$1,000 Invested on Day One: The Results
The table below uses each stock's split-adjusted closing price on its first trading day (what an ordinary investor could actually have paid, which is usually above the IPO offer price) and the closing price on October 2, 2026. Stock figures are price-only and exclude dividends, so dividend payers such as Apple and Microsoft would have done somewhat better with dividends reinvested. Taxes, fees and inflation are ignored.
| Asset (start date) | Split-adjusted start price | Price Oct 2026 | $1,000 became | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (Jul 17, 2010) | $0.04951 | $85,354 | ~$1.72 billion | 142% |
| NVIDIA (Jan 22, 1999) | $0.041 | $233.95 | ~$5.7 million | 36.7% |
| Microsoft (Mar 13, 1986) | $0.097 | $517.53 | ~$5.3 million | 23.6% |
| Apple (Dec 12, 1980) | $0.128 | $333.69 | ~$2.6 million | 18.7% |
| Amazon (May 15, 1997) | $0.098 | $251.52 | ~$2.57 million | 30.6% |
| Apple (Jan 2, 2003) | $0.264 | $333.69 | ~$1.26 million | 35.1% |
| Netflix (May 23, 2002) | $0.120 | $67.06 | ~$561,000 | 29.7% |
| Tesla (Jun 29, 2010) | $1.59 | $370.59 | ~$233,000 | 39.8% |
| Bitcoin (Sep 17, 2014) | $457.33 | $85,354 | ~$187,000 | 54.4% |
| Alphabet (Aug 19, 2004) | $2.51 | $343.50 | ~$137,000 | 24.9% |
| S&P 500 with dividends (Jan 3, 2000) | Index 2,002.11 | Index 17,321.99 | ~$8,650 | 8.4% |
Sources: daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance (split-adjusted), S&P 500 Total Return index; Bitcoin's first Mt. Gox trade price as widely reported from exchange records. Bitcoin price for October 4, 2026.
If You Invested $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2010
There is no single "2010 price" for Bitcoin, which is why answers to this question vary so wildly. In 2010 Bitcoin traded only on tiny, early exchanges:
- May 22, 2010: programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas — an implied price of roughly $0.004 per coin. Those 10,000 BTC would be worth about $854 million at October 2026 prices.
- July 17, 2010: the first trade on Mt. Gox, at $0.04951 per coin. $1,000 at that price would have bought about 20,200 BTC, worth roughly $1.7 billion today.
- Late 2010: Bitcoin ended the year around $0.30, so $1,000 invested in December 2010 would be worth "only" a few hundred million dollars.
In practice, buying $1,000 of Bitcoin in mid-2010 would have meant buying a large share of everything trading on the market at the time, and holding it through the 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox, crashes of roughly 80% in 2018 and about 75% in 2022, and countless chances to lose the private keys. Treat these figures as a thought experiment, not a missed opportunity anyone realistically had.
The Biggest Winners Since 2000
For people searching for the best stock returns from 2000 to 2026: measured from the first trading day of 2000 to October 2, 2026 (price-only), NVIDIA turned $1,000 into about $2.4 million (33.8% a year) and Apple into about $334,000 (24.3% a year). Amazon, which started 2000 near its dot-com peak, still grew $1,000 to about $56,000 (16.3% a year), while Microsoft, also bought near the bubble's peak, reached about $8,900. The broad S&P 500, with dividends reinvested, grew $1,000 to about $8,650 (8.4% a year).
Why These Returns Are So Rare
- Survivorship bias: this list is picked with hindsight. Many promising companies of the same eras, such as Pets.com and Webvan, went to zero.
- Brutal drawdowns: Amazon fell more than 90% between late 1999 and 2001, and Netflix lost roughly three-quarters of its value in 2011–2012. Most holders sell long before the payoff.
- Concentration risk: putting everything into one stock is the fastest way to get these outcomes, and also the fastest way to lose everything.
- Taxes and fees: real-world returns are lower once you account for taxes on gains and dividends and trading costs.
The Realistic Version: $1,000 a Year in an Index Fund
Instead of trying to pick the one winner, suppose you had put $1,000 into an S&P 500 index fund every January from 2000 through 2026 — 27 contributions, $27,000 in total — and reinvested the dividends:
- Total invested: $27,000
- Value on October 2, 2026: about $169,000 (before fund fees and taxes)
- Annualized return on the money invested: about 11.5% a year
That period included two of the worst bear markets in history (2000–2002 and 2008–2009), and the plan still worked because contributions kept buying through the downturns. It is less exciting than Bitcoin, but it was available to anyone and did not require predicting the future.