If you want to know what would have happened had you put money into Bitcoin in 2016, you can check it on real numbers rather than guess. The SBP Time Machine on our home page replays a regular buying plan, from ₹10 to ₹10,000 at a time, daily, weekly or monthly, starting any month from January 2016, against real daily Bitcoin prices in rupees. It shows what you'd have put in, how much Bitcoin you'd hold, and what that's worth at today's live price.
What it won't do is tell you what happens next. It's a look backward, not a forecast. This guide explains how to use it, what each number means, and how to read the result honestly, including the years when the line goes down.
What the Time Machine does
It takes a simple plan, a fixed rupee amount bought on a fixed schedule, and replays it day by day against history. Every buy uses the real daily closing price of Bitcoin in rupees for that date, from Yahoo Finance's BTC-INR series, cross-checked against CoinGecko. Then it adds up the satoshis your plan would have bought and values them at Unocoin's live price today.
We built it because the question "what if I had started back then?" deserves a real answer, not a screenshot from someone's social media. And because the honest answer always includes the bad stretches.
Inputs: amount, frequency, start month
Amount each time
Anything from ₹10 to ₹10,000 per buy. Start with something that feels normal for you. A plan you could have kept up is more useful to look at than one you couldn't.
How often
Daily, weekly or monthly. The same rupee total spread across more buys will average more finely. Try the same amount at each frequency and see how little, or how much, the result changes.
Start month
Any month from January 2016. This is the input that changes results the most, and it's the one people should play with longest. More on that below.
Reading the outputs
- Total put in: the rupees your plan would have spent. This is your real cost.
- Bitcoin accumulated: how much Bitcoin those buys would have collected, at each day's real price.
- Worth today: that Bitcoin valued at Unocoin's live buy price right now. This number moves every time the price moves.
- Same money in a 7% FD: what the same rupees on the same dates would have become at an assumed 7% a year.
- Number of buys: how many separate purchases the plan made. Each would be its own lot for tax purposes.
The chart plots your plan's value against the money put in and the FD line over time. If your scenario ends up worth less than you put in, the tool says so plainly: Bitcoin prices fall as well as rise.
Why the 7% FD line is an assumption
We added a fixed deposit line because the FD is the savings habit most Indian families understand. It gives you a familiar reference point. But it's an assumption: 7% a year, compounded quarterly, before tax. It's not any bank's actual rate, and real FD rates have changed over the years.
The line is there for context, not as a contest. An FD and Bitcoin are different things with different risks. A fixed deposit is a bank product. Crypto products are unregulated in India, can be highly risky, and there may be no regulatory recourse for any loss. The tool doesn't say one is better, and neither do I.
The years the chart goes down
This is the part I care about most.
If you start a plan in 2016 or 2017, your line runs straight through 2018. On 6 April 2018, the RBI directed the banks and other entities it regulates to stop dealing with anyone in virtual currencies, with three months to exit existing relationships. Indian exchanges were cut off from the banking system. At Unocoin, we had to lay off about a hundred people to survive. It took until 4 March 2020, when the Supreme Court set aside the circular, for banks to be able to serve crypto businesses again.
A Time Machine chart that starts before 2018 includes those years. Depending on the start month, you may see stretches where the plan is worth less than the money put in. That's not a bug. It's the record. Anyone who held through that period had to keep buying, or at least keep holding, while the news was terrible.
So when you play with the tool, do this deliberately:
- Pick a start month just before a big fall. Watch how long the plan sits below the money-put-in line.
- Pick a start month just before a big rise. Notice how different the ending looks.
- Ask yourself honestly which months you'd have kept going through, and which ones you'd have stopped.
That third question is the useful one. The chart can't answer it for you.
What it does not tell you about the future
- It isn't a forecast. Past prices don't predict future ones. A scenario that looks good from 2016 says nothing about what a plan started today will do.
- It isn't a typical result. Every start month gives a different answer. No single scenario represents what "people usually get".
- It ignores tax. The "worth today" figure is before tax. If you sold, gains would be taxed at a flat 30% plus 4% cess, with 1% TDS on transfers above the threshold and no loss set-off. See tax on a Bitcoin SIP, and check with a CA.
- It ignores you. Your income, your other savings, and whether you'd really have held through 2018 aren't in the model.
How to share it honestly
The tool lets you share a result. If you do, share the full scenario, amount, frequency and start month, and not just the final number. Better still, share two: one start month that looks good and one that doesn't. That's a far more truthful picture of how a plan behaves, and it's the kind of sharing that helps friends rather than pushing them.
Why we didn't just publish a big number
When we were building IndiaBitcoin, the easy version of this tool would have been a single headline: "₹X a week since 2016 would be worth ₹Y today." Those headlines get shared. They also mislead, because they pick the start date that flatters the result and hide everything in between.
We went the other way on purpose. You pick the start month. You see the chart, including the dips. You see the money-put-in line, so you always know your real cost. The FD line is labelled as an assumption. And the tool tells you, in plain words, when a scenario ends up worth less than what went in.
I've spent thirteen years in an industry that has been hurt, again and again, by people promising more than they could know. Unocoin went through the 2018 banking ban and the court case that followed. I'd rather a first-time buyer in India walk away from this tool a little more cautious than walk in with expectations no one can keep. If the tool makes you ask harder questions, it's working.
Where to go from here
If the Time Machine makes you curious about how a plan works, the Bitcoin SIP guide explains the Systematic Buying Plan on Unocoin, from ₹10 with ₹0 SBP fees, and our page on SIP vs lump sum covers the trade-off. Take your time. The history isn't going anywhere, and neither is the lesson in it.
Common questions
Where does the Time Machine get its prices?
From real daily closing prices of Bitcoin in rupees, using Yahoo Finance's BTC-INR series, cross-checked against CoinGecko. The value today uses Unocoin's live buy price.
Is the Time Machine a prediction?
No. It replays what a plan would have done on past prices. It is a look backward, not a forecast, and past prices do not predict future ones.
Why compare to a 7% FD?
Because a fixed deposit is the savings habit most Indian families know, so it gives a familiar reference line. The 7% rate, compounded quarterly and before tax, is an assumption for comparison, not any bank's quote. It is not a claim that one is better than the other.
Can I share my result?
Yes. The tool has a share option so you can send a specific scenario to someone. If you share, share the start month and frequency too, so the other person sees the whole picture and not just the final number.