Over the last decade, bitcoin has returned far more than the S&P 500, but with a completely different ride. Measured from the end of 2014 to the end of 2025, the S&P 500 roughly quadrupled with dividends reinvested, while bitcoin rose by a factor of a few hundred. Yet bitcoin lost more than 60% in two separate calendar years in that span, something the S&P 500 has not done in its modern history, and it finished 2025 down while stocks gained about 18%. So the honest answer to “bitcoin vs S&P 500” depends heavily on the period you pick and how much volatility you can live with.
You’ll find this and every related walkthrough in our Bitcoin hub.
- Long-run returns: bitcoin has far outpaced the S&P 500 over most multi-year windows since 2015, but not all of them.
- Bad years are much worse: bitcoin fell about 72% in 2018 and 64% in 2022; the S&P 500’s worst year in that period was about -18%.
- Start date dominates the result. Buying near a bitcoin peak has meant years of trailing stocks.
- Correlation is not stable. Bitcoin traded largely independently of stocks before 2020 and has often moved with them since.
- Different engines: stock returns come from company earnings and dividends; bitcoin’s from demand for a fixed-supply asset with no cash flows.
Bitcoin vs S&P 500: Year-by-Year Returns
The table shows calendar-year returns. S&P 500 figures are total returns, including reinvested dividends. Bitcoin figures are approximate price returns from year-end to year-end closes in US dollars; different data providers use slightly different closing times, so you will see small variations elsewhere.
| Year | S&P 500 (total return) | Bitcoin (approx.) | Which did better |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | +1.4% | +35% | Bitcoin |
| 2016 | +12.0% | +125% | Bitcoin |
| 2017 | +21.8% | +1,330% | Bitcoin |
| 2018 | -4.4% | -72% | S&P 500 |
| 2019 | +31.5% | +88% | Bitcoin |
| 2020 | +18.4% | +301% | Bitcoin |
| 2021 | +28.7% | +60% | Bitcoin |
| 2022 | -18.1% | -64% | S&P 500 |
| 2023 | +26.3% | +155% | Bitcoin |
| 2024 | +25.0% | +122% | Bitcoin |
| 2025 | +17.9% | -6% | S&P 500 |
Bitcoin beat the index in 8 of these 11 years, and its winning years were enormous. But the three years the S&P 500 won were the years that hurt: in 2018 and 2022, bitcoin holders lost most of their money on paper, while a stock index investor lost relatively little. In 2025, bitcoin set a new all-time high above $126,000 in October and then gave back those gains to finish the year lower, while stocks had a solid year.
Why Your Start Date Changes Everything
Using the yearly returns above, here is what $10,000 invested at the start of each period would have grown to by the end of 2025, before taxes and fees:
| Invested at start of | S&P 500 | Bitcoin | Annualised: S&P / BTC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 (11 years) | about $40,000 | about $2.8 million | about 13.5% / 67% |
| 2018 (8 years) | about $29,000 | about $64,000 | about 14% / 26% |
| 2021 (5 years) | about $19,600 | about $30,000 | about 14% / 25% |
| 2022 (4 years) | about $15,200 | about $19,000 | about 11% / 17% |
Two things stand out. First, the early-2015 bitcoin figure reflects a period when bitcoin was a tiny asset; that kind of multiple is mathematically much harder as its market value grows into the trillions. Second, the path matters as much as the end point. The investor who started in January 2022 ended ahead in bitcoin, but by the end of 2022 their $10,000 had shrunk to roughly $3,600, and it was lower still at the November low. The S&P 500 investor finished 2022 at around $8,200. Many people sell at the bottom of a drawdown like that, and an investor who sold would have locked in the loss and missed the recovery.
And bitcoin has had stretches where it badly lagged stocks. Someone who bought near the December 2017 peak or the November 2021 peak waited years just to get back to even, while the S&P 500 recovered from its own declines faster. Bitcoin’s four-year rhythm, often linked to the halving cycle, has made timing especially consequential. Our guide to crypto market cycles looks at those patterns and their limits.
Risk: Drawdowns and Volatility
Average returns hide how painful an asset is to hold. The more useful comparison is the worst peak-to-trough fall.
| Episode | S&P 500 decline | Bitcoin decline |
|---|---|---|
| Global financial crisis, 2007–2009 | about -57% | Bitcoin did not exist yet |
| 2017–2018 crypto bear market | about -20% (late 2018) | about -84% |
| COVID crash, Feb–Mar 2020 | about -34% | roughly half its value in days |
| 2021–2022 rate-hike bear market | about -25% | about -77% |
Annualised volatility tells the same story in a single number. The S&P 500’s long-run volatility is typically in the mid-to-high teens. Bitcoin’s has often been three to four times higher, though it has trended lower as the market has matured and spot ETFs have brought in more institutional holders. Higher volatility is not automatically bad, but it means a position that is a sensible size in stocks can be far too large in bitcoin.
