Since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost about 97% of its purchasing power, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI-U index. A dollar in 1913 would only buy about 3 cents' worth of goods today, meaning that $1 back then was roughly equivalent to $33 to $34 in 2026.
This figure is not just a slogan; it is an official price index calculated over 113 years of cumulative inflation, covering two world wars, the Great Inflation of the 1970s, and the sharp rise from 2021 to 2023. The end of the gold standard in 1971 accelerated the dollar's depreciation, while idle cash was implicitly eroded by inflation during this period.
"Look at the biggest scam in recent times. A dollar here has lost 97% of its purchasing power." A user commented on X. US Dollar Has Lost 97% of Its Value Since 1913. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Bitcoin was designed under this system: a hard cap of 21 million coins with a decreasing issuance schedule. It did not exist in 1913, so a direct comparison is not one-to-one. But as a store of value, its performance since 2009 has been extreme in both directions.
Early buyers saw explosive growth in purchasing power, whereas later buyers experienced drawdowns of 50% to 80% within a single cycle.
As of early September 2026, Bitcoin was trading at around $79,852, well below its peak of $126,080 in October 2025. Since its creation, the token's price has risen more than 59,000%, and it has consistently outperformed cash and even gold over full market cycles.
Bitcoin (BTC) historical price performance. Source: BeInCrypto
Within any single cycle, it can also wipe out years of gains in a few months—this is the inherent trade-off of a scarce, yieldless, narrative-driven asset.
Institutional channels have changed the story. The approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. in 2024 transformed Bitcoin from a bearer asset requiring private key management into a ticker that pension funds, IRAs, and balance sheet allocators can hold.
These products had cumulative net inflows of $55.62 billion as of September 4, with total net assets for the entire category reaching $101.25 billion, accounting for approximately 6.33% of Bitcoin's overall market cap.
JUST IN: Bitcoin ETFs bought $380 million over the past 3 weeks, total assets back above $10 billion. Bear market officially over! 🚀 Source: Bitcoin Archive (@BitcoinArchive) September 5, 2026
Nevertheless, adoption still has shortcomings. Volatility remains high, regulatory policies vary greatly across jurisdictions, and energy consumption and custody risks are real and unresolved issues. The dollar still handles the vast majority of global trade settlements, debt payments, and payroll, and Bitcoin has not yet replaced this unit-of-account role.
What Bitcoin does is provide savers with an exit from a currency that, according to official statistics, has lost 97% of its purchasing power since 1913. Whether that exit is a true reserve asset, pure speculation, or a mix of both largely depends on the investor's time horizon.
Cash depreciates slowly and predictably, while Bitcoin can depreciate quickly, sometimes sharply, but over the long term, so far, its compounding growth has outpaced both cash and gold.
