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Bitcoin and Ethereum DCA Simulation Strategy for Long-Term Crypto Investing

Update 4 Aug 2026 • Reading Time 11 Minute

Reading Time: 11 minutes

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is how a lot of crypto investors buy through a downturn without trying to time it: put in the same amount on a set schedule, no matter what the price is doing that day. It works the same way a recurring savings plan does, just applied to a volatile asset instead of cash sitting in a bank account. In a crypto bear market, that fixed amount buys you more units as the price keeps falling, which is exactly what pulls your average cost down.

Key Takeaways

DCA means buying a fixed dollar amount on a regular schedule, regardless of the price that day.
Your DCA average cost is always lower than the simple average price over the same period. That is not a coincidence. It is basic math, and a simple calculation proves it.
DCA will not turn your portfolio green in a falling market. What it does is keep your losses far smaller than if you had put everything in at the start of the period.
This article’s simulation uses real data from the 2022 bear market, when Bitcoin fell from around $47,000 at the start of the year to $15,549 in November 2022, then values that position again in mid-2025, when Bitcoin briefly touched roughly $107,327.
DCA works best if you have steady monthly income and a multi-year horizon. It is not a fit if the money is your emergency fund, or something you will need within the next 12 months.

What Is Dollar-Cost Averaging?

DCA works just as well for beginners as it does for experienced investors, because the mechanics do not change either way: you buy on a schedule, no matter where the market is heading. What actually changes the outcome is not who is running it, but how consistent you are and how long you stick with it.

For the full breakdown of what DCA is, its benefits, its risks, and when to use it, read What Is Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)? on Pintu Academy.

Why Your DCA Average Cost Ends Up Lower Than the Market Average

A lot of people assume your DCA average cost is the same as the simple average price over that period. It is not, and the gap between the two is DCA’s mechanical edge. Your average cost is total money spent divided by total units collected, not the prices added up and divided by the number of buys.

Here’s a quick example of how that plays out with Bitcoin:

Example, numbers rounded for simplicity. You buy $100 of Bitcoin every month for five months, while BTC trades at $50,000, $40,000, $30,000, $28,000, and $32,000.

Units collected: 0.00200 + 0.00250 + 0.00333 + 0.00357 + 0.00313 = 0.01453 BTC

Total spent: $50

Your average cost: $500 ÷ 0.01453 = $34,412 per BTC

Simple average price over those five months: (50,000 + 40,000 + 30,000 + 28,000 + 32,000) ÷ 5 = $36,000 per BTC

Your average cost is $1,588 lower, about 4.4% below the simple average. You got a better price than the average without having to guess the bottom.

With a fixed dollar amount, you automatically buy more units when the price is low and fewer when it is high. In month four of the example above, at $28,000, you picked up 0.00357 BTC. In month one, at $50,000, you only got 0.00200 BTC. The weighting shifts toward the cheaper prices on its own.

One caveat: in that same example, your 0.01453 BTC at the final price of $32,000 is worth about $465, against the $500 you put in. You are still down roughly 7%. A lower average cost is not a guarantee of profit. It decides how deep your losses run when the market falls, and how fast you get back to break-even once it recovers.

So DCA comes in a few different flavors, depending on how hands-on you want to be.

DCA Variations Worth Knowing

Consistent recurring buys: The best fit for beginners investing in Bitcoin over one or two years. You do not need technical analysis skills to run this, and it is the version this article focuses on.
Bigger buys on major dips: This pairs DCA with a buy-the-dip approach to split your allocation. Every time the price drops significantly (10% or more), you make a DCA buy at a pre-set amount.
DCA at predetermined price levels: The most advanced version, since it combines DCA with technical analysis. You mark out support levels you expect the asset to reach, then use a limit order set well in advance to execute the buy automatically once it gets there.

Bitcoin and Ethereum DCA Simulation: Buying the 2022 Bear Market Low, Selling at Mid-2025 Prices

This simulation deliberately uses a bear-market period, the year Bitcoin fell more than 65% from its peak and FTX collapsed, so the proof actually holds up for anyone whose portfolio is sitting in the red right now.

2022 was a brutal crypto bear market. Bitcoin opened the year around $47,000, dropped to $17,708 by June, then hit its intra-year low of $15,549 in November 2022 after the FTX exchange collapsed (CoinMarketCap). Ethereum opened around $3,783, fell to about $2,500 within the first week of January 2022, then kept sliding through the year to close at $1,203.21 by the end of December 2022.

This simulation assumes monthly buys from January through December 2022, with the portfolio valued at the end of June 2025, when Bitcoin was trading around $107,327 and Ethereum around $2,524.

Bitcoin DCA Simulation, $130 a Month (Jan-Dec 2022)

We’re presenting this in USD to skip the currency-conversion noise from IDR/USD swings across 2022. Total capital over 12 months: $1,560. Prices used are the closing price at the end of each month (CoinMarketCap data).

