Bitcoin DCA Calculator: What $100/Week Since 2020 Would Be Worth Today

Three real starting points, side by side

All three assume a flat $100 bought every week without interruption, priced at each week's close. The comparison column shows what the exact same total dollars would be worth if deployed as a single lump sum on day one instead — the trade-off explained in full in DCA vs. Lump Sum.

Why the 2022 starting point flips the result

In the Jan 2020 and Jan 2021 rows, lump sum wins by a wide margin — the same pattern explained in the DCA vs. lump sum guide: money deployed sooner has more time exposed to Bitcoin's long-term uptrend. But the Jan 2022 row flips: weekly DCA (+54%) beat lump sum (+34%).

That's because January 2022 was close to the top of the prior cycle — a lump sum bought everything at the worst price of the whole period, while DCA kept buying through the 2022 drawdown at progressively lower average prices. Lump sum has the better expected outcome in a trending market, but it's also the version with no protection against an unlucky entry point — which is exactly the scenario DCA is designed to blunt.

Try your own numbers

These three scenarios are fixed reference points — your actual amount, frequency, and start date will produce a different result. Alphabit's DCA Calculator runs the same calculation live against current price history, and signed-in users can also backtest Anchor Accumulate— a variant that buys more aggressively when Alphabit's Risk Score is low, instead of a flat amount every week.

Limitations

These are backward-looking results from one specific historical path, not a forecast — Bitcoin has had a strong long-term uptrend across the period shown, and a flat DCA schedule has no mechanism to avoid a future stretch where that isn't true. Figures also exclude exchange fees and any spread between quoted and executed price, both of which would modestly reduce real-world returns.

Frequently asked questions

What would $100 a week in Bitcoin since 2020 be worth?

Roughly $77,231. Investing $100 every week from January 2020 would have contributed $34,100 in total, for a return of about +126% using real historical prices current as of July 2026.

Would a lump sum have beaten weekly DCA since 2020?

By a wide margin. The same $34,100 invested as a single purchase in January 2020 would have been worth roughly $302,092, or +786%, against DCA's +126%. Almost all of that gap comes from capital being exposed to the 2020-2021 run from day one rather than trickling in across it.

Does DCA ever beat lump sum in Bitcoin?

Yes, when the starting point sits near a cycle top. Starting in January 2022, weekly DCA returned +54% against lump sum's +34% — the reverse of the 2020 and 2021 results, because DCA kept buying through the drawdown while the lump sum was fully committed at the high.

How does the starting date change DCA results?

It is the single biggest factor. From January 2020 DCA returned +126% and lump sum +786%; from January 2021, +52% against +117%; from January 2022, +54% against +34%. The strategy did not change across those three runs — only where in the cycle it began.

Do these DCA figures include fees?

No. The calculations use real historical closing prices and exclude exchange fees and the spread between quoted and executed price, both of which would modestly reduce real-world returns.

What is Anchor Accumulate?

A variant of DCA that keeps the schedule fixed but buys more aggressively when Alphabit's risk score reads low and less when it reads high, without ever selling. The DCA Calculator backtests it directly against plain weekly DCA so both sides are visible.