Which $15,000 Investment Would Make You a Billionaire?

Imagine it’s mid-2010, and you have $15,000 to invest. You’re considering a new digital currency called bitcoin, trading at just 10 cents per coin, or putting your money into promising stocks like Nvidia, Tesla or Netflix.

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I asked ChatGPT to run the numbers on what might be the most expensive investment decision in modern history. The artificial intelligence’s analysis reveals just how dramatically different asset classes can perform (and why timing really is everything when it comes to investing).

To make this comparison fair, ChatGPT set the investment date at mid-2010, when both bitcoin and several now-famous stocks were available. This timing is important because it represents a moment when ordinary investors could realistically have made any of these choices.

The AI selected five investments that seemed promising in 2010:

• Bitcoin, trading at around $0.10 per coin

• Nvidia stock at about $2.50 (split-adjusted)

• Tesla, which had just gone public at $1.17 (split-adjusted)

• Broadcom at approximately $7.30 (adjusted for splits and mergers)

• Netflix at around $8.80 (adjusted for splits)

Each represents $15,000 invested at that moment in time. Here’s what ChatGPT discovered about where that money would be today.

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According to ChatGPT’s calculations, bitcoin’s results are nearly unbelievable. At $0.10 per bitcoin in mid-2010, your $15,000 would have purchased 150,000 coins.

With bitcoin trading at approximately $117,700 today, those 150,000 coins would be worth $17.655 billion.

“Yes, this investment would have made you a multibillionaire,” ChatGPT confirmed, adding that bitcoin is the only asset in this comparison that achieved billionaire status.

This represents a return of over 1,000,000% — turning every dollar invested into more than $1 million.

Nvidia has been the poster child for stock market success in recent years, especially with the AI boom. ChatGPT’s analysis shows it was indeed the best-performing stock in our comparison.

Your $15,000 would have bought 6,000 shares at $2.50 each in 2010. With Nvidia currently trading around $175.50, those shares would be worth $1.053 million today.

“Even accounting for stock splits and exact timing, Nvidia grows to around $5-6.7 million at best,” ChatGPT wrote, acknowledging that different timing within 2010 could have yielded slightly better results.

Still, even the most optimistic Nvidia scenario falls dramatically short of billionaire status.

Tesla’s initial public offering in June 2010 created early investor opportunities that ChatGPT calculated would have been impressive — just not billionaire-level impressive.

At Tesla’s split-adjusted IPO price of $1.17, your $15,000 would have purchased approximately 12,820 shares. With Tesla trading around $328 today, that position would be worth about $4.2 million.

“Best estimates suggest Tesla would yield around $3.6-4.2 million on $15,000,” ChatGPT concluded, noting that Tesla’s volatility could have affected results depending on exact purchase timing.

Netflix represented the streaming revolution that was just beginning in 2010. ChatGPT’s analysis shows it would have been a good investment — but nowhere near life-changing money.

Your $15,000 would have bought roughly 1,705 shares at $8.80 each. With Netflix currently around $1,176 per share, those shares would be worth approximately $2 million today.

“Best case scenario: around $1.3-2 million,” ChatGPT estimated, accounting for Netflix’s various ups and downs over the past 15 years. Not chump change, but not billions.

Broadcom, while less famous than Nvidia, was another semiconductor stock available in 2010. ChatGPT calculated it would have been the worst performer in this group.

At $7.30 per share, your $15,000 would have purchased about 2,055 shares. With Broadcom trading around $293.36 today, that investment would be worth roughly $603,000.

“Realistic return: around $1.7 million max (including reinvestment/dividends),” ChatGPT wrote, suggesting that dividend reinvestment could have improved results somewhat.

While ChatGPT confirmed that bitcoin was the only path to billionaire status, the AI also provided crucial context about why so few people actually achieved these returns.

“Bitcoin’s rise was incredibly volatile, and few investors held on through multiple 80%+ crashes,” ChatGPT warned. “Stocks, while slower, offered more stable growth.”

The psychological challenge of holding bitcoin through its numerous boom-bust cycles cannot be overstated. Bitcoin crashed over 80% at least three times during this 15-year period. Most investors who bought at $0.10 probably sold long before bitcoin reached $117,700.

ChatGPT’s analysis reveals several important lessons for modern investors:

Hindsight is not an investment strategy: While bitcoin clearly won this historical comparison, trying to find the “next bitcoin” is essentially gambling, not investing.

Diversification matters: Even the best-performing traditional stocks “only” returned millions rather than billions. But millions in returns from a $15,000 investment represents life-changing money for most people.

Volatility is the price of potential: bitcoin’s path to billions involved gut-wrenching volatility that would have tested any investor’s resolve.

Traditional investments still work: While stocks didn’t create billionaires, turning $15,000 into several million dollars over 15 years represents excellent investment performance by any reasonable standard.

ChatGPT’s comparison illustrates why investment advisors typically recommend diversified portfolios rather than betting everything on single assets, even promising ones. Let’s break it down.

If you had split your $15,000 five ways in 2010, putting $3,000 into each investment, you’d have:

• $3.531 billion from Bitcoin

• $200,000-1.3 million from Nvidia

• $720,000-840,000 from Tesla

• $120,000-340,000 from Broadcom

• $260,000-400,000 from Netflix

Even with 80% of your portfolio in stocks that “underperformed,” you’d still be a billionaire thanks to that small bitcoin allocation. It (quite literally) pays to diversify.

ChatGPT’s analysis used mid-2010 as the investment date, but small timing differences could have dramatically affected results. Bitcoin was virtually worthless in early 2010 but had already begun rising by year-end.

Similarly, Tesla’s IPO timing, Nvidia’s various product cycles and Netflix’s streaming transition all created windows where earlier or later investments could have yielded different results.

According to ChatGPT’s analysis, if your goal was becoming a billionaire from a $15,000 investment in 2010, bitcoin was the only known path to that outcome. Even the decade’s best-performing stocks delivered “only” multi-million dollar returns.

But the AI’s analysis also reveals why chasing these extreme outcomes is probably the wrong approach for most investors. The stocks in this comparison all delivered life-changing returns while offering more stability and predictability than bitcoin’s wild ride.

As ChatGPT wrote, bitcoin’s success required not just picking the right asset, but having the psychological fortitude to hold through multiple crashes that would have tested any investor’s resolve.

For today’s investors, the lesson isn’t to search for the next bitcoin — it’s to build diversified portfolios that can capture strong returns while managing the very real risks that come with chasing billionaire-level gains. Not as fun as making millions — or billions — but a worthy goal, nonetheless.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Bitcoin vs Stocks: Which $15,000 Investment Would Make You a Billionaire?