Bitcoin isn't widely considered traditional money because it fails key functions: it's too volatile for a stable store of value or unit of account, lacks widespread acceptance as a payment method, has high transaction costs, and is slow, unlike stable, government-backed fiat currencies that offer stable value and easy transactions for goods and taxes. While it has scarcity and can be portable, its instability and limited use for daily purchases make it function more like a speculative asset than reliable currency.
Cryptocurrencies have no legislated or intrinsic value; they are simply worth what people are willing to pay for them in the market. This is in contrast to national currencies, which get part of their value from being legislated as legal tender.
This means that if you invested $1,000 in Bitcoin at that time, its value would now be around $945. However, if one were to invest four days earlier, on January 1, 2025 when the Bitcoin price was around $94,930, the value of one's investment would now be around $975.
In a groundbreaking transaction on May 22, 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made history by purchasing two Papa John's pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin, marking the first real-world commercial use of the cryptocurrency. At the time, the Bitcoin were worth a mere $41.
Indeed, BTC is currently classified as a cryptocurrency. However, not an entirely legal tender because it does not reliably fulfill the classic functions of money: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value (Mishkin, 2019; Mankiw, 2020).
British bank Standard Chartered projects that Bitcoin's price will reach $500,000 in 2030. Multiple prominent figures, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Block CEO Jack Dorsey, have expressed their belief that it could reach $1 million or more.
Warren Buffett is not a crypto enthusiast. The legendary investor has never shied away from voicing his concern over its volatility, and over the years, has repeated skepticism toward the industry, including bitcoin the leading crypto.
Remember the guy who made the first real-world bitcoin transaction in 2010? He paid 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas. The coins were worth about $40 then, and more than $1.24 billion when Bitcoin's price went over $124,000 for the first time in August 2025.
Does Laszlo Still Have Bitcoin? To this day, Laszlo Hanyecz has not disclosed whether he still owns any BTC. Considering the astronomical increase in Bitcoin's value, many speculate that he may have kept part of his holdings, which would make him a billionaire today.
Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick revises his year-end Bitcoin forecast to $100,000 from $200,000 by late 2025. Kendrick maintains a long-term Bitcoin forecast of $500,000, now expected by 2030 instead of 2028.
Several potential drawbacks of Bitcoin include include:
Bitcoin comes with high transaction costs, and the transactions can take several minutes to complete.
Key Points. Michael Saylor's base case puts Bitcoin at $13 million per coin by 2045, which would turn a $100 investment today into $15,115 in 20 years. Even Saylor's most conservative (or least preposterous) $3 million target would deliver a 3,388% return, beating the S&P 500's historical averages by a healthy margin.
Investment Opportunities
Many investors and traders find Bitcoin an exciting, but risky, opportunity. For those with a high risk tolerance and money they can afford to lose, it can be a rewarding investment.
Is Cryptocurrency Mentioned in Scripture? Since cryptocurrency was not developed as a concept until the late 1990s, and it wasn't invented until about a decade later, it is not mentioned in the Bible.
Forced Shut-Down
Bitcoin is very secure since in order to hack Bitcoin, one requires more computing power than the entire network, which includes every users computer. However, at the moment it is probable that the government has such power at its disposal.
The growth of a $100 investment in Bitcoin
If you had invested $100 in Bitcoin 10 years ago, you would have about $20,000 today, as the leading cryptocurrency has grown by nearly 20,000% (as of Dec. 22). The S&P 500, on the other hand, delivered a total return of about 300% during the same period.
Programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made history in May 2010 by conducting Bitcoin's first real-world transaction, trading 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas worth $30. Today, those bitcoins are valued at $990 million, making the event a legendary milestone in cryptocurrency history.
If you're holding crypto, there's no immediate gain or loss, so the crypto is not taxed. Tax is only incurred when you sell the asset, and you subsequently receive either cash or units of another cryptocurrency: At this point, you have “realized” the gains, and you have a taxable event.
Tesla dumped 75% of its bitcoin at one of the worst times, losing out on billions. After buying $1.5 billion of bitcoin in 2021, Tesla sold three-quarters of its holdings the next year as the market was tanking.
Once the last bitcoin is mined, block rewards disappear. Miners will then rely entirely on transaction fees to earn revenue. These fees are paid by users whenever they send Bitcoin, and they'll need to be high enough to keep miners incentivized to secure the network.
If you had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin five years ago (around mid-2020), your investment would have grown significantly, potentially turning into anywhere from roughly $9,000 to over $14,000 by late 2024/early 2025, representing huge returns, though it wouldn't have been a smooth ride due to Bitcoin's volatility and price swings. The exact value depends on the specific date you invested, as Bitcoin's price fluctuates, but holding it through its major bull runs and pullbacks would have yielded substantial profits.
The move was described as part of a strategy to diversify its cash assets and maximise investment returns. At the time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk vocally supported cryptocurrencies, even adding the hashtag #bitcoin to his Twitter (now X) bio, which caused bitcoin's price to soar 20% in a single day.
In 1957, Buffett, in a letter to limited partners, suggested that 70% of his company's capital was invested in stocks and 30% in corporate work-outs.
After years of criticizing bitcoin's high energy consumption, Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have changed his viewpoint. As Decrypt reported, Musk recently praised bitcoin's energy use and wrote in a social media post that its value is tied to the impossibility of faking energy.