See what buying a fixed amount every week or month would have done, against investing it all at once and against a simple 200-day trend filter, on any of 200+ coins, with fees, in dollars.
Bitcoin, 2022-10-20 to 2026-10-17: $20,900 put in over 48 months. The lump sum at the start ended with the most: $89,511.
| Strategy | Put in | Ended with | Profit | Worst fall | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA $100 weekly | $20,900 | $36,085 | $15,185 (73%) | -$21,746 (-47%) | Same buy every time |
| Lump sum at the start | $20,900 | $89,511 | $68,611 (328%) | -$72,405 (-53%) | All money in on day one |
| DCA, paused below the average | $20,900 | $34,807 | $13,907 (67%) | -$20,322 (-46%) | Cash waits while below the average |
| DCA + trend switch | $20,900 | $28,532 | $7,632 (37%) | -$5,789 (-25%) | In the coin 63% of days, 33 switches |
Profit in dollars from January 1st of each year to 2026-10-17. If the winner changes from year to year, no strategy is reliably better; it depended on when you started.
| Start | DCA $100 weekly | Lump sum at the start | DCA, paused below the average | DCA + trend switch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $184,481 | $233,867 | $183,265 | $137,389 |
| 2019 | $128,022 | $833,434 | $116,997 | $86,916 |
| 2020 | $64,793 | $366,554 | $64,396 | $50,358 |
| 2021 | $27,351 | $53,945 | $27,441 | $18,527 |
| 2022 | $23,163 | $17,793 | $25,631 | $14,097 |
| 2023 | $11,389 | $77,376 | $10,483 | $5,993 |
| 2024 | $1,065 | $12,351 | $631 | $840 |
| 2025 | -$493 | -$1,296 | -$787 | $427 |
Bold: the best of the four for that start year.
Every strategy gets exactly the same money. DCA buys your amount on each scheduled day. Lump sum invests the same total on the first day. Paused DCA skips buying while the price is below its 200-day average and spends the waiting cash on the first scheduled buy after it recovers. Trend switch holds the coin only while the previous day closed above that average, selling everything to cash when it closes below.
Fees are charged on every buy and every switch. Decisions use the previous day's close, so the backtest never acts on a price it could not have known. Cash earns nothing here. Past prices only: this describes what happened, not what will.
Want the current trend state for the whole market? See the market regime.
In a market that mostly rises, a lump sum invested at the start usually ends with more, simply because the money is in the market longer. DCA tends to win when the price falls after you start. Its real advantage is behavioural: it removes the decision of when to buy. Run both above on different start years and you will see the winner change.
A rule that only holds the coin while its price is above a moving average (here the 200-day by default) and waits in cash otherwise. It has historically avoided part of the deepest bear markets, at the cost of fees, late re-entries and many false switches in sideways markets. Whether it helped depends heavily on the period you test.
Yes. Every buy pays the fee you enter (0.1% by default, typical for a spot exchange), and every switch in or out of the coin in the trend strategies pays it again. Spreads, taxes and the yield cash could earn are not included.
Crypto moves in long cycles, so starting near a top or a bottom dominates the outcome. That is why the table under the results reruns the same settings from every start year: a strategy that only wins from one lucky start date is not a strategy.
This tool covers one position. Risk X-Ray aggregates your whole book into true effective leverage and a liquidation-cascade map.
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