Quote from: nestex_one on September 17, 2025, 07:12:11 AM

Quote from: Nightwatchmare on September 17, 2025, 06:29:12 AM

Quote from: nestex_one on September 16, 2025, 03:25:50 AM

So I did lump sum some time back, but personally I feel now (hindsight?) that splitting the same amount into a DCA would have been a more effective approach.
I bought in Nov '24, as a lumpsum. Then in Jan/Feb I was happy but in Feb we got a bit of a dip - right up until April.

Conversely if I'd done a small amount in Nov, then bought DCA below my last buy price I think I'd have made a bundle more.

You did a good thing by front loading your Bitcoin investment with a lump sum and shouldn't regret why you didn't split the money you used for lump sum into different parts and use it for DCAing, which would have given you the opportunity to buy the long dip that happened between February to April. As a newbie that's starting his Bitcoin investment, after you have front loaded your Bitcoin investment with a lump sum, you should have an ongoing DCA strategy so that you will be persistent and consistent in accumulate Bitcoin, and it will allow you to take advantage of the market and buy any dip that will occur.

Of course, I'm not saying it was a bad thing; I just felt that DCA would have given more value-per-$ that's all.

In future I'll probably split the lump sum into a smaller one-off + multiple DCAs. It's just a change of approach I guess; let's see what happens!

None of us has any fucking clue what the BTC price is going to do in the future, so if we front load our investment, we need to be prepared that the price might move against us.. and surely in the end, as long as we kept buying, then any error in our decision in January-ish of 2025 would have resolved itself with the BTC price returning back above $100k in May-ish and then so far mostly staying above $110k in July-ish.

If we are really thinking long term then it likely is not going to matter too much, and we may well end up making various mistakes along the way that causes our average cost per BTC to be higher, yet it still seems more important to gather more BTC and have higher costs rather than getting worked up about costs and then ending up with way fewer BTC, and there are quite a few examples in history in which the persistent BTC accumulators ended up out accumulating folks of similar (or even better finances) due to their persistence, consistency, regularity and even their aggressiveness in stacking through ongoing buying of BTC.

Quote from: 7juju on September 17, 2025, 02:14:41 PM

Quote from: nestex_one on September 17, 2025, 07:12:11 AM

Quote from: Nightwatchmare on September 17, 2025, 06:29:12 AM

~snip~

Of course, I'm not saying it was a bad thing; I just felt that DCA would have given more value-per-$ that's all.

In future I'll probably split the lump sum into a smaller one-off + multiple DCAs. It's just a change of approach I guess; let's see what happens!

We learn every day and we learn how to do things differently as we become more acquainted and conversant with the process and the methods involved. I believe when you started your accumulation journey, if someone had told you to buy your bitcoin with DCA you wouldn't have accepted. You wouldn't have seen the difference between dca and other methods back then, but now that you have learnt it on your own and saw how DCA have the edge over others methods, you will never forget this experience. Now if you have the opportunity to advise newbies in the future who are about starting their bitcoin accumulation journey, you will explain to them with full conviction why they should start accumulation with dca method, as you have had a first hand experience yourself.

Personally, I think that nestex did the right thing by lump sum buying to get some stake in the game.. yet there is still a matter of how much to lump sum, especially when the BTC price is moving up, which it has been largely doing since November 2022, and perhaps more so since October 2023..

I think that nestex's error was not holding any back money and not being being sufficiently financially and/or mentally prepared for the BTC price to go down rather than going up. He stocked too much mentality and finances into the BTC price going up, and maybe if he had not invested as much and the BTC price ended up going up versus down, then he would have also been upset with himself since he did not predict the direction of the BTC price.

In fact there is no winning with expecting too much in regards to the direction of the BTC price, which is part of the reason that when we are newbies, we likely have to spend somewhere close to a whole cycle just accumulating bitcoin ongoingly without thinking about the price. Get our cashflow management systems into a good state, and develop some strong habits, and reassess the building of our bitcoin stash from time to time, and yeah, in the first 4 years it might seem that it is taking a while to grow, but as long as our bitcoin stash is still growing, then we likely will end up putting ourselves into good places by the time we get one cycle and maybe even two cycles into it.. without fucking things up. Personally, I am not claiming that building an investment into bitcoin and also strengthening our own cashflow management systems and practices is easy, and we might not even start to have confidence in what we are doing until 1 or 2 cycles into the process of doing it ongoingly during that time..

Quote from: Theupdude on September 17, 2025, 02:31:41 PM

Quote from: SmartCharpa on September 16, 2025, 06:21:37 PM

[edited out]

I want to add more detail. The history of Bitcoin knows not only those who had long-term gains but also huge losses. Like individuals that had purchased in high in 2013 or 2017 lost over 80% before the price rose again. The advantage of DCA is that it purchases in small increments over numerous cycles and thus does not buy too early or too late.

Your suggestion that you need to have at least two halvings has been substantiated by data. Every halving alters both supply and demand and generally drives bitcoin to greater prices, although it may take a year or longer to manifest. During the low or bad times, people that panic sell often fail to get the huge profits. In fact, those who made the highest returns were those individuals who purchased at a low point in the market rather than at a time when the news was very good in the headlines.
However, the dangers should not be forgotten. Bitcoin is unpredictable and its functionality can be altered by rules, the rate at which people use it, or even a big economic jump. A long-term investor is supposed to invest only what he or she can hold on to in the years without having to dispose the investments when under strain.

Accordingly I agree that DCA and patience of at least one or two half cycles is effective, although good risk management and realistic expectations are required. Bitcoin rewards those who stick to it and it also punishes overconfident people.

You have a reasonable assessment Theupdude, even though I question your assessment that there is some value in trying to figure out the bottom, since anyone who bought bitcoin, even if they started at the top, had done quite well by remaining persistent in their buying, and many time guys have no fucking clue which way the BTC price is going to go.. which continues to be the case with bitcoin ongoingly growing and as you suggest, various network effects ongoingly growing.

By the way, you are only registered on the forum since April, so have you been accumulating bitcoin (and speaking from experience) longer than your forum registration, since it seems a bit more difficult to assess your own experience and your own plan from what you believe happened to others in the past, even though surely we can learn from others, and your emphasizing DCA seems to be heading in the right direction.. even though DCA might not completely fit the situation of everyone.. even though anyone can use it or supplement other strategies into a DCA plan/practice.