For those who doubt that Bitcoin can be a viable and well-performing store of value need only look to a new report by United States-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service Coinbase. The data shows that, since 2013, Bitcoin has been outperforming the world’s most famous stock indexes, the S&P 500.

Regardless of the up and down trends of the volatile digital asset, it has still managed to be on a general direction, and one that has surpassed the S&P 500 significantly for the last six years. 

“While Bitcoin’s price fluctuates, it’s trending up and to the right following many bull runs. This year, Bitcoin has also outperformed world stock market indexes,” the report read.

For those following Bitcoin’s price over the last six years, some notable price movements would have been taken into account when making this comparison. Bitcoin rose from about $1,000 at the start of 2017 to 20x its value by the end of that year. However, it also fell dramatically down towards $3,000 through the following year.

However, this year alone, Bitcoin is up again, an impressive 130-odd percent. To put this into perspective, the Nasdaq 100 only generated 17 percent, the S&P 500 12 percent, the FTSE Europe 100 11 percent, while the FTSE ASEAN 40 had to swallow a loss of 3 percent.

Although this data is pleasing, and perhaps surprising, there have been surveys that show the belief in the cryptocurrency space as an avenue for returns. In a national survey of 4,415 people that Coinbase conducted with Qriously, most investors were seemingly convinced that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin will have a higher return than exchange-traded funds, index funds and stock in their own company ten years from now.

What makes this statistic even more interesting is that Bitcoin has been on the up for over six years and has been the best place to put one’s money, yet Bitcoin adoption as an asset still remains relatively small.

Coinbase’s report estimates that 27 million Americans have been using the world’s biggest cryptocurrency in 2019, which represents only 9% of the U.S. population, indicating that Bitcoin adoption is still in its infancy and only needs time to flourish, saying:

“Email was invented in 1972, but it took until 1997 to adopt, surpassing 10 million people. The television set was invented in 1927, but by the late 1940s, only 2% of American families had one.”