Result
What this arithmetic hides
The simulator answers one honest question — what a rule would have done — and hides three dishonest ones. First, the closes are the last day of each month: a real plan buys on some day with a real spread, maybe on a Friday, maybe after a -20% week. Monthly data averages that luck out; your actual sequence will not be averaged out. Second, CAGR on a four-year-old position is flattering to the early buyer and brutal to the late one: from January 2025, the same $100 produced single-digit returns while the 2011 starter printed triple digits. The distribution of outcomes across start months is the honest number; any single start month is one draw from that bag. Third, drawdown here is computed on the mark-to-market stack, which is what a holder actually sees — but it is silent on the taxes, fees, exchange failures and withdrawals across a decade of buying, any of which can eat the spread between this page and your brokerage statement.
The lump-sum comparison is the part of the page most people skip. Buying the whole war chest on day one usually beat monthly buying in this asset, because the trend dominated the timing noise — but it required sizing the position at $0.05 or $60,000 with the same nerve, which is a behavioral question no simulator can price. If you cannot watch a lump sum halve, the DCA number on this page is the one that is actually yours.
FAQ
Which months exactly?
Contributions land on the last calendar day of each month, priced at that day's USD close; the stack is then valued at the November 2026 close. Start month includes its own close — buying in July 2010 means July 31 at $0.08.
Why not a live price?
Because this page is arithmetic, not a ticker. Prices ship as a static file, so the numbers you screenshot this month still reconcile next year. Updated monthly, with the compile date stamped on the page.
Does it account for fees, spreads, or lost exchanges?
No — zero fees, zero losses. Assume the real result lands somewhat below the stated value.
Where do the prices come from?
blockchain.info's full-history market-price dataset (a public ledger explorer), resampled to monthly closes on Nov 15, 2026. Earliest priced months before ~2010 carry thin-market noise.