Month	BTC Price (Close, USD)	Cumulative BTC Bought
Jan 2022	$38,483.13	0.00338 BTC
Feb 2022	$43,193.23	0.00639 BTC
Mar 2022	$45,538.68	0.00924 BTC
Apr 2022	$37,714.88	0.01269 BTC
May 2022	$31,792.31	0.01678 BTC
Jun 2022	$19,784.73	0.02335 BTC
Jul 2022	$23,336.90	0.02892 BTC
Aug 2022	$20,049.76	0.03540 BTC
Sep 2022	$19,431.79	0.04209 BTC
Oct 2022	$20,495.77	0.04844 BTC
Nov 2022	$17,168.57	0.05601 BTC
Dec 2022	$16,547.50	0.06386 BTC
Total	Average cost: $24,426.60	0.06386 BTC

BTC simulation result. Portfolio value at the end of June 2025 (BTC around $107,327): 0.06386 BTC × $107,327 ≈ $6,854.42. Gain over the $1,560 invested: +$5,294.42, or roughly +339%.

Your average cost ($24,426.60) is about 12% lower than the simple average of the 12 monthly prices ($27,794.77). That gap is the same DCA mechanism explained earlier, not a random number.

Ethereum DCA Simulation, $65 a Month (Jan-Dec 2022)

Same proportion as Bitcoin (half the monthly BTC amount). Total capital over 12 months: $780. Prices used are the closing price at the end of each month (CoinLore, accessed August 6, 2026), same approach as the Bitcoin table above.

Month	ETH Price (Close, USD)	Cumulative ETH Bought
Jan 2022	$2,688	0.02418 ETH
Feb 2022	$2,915	0.04648 ETH
Mar 2022	$3,280	0.06630 ETH
Apr 2022	$2,789	0.08960 ETH
May 2022	$1,945	0.12302 ETH
Jun 2022	$1,069	0.18383 ETH
Jul 2022	$1,681	0.22249 ETH
Aug 2022	$1,554	0.26432 ETH
Sep 2022	$1,328	0.31327 ETH
Oct 2022	$1,573	0.35459 ETH
Nov 2022	$1,294	0.40484 ETH
Dec 2022	$1,196	0.45918 ETH
Total	Average cost: $1,698.68	0.45918 ETH

ETH simulation result. Portfolio value at the end of June 2025 (ETH around $2,524): 0.45918 ETH × $2,524 ≈ $1,158.97. Gain over the $780 invested: +$378.97, or roughly +49%.

Your average cost ($1,698.68) is about 12.6% lower than the simple average of the 12 monthly prices ($1,942.67), the same pattern as the Bitcoin table. Ethereum’s result is far smaller than Bitcoin’s (+49% vs. +339%), because by the end of June 2025 ETH was still well below its previous cycle high, while BTC had already broken into new record territory. The two assets recovered from the same 2022 low at very different speeds.

DCA vs. Lump Sum Investing Over the Same Period

This comparison answers the question that matters most: does DCA actually help when the market is falling? The example below also shows how it helps you avoid a much steeper loss.

Illustration using the same round numbers as before. $500 in capital, with BTC moving from $50,000 to $32,000.

Lump sum in month one: $500 ÷ $50,000 = 0.01000 BTC. Final value: 0.01000 × $32,000 = $320, a loss of 36%.

Five-month DCA: 0.01453 BTC. Final value $465, a loss of 7%.

That is a 29-point gap. Both positions lost money, but one lost far more than the other.

Aspect	DCA	Lump Sum
Average cost	Lower than the market average	Locked to a single price
Timing risk	Spread across many price points	Concentrated in a single day
Outcome in a falling market	Smaller loss, more units accumulated	Loss tracks the full drop from your entry point
Outcome in a fast rising market	Lower, since part of your capital enters at higher prices	Higher, if your entry point was right
Capital required	Can start with a small amount per month	Needs a large amount upfront

For most retail investors saving from a monthly paycheck, DCA is almost always the more realistic choice. Not because it always returns more, but because a lump sum requires having a large amount of cash sitting idle and being able to reliably call the exact bottom, two conditions that rarely line up at the same time.

Why the 2022 Simulation Proves DCA Works in a Bear Market

Investors buying Bitcoin every month through 2022 had no idea at the time that the price would recover to $100,000 by 2026. And this was despite red numbers every single month, from $47,000 in January to $15,549 by November, on top of headlines about FTX collapsing and “crypto is dead” takes everywhere.

That is exactly why this simulation is more convincing than one built on a bull market: the result proves the DCA mechanism works even with zero certainty about crypto’s future.

Context worth having for where you are right now: crypto bear markets have historically lasted somewhere between nine and 18 months, with a median of 12 months. Bitcoin’s bottom typically lands in the fourth quarter, October through December, of a bear-market year.

What is certain, though, is that investors who stuck it out through a bear-market year ended up with a far better average cost than those who waited for certainty first. For a deeper look at where the current cycle stands, read Bitcoin Bear Market Bottom Analysis 2026 on Pintu Academy.