On a risk-adjusted basis (return per unit of volatility, such as the Sharpe ratio), bitcoin has looked strong over its full history because its returns were so large. Over shorter windows, especially ones that start near a peak, the picture flips. Treat any single risk-adjusted figure with caution because it depends entirely on the window chosen.
Correlation: Do They Move Together?
Correlation measures how often two assets move in the same direction, from +1 (always together) to -1 (always opposite). For most of the 2010s, bitcoin’s correlation with US stocks was close to zero, which is why early advocates pitched it as a diversifier.
That changed around 2020. As institutions began buying bitcoin and interest rates became the dominant market driver, bitcoin started to trade more like a high-beta technology stock: rising with risk appetite and falling hard when the Federal Reserve tightened. In 2022 both fell together. Since then, correlation has swung up and down, sometimes breaking down around bitcoin-specific events such as ETF approvals and sometimes tightening during macro sell-offs. Our explainer on how interest rates affect bitcoin covers why the Fed matters to both.
The practical lesson is that bitcoin’s diversification benefit is unreliable. It has not consistently protected portfolios during stock market stress, so do not count on it as a hedge. To check the current relationship, look at a rolling 30-day or 90-day correlation chart on a market data site; a single long-term figure can be misleading.
What Drives Each Asset
- S&P 500: ownership of about 500 large US companies. Long-run returns come from earnings growth and dividends, plus changes in what investors will pay for those earnings. The index has decades of data across recessions, wars and inflation shocks.
- Bitcoin: a decentralised digital asset with a hard cap of 21 million coins and no earnings or dividends. Its price depends on adoption, investor demand, liquidity conditions and its perceived role as a store of value. It has about 17 years of history and has never been through a full traditional recession cycle as a large asset.
Because bitcoin produces no cash flow, there is no consensus way to value it the way analysts value stocks. That is a big reason for its wider swings: there is no earnings anchor when sentiment turns. For a broader comparison across the whole crypto market, see crypto vs stocks.
Owning Both: How People Combine Them
Most investors who hold bitcoin treat it as a small satellite position next to a core of broad stock funds, not a replacement for them. Some practical points:
- Both are now available in the same account. Low-cost S&P 500 index funds charge very little each year (Vanguard’s VOO and iShares’ IVV list 0.03%), and spot bitcoin ETFs charge roughly 0.14%–0.25% for most funds. See our comparison of the best bitcoin ETFs.
- Size by pain, not by hope. A useful test is to imagine the bitcoin slice falling 75% and ask whether you would hold on. If not, the slice is too large.
- Rebalance on a schedule. Because bitcoin moves so much, a 5% target can drift to 15% after a big rally or 2% after a crash. Rebalancing back to target forces you to trim after gains and add after losses. In a taxable account, selling to rebalance can trigger capital gains tax.
- Don’t sell a long-held index fund on impulse. If you want bitcoin exposure, directing new contributions to it avoids realising gains on existing holdings.
Our crypto portfolio strategy guide covers allocation frameworks in more detail.
FAQ
Has bitcoin outperformed the S&P 500?
Over most multi-year periods since 2015, yes, often by a wide margin. But not every year and not from every starting point: the S&P 500 did better in 2018, 2022 and 2025, and investors who bought bitcoin near the 2017 or 2021 peaks trailed stocks for years. Past performance, especially from bitcoin’s early, very small-cap years, is not a reliable guide to future returns.
Is bitcoin more risky than the S&P 500?
Yes, by every standard measure. Bitcoin has had several peak-to-trough declines of roughly 75–85%, while the S&P 500’s worst modern decline was about 57% during the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Bitcoin’s day-to-day volatility has typically been several times higher, and it lacks earnings or dividends to anchor its value.
Does bitcoin move with the stock market?
Sometimes. Before 2020 the correlation was near zero. Since then bitcoin has often moved with stocks, particularly tech stocks, during periods driven by interest rates and liquidity, including the 2022 sell-off. At other times it has moved on its own news. Check a rolling correlation chart for the current picture rather than assuming either way.
Should I sell my S&P 500 fund to buy bitcoin?
That is a personal decision, but most frameworks treat them as complements rather than substitutes. Selling an index fund can trigger capital gains tax and swaps a diversified, earnings-backed holding for a single volatile asset. Many investors who want bitcoin exposure add it with new money and keep it to a portion they could watch fall sharply without needing to sell.
Crypto is volatile and risky; this is education, not financial advice. Do your own research.
