I ran the numbers on $100/month Bitcoin DCA from 2018 to today — the results during the bear market surprised me

Been thinking about DCA a lot lately so I pulled real historical price data and simulated what $100/month would have actually returned from different starting points.

The one that surprised me most — starting in January 2018, right at the peak of that cycle when everyone was euphoric and prices were near $15K-$18K. Genuinely the worst time to start.

By mid-2023 that $6,800 investment had accumulated roughly 0.59 BTC at an average cost of around $11,500. Portfolio well into profit despite the timing being objectively terrible.

The people who kept buying through 2018, 2019 and the covid crash in 2020 ended up with an average cost that made the eventual recovery look very different from someone who bought all at once at the top.

What got me was how much the 2022 bear market purchases changed the average. Every month you bought at $20K, $18K, $16K was dragging that average down significantly. The strategy only works if you actually keep going when it feels worst.

I built a free calculator that simulates any DCA scenario with real historical BTC price data going back to 2010 — you pick the amount, frequency and start date and it shows portfolio value, average buy price, best and worst purchases, and a chart.

Link: https://coinguides.org/bitcoin-dca-calculator/

Curious what starting date people here would test first.