It's hard to beat the growth potential of Nvidia (NVDA +0.77%), which Goldman Sachs recently called "the most important stock on planet Earth." A $1,000 investment made just five years ago would be worth upwards of $26,000 today.
Nvidia now boasts a colossal market cap of nearly $3 trillion, and is poised for years of impressive gains, thanks to the growth opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI).
But don't forget about Bitcoin (BTC +0.26%), which has just as much -- and possibly more -- future upside potential as Nvidia. And, while it might seem counterintuitive, an investment in Bitcoin may actually be less risky than many people think.
Upside potential
Admittedly, Nvidia has outperformed Bitcoin this year, and it's not even close. In 2024, Nvidia is up about 130%, while Bitcoin is up only 40%. Moreover, Nvidia has outperformed Bitcoin during the past 12 months, 18 months, and 24 months. Over the past two years, Nvidia is up 764%, compared to just 209% for Bitcoin. So it's time to forget about Bitcoin and go all-in on Nvidia, right?
Bitcoin / U.S. dollar chart by TradingView
Wrong. And that's because stocks are not valued based on how they've performed in the past, but rather how they are going to perform in the future. And this is where the upside potential of Bitcoin is so impressive. Quite simply, the further you extend your price forecast into the future, the better Bitcoin looks.
For example, investment firm Bernstein thinks Bitcoin could more than triple in price to hit $200,000 by the end of 2025. A growing number of Silicon Valley tech leaders think Bitcoin could hit a price of $1 million within the next few years, and Cathie Wood of Ark Invest thinks that Bitcoin could hit a price of $3.8 million by 2030.
CRYPTO: BTC
Key Data Points
But all of those price predictions pale in comparison to the one made by Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of MicroStrategy. He thinks Bitcoin could hit $13 million by the year 2045. He's convinced that Bitcoin is the future of money, and that it has the potential to replace the U.S. dollar. You might not agree, but that's what creates markets.
Based on today's Bitcoin price of about $60,000, a price of $13 million represents a gain of more than 21,000%. Can you find any Wall Street analysts willing to make the same prediction for Nvidia?
Risk and volatility
Of course, Bitcoin's enormous upside potential comes with significant risk. The U.S. government could ban Bitcoin, as some other governments have done. U.S. tax authorities could make it extremely burdensome to hold Bitcoin for the long haul, if they require investors to pay taxes on unrealized capital gains. And the Securities and Exchange Commission could act to classify Bitcoin as a security, creating an immediate existential risk.
But it's not like Nvidia doesn't come with its own share of risks. The AI boom could turn out to be a huge speculative bubble, with some already comparing it to the dot-com bubble of the 2000s. And it's not like Nvidia doesn't have its share of competitive rivals, any of which could snatch market share away. Nvidia may never be able to satisfy Wall Street's insatiable appetite for growth.
Image source: Getty Images.
Thus, a better way of comparing Bitcoin to Nvidia head-to-head likely involves some comparison of risk-adjusted returns. In other words, just how much risk are you taking on to get all that upside potential? In the best of all worlds, you would pick the investment that provides the highest upside possible while taking on as little risk as possible.
And this is where things get very interesting, because on a risk-adjusted basis, Bitcoin may not be as risky as you think. According to Fidelity Investments, at the start of 2024 Bitcoin had the highest Sharpe ratio (which measures risk-adjusted returns) of any asset class over the past five years. This means that, even though you are taking on a tremendous amount of risk with Bitcoin, you are getting paid for it.
Bitcoin or Nvidia?
If forced to pick between Bitcoin and Nvidia, I would pick Bitcoin. It's hard to ignore the fact that it has been among the top-performing assets in the world for so long. And, thanks to the launch of the new spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January, Bitcoin finally appears to be joining the mainstream. You no longer need to be a crypto enthusiast to buy Bitcoin; you can buy it as easily as you would your favorite tech stock.
And, while the million-dollar price predictions for Bitcoin might strike many as being a bit outlandish, they certainly demonstrate just how much upside potential this cryptocurrency has. Over just about any time horizon, it has more upside potential than any tech stock.