When DCA Is Not the Right Strategy for You

DCA does not fix a bad asset choice. Buying a token on a schedule that never recovers just means you lose money gradually instead of all at once. A falling average cost means nothing if the asset itself has no real reason to bounce back.

DCA is not optimal if you are confident the market has bottomed and you have a large amount of capital ready. Mathematically, a lump sum at the true bottom beats DCA. The problem is that this kind of confidence is rarely right consistently, and the cost of being wrong is high.

If your portfolio is under pressure right now and you want a broader look at managing that risk, read 5 Must-Do Strategies for Bear Market Investors on Pintu Academy.

How to Choose an Asset for DCA

Since DCA runs for years, a bad asset pick compounds the same way a good one does. Four things worth checking:

Track record: How long has this asset been around, and how many market cycles has it been through? An asset that has never made it through a bear market has not proven it can make it to the next bull market.
Liquidity: Check its daily trading volume. An asset with thin volume is hard to sell at a fair price when you actually need to exit.
Project fundamentals: What does the project actually do? Is its user base still growing? What about the development team and the token itself?
Ownership concentration: If most of the supply sits with a handful of investors, the price can be moved unilaterally.

Red flags worth avoiding: promises of high returns with no risk, a product that isn’t growing and has barely any users, a team with no clear identity, official documents that make claims without technical explanation, and promotion that leans on a well-known name outside the project’s official channels.

For the Indonesian context specifically, make sure the asset you pick is listed and traded on an exchange supervised by the relevant regulator. Crypto asset trading in Indonesia falls under the supervision of OJK (Indonesia’s financial services regulator), and the list of assets allowed to trade is officially regulated.

You can read the Complete Guide to Crypto Asset Regulation in Indonesia on Pintu Academy.

Automate Your Crypto DCA with Pintu’s Auto DCA

DCA’s biggest problem is not the concept, it is staying consistent. Buying manually every month means every month is a fresh chance to put it off, and in a falling market, the urge to put it off is strongest.

Pintu’s Auto DCA feature, also called Nabung Rutin (Recurring Savings), runs automatic purchases at a fixed amount on whatever schedule you set, from daily to monthly. There is also Auto DCA Multiple Assets, which splits one amount across several assets at once, for example allocating 70% to BTC and 30% to ETH from a set monthly budget.

To turn it on:

Open the Pintu app and go to Auto DCA (or Nabung Rutin).
Select Create New Recurring Buy, then choose the asset you want to accumulate.
Enter the purchase amount and set the schedule.
Confirm, and purchases will run automatically on schedule.

Conclusion

If you have been running crypto DCA since before the market turned, and the money is genuinely long-term, spare capital, keep going. Stopping now means you absorb every expensive purchase without getting any benefit from the cheap prices currently available. That is the worst combination of both sides.

If you have not started and are on the fence, start with an amount that would still feel manageable after 24 months of no positive result. For most beginner investors, a reasonable cap is 5% to 10% of total savings allocated to crypto, not because that number is magic, but because Bitcoin has fallen more than 50% from its peak at least three times since 2018, including an 84% drop in 2018 and roughly a 75% drop in 2022 (Yahoo Finance/TheStreet, accessed August 7, 2026), and you need to be able to sit through a drop like that without touching money you actually need.

And if the money you are planning to DCA is actually money you will need within the next year, the answer is not a smaller DCA amount. The answer is do not put it into crypto yet.

FAQ

Is dollar-cost averaging still worth it in a crypto bear market?

DCA will not make your portfolio profitable while the asset’s price is falling. What it does is lower your average cost, so your losses are far smaller than if you had put everything in at the start, and you are in a much better position once the market eventually recovers. This article’s 2022-to-mid-2025 simulation uses real data from a period when Bitcoin fell more than 65% from its peak to prove this, not an illustrative scenario.

What’s the minimum amount to start DCA on Pintu?

The minimum amount to start DCA on Pintu is Rp11,000 per transaction. You can use either the Auto DCA feature or multi-asset DCA, as long as each individual DCA transaction is worth at least Rp11,000.

Should I DCA daily, weekly, or monthly?

The difference in results between frequencies is usually small compared to the effect of consistency. Pick whichever fits your income cycle, because a frequency you can actually sustain for years beats one that is theoretically optimal but that you abandon by month four.

How is crypto DCA different from a regular savings plan?

The mechanism is the same: setting aside a fixed amount at regular intervals. The difference is that the asset you accumulate through crypto DCA fluctuates in price, so the number of units you get changes every period, while money in a bank savings account holds its value.

Is DCA better than investing a lump sum?

It depends on which way the market moves after you get in. A lump sum wins if the price rises right after your entry, DCA wins if the price falls first. Since nobody can know that in advance, DCA is the safer choice for most investors.

What crypto assets are good for DCA?

Assets with a long track record, high liquidity, and fundamentals you can actually verify. The full criteria are in the asset-selection section of this article.

Start automating your crypto DCA with Pintu’s Auto DCA feature, so you never have to remember to buy manually every month.

Disclaimer

This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Crypto asset prices are volatile and subject to change. Always do your own research (DYOR) before investing.