markets that recover over time, while bitcoin has no cash flow and swings on supply and demand alone, capable of multiplying or collapsing more than 80% in the time stocks move a fraction of that. One honesty note: the index here is price-only, without dividends, so its return is understated. The contrast is steady compounding against an asymmetric bet whose outcome has hinged almost entirely on the entry point.