Bitcoin Has Outperformed Every Asset Class Over the Last 10 Years, Why Do Economists Still Dismiss It?

An economist at the table becomes silent when someone brings up Bitcoin, usually late in a dinner conversation. Not quite disapproving. Simply patient, as academics are when they choose to ignore the subject. The arguments have never been as fascinating as that silence. Bitcoin has increased by about 26,931 percent over the past ten years. It has outperformed all major bond markets, the Nasdaq, gold, U.S. real estate, and the S&P 500. However, the majority of economists continue to view it in the same manner as they did in 2014: as an anomaly, a conjecture, or something that happens to other people.

The figures are practically unjust. Ten years ago, a $1,000 Bitcoin investment would now be worth hundreds of thousands. In the S&P 500, a comparable investment would have about tripled. Barely doubled in gold. Basically flat in Treasury bonds. Even after accounting for capital gains tax and inflation, as macro investor Krueger did in a widely circulated analysis last year, Bitcoin’s real return of 46% surpasses both the Nasdaq’s 4% and gold’s 0.5%. These windows are not hand-picked. These are averages over ten years.

Why, then, is it dismissive? It is structural in part. By definition, money serves three purposes for economists: it is a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Nearly no retailer prices goods in Bitcoin, and even its supporters quietly acknowledge that it struggles as a stable store of value due to its extreme volatility. Researchers at Madrid’s Universidad Politécnica carefully examined every monetary criterion in a 2025 paper published in Economies and came to the conclusion that Bitcoin just isn’t money. The reasoning is sound in its own right. The only issue is that there was never much competition between Bitcoin and the dollar. It was competing to be an asset.

Its track record is also an asset that is truly hard to dispute. According to VanEck’s research, in eight of the previous eleven years, Bitcoin has been the best-performing asset class. Ric Edelman, who oversees $287 billion for 1.3 million clients at Edelman Financial Engines, recently told CNBC that while traditional assets yield gains of 5 to 10 percent over the next ten years, Bitcoin is expected to yield a tenfold return. Edelman is not a maximalist. He manages fiduciary portfolios for dentists and educators. Something has changed when someone who fits that description recommends allocating 10 to 20 percent of your portfolio to cryptocurrency. This change may not be in the asset itself, but rather in the way mainstream wealth management is willing to discuss it.

There is a perception that the resistance is not just analytical but also cultural and generational. Cypherpunk mailing lists gave rise to Bitcoin, which withstood exchange failures and laundered itself through approvals for ETFs, Reddit, El Salvador, MicroStrategy, and BlackRock. Its price history resembles a weather event more than an investment. Economists are in the difficult position of being technically correct about Bitcoin’s failure as a currency and empirically incorrect about its success as an asset because their professional incentives encourage caution and their models weren’t designed for assets that can 60x in five years. Humans, even those with credentials, tend to steer clear of that embarrassing combination.

It’s also important to keep in mind that owning Bitcoin is unusual. Cash flow is not generated by it. Dividends are not paid by it. Nearly all of its worth is based on belief—belief in decentralization, scarcity, an expanding user base, or some sort of digital gold. Warren Buffett continues to reject it. Nouriel Roubini continues to forecast its demise. In the meantime, Fidelity is responsible for its custody, the IRS levies taxes on it, and Pakistan, of all places, has between 15 and 20 million users. The true story lies in the space between the official skepticism and the adoption that occurs on the ground.

As this develops, it’s difficult to avoid thinking that the field of economics will eventually flourish—quietly, slowly, and without fanfare. Asset classes are typically defined after the fact, and ten years of outperformance has a way of becoming impossible to ignore—not because Bitcoin wins every argument. Whether the upcoming decade will resemble the previous one is still up in the air. Compression of volatility is possible. Regulation might be harsh. The story of ETF inflow may become saturated. However, it is becoming more difficult to defend the dismissal itself—the reflexive, credentialed dismissal. That may be the only aspect of the Bitcoin narrative that appears to be truly resolved.