DCA vs. Lump Sum — the Historical Base Rate

All at once or spread out? Instead of an opinion, the distribution: across every historical 90-day entry window into Bitcoin (deploy over 90 days, hold 365), lump-sum beat dollar-cost-averaging in 60% of windows and delivered a higher median return — but with a deeper downside. DCA buys calmer nerves, not higher expected return.

Lump median return (BTC, W90/H365)

+52.6%

DCA median return (BTC, W90/H365)

+45.2%

Lump beat DCA

60% of windows

Downside (25th pct): lump vs DCA

−16.8% vs −8.8%

Lump-sum deploys all capital at entry; DCA spreads it in weekly tranches over the deploy window, then both hold to the horizon. Because markets rise on average, lump-sum captures the early upside DCA misses — so DCA has a lower median return. What DCA buys is a shallower drawdown distribution: its 25th-percentile outcome is far less negative. That is the honest trade-off — lower timing variance, not higher expected value.

You can also condition on the cycle regime at entry (cycle bottom, top, deep fear, euphoria). Those regimes occur only a few times per decade, so the conditioned view is a handful of episodes — an anecdote, not evidence, and it is labelled as such. Everything is computed look-ahead free from frozen point-in-time cycle scores; it is a base rate, never a recommendation.