Billionaire venture capital investor Tim Draper has made $89.1 million from his Bitcoin investment in less than five years.
In 2014, Tim Draper purchased a bulk of 30,000 BTC from the U.S. authorities in an auction. He outbid all participating investors by paying $632 per Bitcoin, with a slight premium.
The $18.96 million he spent in 2014 is now worth $108 million despite the 80 percent correction the dominant cryptocurrency experienced in the past 12 months.
Previously, as CCN.com reported, a South Africa Shark Tank host and Civic CEO Vinny Lingham suggested that the cryptocurrency market may take a long time to recover from its correction.
Lingham explained that the 2017 bull rally of digital assets was primarily triggered by retail traders and individual investors, and the vast majority of the investors lost a significant chunk of their capital in the recent correction.
Psychologically and financially, he noted that most investors who lost out massively in the cryptocurrency bear market may need years to recover.
“The crypto market will rise again, but most likely only when the pain of the recent fall becomes a distant memory. Don’t underestimate the power of psychology in free markets,”
Lingham said.
However, investors like Draper who have invested a small portion of their net worth that does not have any major impact on their portfolios have been able to survive numerous bear markets and long-lasting corrections.
In an emerging market like crypto, it is highly risky to invest more than one can risk losing entirely. In one year, cryptocurrencies may rise by 300 to 500 percent. But, the following year, the asset class may plunge 80 to 90 percent in value within a several-month-period.
Investors that have a strong belief in the potential of the technology and the ability of an uncensorable form of money to provide financial freedom to billions of people across the world in the likes of Tim Draper, Mike Novogratz, and Peter Thiel hold onto their investments year after year, acknowledging the high risk involved.
As Tim Draper wrote in an op-ed :
“The long-term vision for bitcoin is to give the world economic emancipation. The potential if bitcoin is only limited by the imaginations of the entrepreneurs who work to drive this new virtual economy. To monitor and keep it honest, I believe that the community of users will ultimately self-regulate, possibly eclipsing or obviating the need for the various governments to regulate the crypto world. I’ve been through the ups and downs with bitcoin, and I am as certain as ever that the bitcoin revolution is coming.”
Investors that have held onto the dominant cryptocurrency as a long-term investment expect the asset to eventually compete against gold and other types of safe-haven assets to become a multi-trillion dollar asset.
Currently, Bitcoin is an alternative currency at its infancy, working to increase merchant and mainstream adoption. As such, every major correction it undergoes grows its resilience.
Featured image from Flickr.