You wouldn't know it by looking at the Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) price charts from the past month. A month that has seen the world's largest digital token by market cap plunge 44% in value.
But dig back a little further and you'll gather just how potentially profitable Bitcoin was for crypto investors in 2020.
Profitable enough, in fact, to see Aussies book US$200 million (AU$260 million) in profits in the calendar year.
That's according to data from United States-based research firm Chainalysis, which provided estimates of realised Bitcoin gains in 2020 for nations across the globe.
United States tops the list
Australians' US$200 million in Bitcoin profits last year put the country at number 19 in realised gains.
Coming in at number 1, with US$4.1 billion in Bitcoin profits, is the US.
According to Chainalysis:
"[I]nvestors in nearly all countries saw the biggest increases toward the end of the year. That's when US investors really broke away from the pack with most of their gains coming from activity on Coinbase."
The last 3 months of 2020 really saw the Bitcoin price go hyperbolic, rocketing from US$10,740 on 1 October to US$28,769 by 31 December.
Rounding out the top 5 gainers, China came in at number 2 with US$1.1 billion; Japan came in at number 3 with US$900 million; the United Kingdom was number 4 at US$800 million; and Russia ranked 5th at US$600 million. (Russia was virtually neck and neck with Germany and France, who ranked 6th and 7th respectively.)
Chainalysis also noted some interesting discrepancies between a number of nations' economic clout and the amount their citizens invested in Bitcoin.
The Czech Republic, for example, ranks 54th in terms of its gross domestic product (GDP). But the country is 17th in realised Bitcoin investment gains at US$281 million. That's 2 rungs up the ladder from Australia.
On the flip side, and only 1 rung up the ladder from Australia, is India. While India is the world's 2nd most populous nation and has the 5th highest GDP, it comes in 18th in Bitcoin investment gains at US$241 million.
"This may be a result of the Indian government's historical unfriendliness to cryptocurrency," Chainalysis says.
Bitcoin price movement since January 2020
As mentioned up top, the past month has been largely downhill for the Bitcoin price.
On 9 May, it was trading for US$58,788 (AU$76,348). Less than a month earlier it had reached all-time highs of US$64,829 in mid-April, according to data from CoinDesk.
One Bitcoin is currently worth US$33,037. While that's well down from its April highs, it's still up 12% so far in 2021.
What will the rest of the year deliver for the Bitcoin price?
Ask me around Christmas time!
