On September 12, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) launched the new iPhone 15 amid good expectations by stock market analysts. However, the crypto market also embraced the launch event as an opportunity to evaluate Bitcoin’s (BTC) purchase power changes in the last decade.
Considering an average round price of $1,000 per iPhone 15 on the date of launch, one iPhone would cost approximately 0.038 BTC ($26,300 per Bitcoin, by press time).
The cost of each iPhone priced in Bitcoin since 2011
Interestingly, if each new version of the iPhone were priced in Bitcoin at the time of launch since 2011, the costs would be as follows, according to data from Coingecko.
- iPhone 4S (2011): 162 BTC
- iPhone 5 (2012): 52 BTC
- iPhone 5S (2013): 5.04 BTC
- iPhone 5 (2014): 1.65 BTC
- iPhone 6S (2015): 2.76 BTC
- iPhone 7 (2016): 1.07 BTC
- iPhone 8 (2017): 0.19 BTC
- iPhone X (2017): 0.13 BTC
- iPhone XS (2018): 0.15 BTC
- iPhone 11 (2019): 0.06 BTC
- iPhone 12 (2020): 0.05 BTC
- iPhone 13 (2021): 0.01 BTC
- iPhone 14 (2022): 0.04 BTC
- iPhone 15 (2023): 0.038 BTC
In this context, the same amount of BTC that would have been paid to buy one single iPhone 4S in 2011 would be enough to buy over 4,200 iPhone 15 in 2023, at launch. Showing how much Bitcoin was able to increase its purchasing power as a decentralized global monetary system.
This data also evidences the year-after-year performance for the leading cryptocurrency, when weighted by the price of one iPhone. Notably, until 2016, one iPhone 7 was worth more than 1 BTC, while in 2017, 1 BTC would buy five next-generation iPhone 8.
Bitcoin price analysis
At the time of publication, one single Bitcoin would buy 26 iPhone 15 and a few accessories, as the digital asset is exchanging hands for $26,308, with close to 1% gains in the day.
However, it is also important to note that, over time, the yearly difference in the cost of one iPhone measured in Bitcoin, has become lower than what happened in the last decade. Also, there are years when the purchasing power got lower than the previous one.
Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
