What would buying a fixed amount every week have returned? Real daily closes, no projections — pick an amount, a frequency and a window.
DCA means buying a fixed dollar amount on a fixed schedule regardless of price. When price falls your money buys more bitcoin; when it rises it buys less. Over a volatile period your average cost lands below the simple average of prices — that is the whole mechanism, and it is arithmetic rather than strategy.
What it does not do is guarantee a profit. If you buy through a period that ends lower than where it started, you lose money more slowly than a lump sum bought at the top would have, and more quickly than one bought at the bottom. This calculator shows exactly what a given plan would have returned over a real historical window, using daily closes — no assumptions, no projections.
A backtest tells you what happened, not what will happen. Bitcoin’s history is short and contains a handful of extraordinary runs; any window that includes one will flatter the strategy. Try several durations before drawing a conclusion, and note how different the answer is over one year versus three.
Historically, DCA into Bitcoin over multi-year windows has produced positive returns, because the asset has trended upward across its short history. Over shorter windows it can and does lose money. DCA reduces timing risk — the chance of putting everything in at a local top — but it does not remove market risk.
The differences are small. Buying more often smooths your entry slightly more, but the effect shrinks fast beyond weekly, and each purchase may carry a fee. Weekly is a common compromise. This calculator lets you compare the frequencies directly on the same window.
Daily closing prices from mempool.space's historical price feed, the same series the BTCDash dashboard charts. Every calculation runs in your browser; nothing about your plan is sent anywhere.
No. Real returns will be lower after trading fees, spreads and any tax on disposal. Treat the output as an upper bound on what the strategy would have returned.
Statistically, lump-sum investing beats DCA more often than not in an asset that trends up, simply because the money is exposed for longer. DCA wins when you buy into a decline, and it is easier to stick with psychologically. The right answer depends on the money you have and the volatility you can tolerate.