Cosmos Investment Calculator
What would buying ATOM have been worth? Pick a plan and a start date and this replays it against real daily Cosmos closes.
What ATOM actually did, in the data this page replays
Measured from the 2,695 daily closes this page replays — 29 April 2019 to 13 September 2026, from Binance. Figures are bounded by that window, not by the asset’s whole life.
| History available | 7 years and 5 months (from Binance) |
|---|---|
| Bought on the first day, held to the last | 0.423× — a loss of 57.7% |
| Highest close in this window | $44.27 on 19 September 2021 |
| Where it sits against that high | 96.4% below |
| Deepest fall | −97.2%, 19 September 2021 → 1 August 2026 |
| Time to get back to that peak | still below it |
| Separate falls of 50% or more | 4 |
| Days spent more than 20% below a previous peak | 91.8% |
| Best calendar year | 2021: +452.6% |
| Worst calendar year | 2022: -74.3% |
| Annualised volatility | 105.5% |
ATOM year by year
First close to last close each year. 2019 and 2026 are partial — the data starts mid-2019 and 2026 is still running.
| Year | Change | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | +11.9% | partial year |
| 2020 | +47.6% | |
| 2021 | +452.6% | best full year |
| 2022 | -74.3% | worst full year |
| 2023 | +12% | |
| 2024 | -44.7% | |
| 2025 | -70.5% | |
| 2026 | -22.8% | partial year |
The part the calculator does not show you
Held from the first day in this data to the last, ATOM returned 0.423× — a loss of 57.7%. Long holding periods are usually presented as the thing that rescues a volatile asset, and over this particular window for this particular coin, they did not. It is worth setting the calculator above to the full range and seeing that result written out before assuming time fixes an entry.
The deepest fall took ATOM down 97.2%, from $44.27 on 19 September 2021 to $1.22 on 1 August 2026 — 4 years and 10 months of falling. ATOM has not been back to that peak since. Anyone who bought on 19 September 2021 is still waiting, 2 years and 6 months later — which is the scenario a backtest showing a positive average return quietly averages away.
105.5% annualised volatility is ordinary for a major crypto asset and still several times a stock index. All ATOM calculators →
Frequently asked questions
＋Would buying ATOM on the first day of this data and holding have made money?
No. Held across the whole window the position ended at 0.423× — a loss of 57.7%. That is worth stating plainly because "hold long enough and it recovers" is the usual advice, and over the 7 years and 5 months we hold for ATOM it did not happen.
＋What is the worst ATOM has fallen?
97.2% in this data, from 19 September 2021 down to 1 August 2026 — 4 years and 10 months of falling. It has not returned to that peak since, so anyone who bought at the top is still waiting. Bear in mind our ATOM series starts in 2019; a deeper fall before that date would not appear here.
＋How often does ATOM lose half its value?
4 separate falls of 50% or more appear in this data, and the position spent 91.8% of all days more than 20% below a previous peak. A drop of that size is not an exceptional event for this asset — it is a recurring feature of the record, which is the thing to size a position around.
＋What were ATOM's best and worst years?
2021 was the best at +452.6%, and 2022 the worst at -74.3%. The gap between those two is the reason a single average annual return is a poor description of this asset: almost nobody experiences the average, they experience one of the two extremes depending on when they bought.
＋Is 7 years and 5 months of data enough to trust this backtest?
Reasonably. 7 years and 5 months spans roughly one full cycle for ATOM — enough for the drawdown figure to mean something, not enough to call it a pattern. The assets here with a decade or more behind them support firmer conclusions.
What to keep in mind for ATOM
ATOM trades well below its previous highs and is unusually sensitive to Hub governance decisions on inflation, which have repeatedly repriced the token's yield story.
Cosmos Hub fees are a fraction of a cent, but IBC transfers between chains add a step and a small fee on each side — the practical cost is the validator commission, not gas.
A backtest is one path that already happened. It shows what this plan produced through the exact sequence of prices ATOM went through — not what a similar plan will produce through a sequence nobody has seen yet.