True WildShark, I didn't take into account staking or masternode income. I would need to know the Masternode counts for each month, and estimate from there. I did take a WAG and just used current monthly amounts, so this is WAY off and completely inaccurate, but fun to see how it would compare. I am not going to try and put this in a table.

1/1/2017 Purchase $ # Coins 12 mth MN Rewards Total Coins Price Each 12/31/2017 Value 12/31/2017
BTC 963.06 $5,400 5.61 5.61 $13,882.20 $77,839.26
ION 0.27 $5,400 20000.00 8687 28687.00 $3.22 $92,372.14
With this completely inaccurate portrayal, Ion beats BTC with Masternode income. This is not purchase advice, just a wild projection on my part.

If go down that rabbit hole you need to consider ION's abysmal liquidity for larger amounts (I can buy or dump 10 BTC at any time without moving the market, try that with ION), and also lower rewards for less-than-a-masternode amounts. Not to mention BCH, BTG, and other forks that added probably more than 20% for BTC bagholders last year.