Artdealer, you may want to consider visiting the aicoin slack channel. You will likely get a faster response on there.

You are absolutely correct that holding BTC directly would have given you much larger Absolute Return over that time period, but you also assumed the full risk. Just before that timeframe you could have seen the value drop that same percentage.

The reason aicoin is so attractive is the AI's ability to side step these risks. While straight return is certainly key, consider also the Sharpe ratio and the Max drowdown. It is certainly too early to have enough data for a solid Sharpe, but this early analysis is unbelievable once you wrap your mind around the concept. These numbers are what ended up getting me excited. That and watching how productive the aicoin team is. Have a look at this article that explains the risk basis very well.

https://www.aicoin.io/2017/11/06/analysis-returns-date/