I suppose it is like all things in life the earlier you are involved in a project the more you will be rewarded later on as values increase. I see crypto projects as individual businesses with the tokens/coins comparable to shares in that project.
Most investors in Crypto have been making returns through buying and selling, but long term rewards via APR will out perform those investors. Building a portfolio is going to be that important and why those doing so will be seriously wealthy. This will be the new wealth like we have never seen before making the dot.com era look like child's play.
If we look back at 4 companies which have done rather well we can then kind of get an idea of where our crypto investments could be heading in the future. Not every project is going to succeed however as there will be more failures than successes so choosing there and what you invest in is critical to the outcome. Right now it may not ne so obvious as most projects rise and fall depending on what Bitcoin is doing.
Apple went public on 12th December 1980 with a $10K investment buying shares at $22 each would now be worth $1.6 million. 43 years for a 160 x return actually doesn't sound that great yet it is still decent considering that breaks down to roughly 3.9 x per year.
Microsoft went public on the 13th March 1986 and anyone who invested just $10K ($21 per share) and held on to what they had would now be sitting with around $9 million. That is 37 years however, but still a 900 x return. 24.32 x per year is a really good stat.
Amazon went public on the 5th may 1997 and again 10K invested at $18 per share would have you sitting with a nest egg of $2.2 million. Again 26 years so the length of time is crucial for growth and a 220 x on the initial investment. 8.5 x per year.
Tesla went public on June 29th 2010 and again 10K invested at $17 share would have your portfolio worth 2.9 million which is 290 x in just 13 years which is phenomenal again. Just over 21 x per year is a fantastic return in anyone's language.
I see crypto in the same sort of way as these project are the starting of new technology companies with real use cases or a small percentage do and why selecting where you invest is critical. The one difference is the pricing we have got involved at as many of them were in cents and not dollars. Forget market cap as a company like Tesla has nearly 3.5 billion shares. Others listed for interest sake - Apple 15.89 billion, Microsoft 7.443 billion and Amazon 10.22 billion.
There is no reason why certain crypto projects cannot be worth $ 10's of billions in the future purely from a real use case perspective. Forget what people say that a crypto cannot be bigger in market cap than Bitcoin as that is just not true.
If a crypto project is adopted and used daily as a must have use case then the demand will govern the price and not the market sentiment. A prime example is COTI in comparison to it's competitors controlling payment gateways being valued at $100 billion. For COTI to reach that type of valuation there is so much work ahead but it is not out of the realms of possibilities. COTI would be at $50 or a 625 x the current price. This sounds far fetched right now, but give it the time like those mentioned above and anything is possible. Throw in supplying of CBDC's for countries and what type of value would that Crypto company now have as this is new territory not covered before.
Crypto is very different to stocks and shares due to the crypto having a use case and a need to have in order to perform tasks on the blockchain. Businesses are going to have to have a portfolio of various types of crypto in order to function their daily needs running the business and why the real value has yet to be seen. Crypto is like an active share of sorts as it has functions/tasks it has to perform and where the price is going to be driven from. Long term I don't see any reason why Crypto wont out perform the 4 companies listed above as this is where the future is heading.