Accumulated return
How much an investment grew in total, from start to finish, without splitting it by year.
It's the total gain over the period: if you put in 100 and now have 250, the accumulated return is 150%.
In the 10 years since October 2016, bitcoin accumulated +11,339% and the S&P 500 +310%: $100 would have become $11,439 and $410. Split by year, that's 61% and 15.2%: annual return is another way of counting the same thing.
Big percentages are deceptive: +100% is doubling and +900% is multiplying by 10.
Accumulated = final value / initial value − 1. It chains by multiplying, (1 + r₁) × (1 + r₂) × … − 1, never by adding each period's return.
To go from accumulated to annual: (1 + accumulated)1 / years − 1. An accumulated 100% over 10 years is 7.2% a year; over 5 years, 14.9%.
In “The best day of the week”, each day's accumulated return is what someone would have gained holding bitcoin only on that day of every week, chaining all the weeks together.
- Bitcoin
- S&P 500
$100 in each, 10 years ago. Logarithmic scale.
Where you see it in Compass
- The best day of the weekIn “The best day of the week”, each day's accumulated return.
- One dollar a dayIn “One dollar a day”, how much you gained in total.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between accumulated and annual return?
Accumulated is the total gain over the period; annual spreads that gain into a steady yearly rate. Over 10 years, bitcoin accumulated +11,339%, which is 61% a year.
Can you add up each year's returns?
No: they multiply. +10% and +10% don't make +20% but +21%, because the second 10% is earned on a bigger base.
Calculated and reviewed by Compass. Sources, checks and method
Figures with data as of October 26, 2026. Educational content. Not financial advice. Past results don't guarantee future results.