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.
Yeah, you've just nailed the core of it. I don't think there is anyone capable of accurately predicting the short term price/move of Bitcoin, and over and over again, history has proven that attempting to predict or time the market could potentially turn out to have disastrous aftereffects. Those who mostly ends up with the strongest portfolios are mostly those folks who continuously keep stacking those sats, regardless of the fact that they often overpaid sometimes or missed out on some pretty cool entry points.
Even in a situation where an individual decides to frontload their investment and their cost basis looks higher for a while, there's every possibility that it will eventually balance out in the long run if they only stay consistent. Some folks feels like paying a little more per coin is risky, but It's much of a bigger risk to miss buying or hold back your funds, simply because you're looking for the best entry points. And considering how things played out with bitcoin price consolidation earlier this year, then surpassing $100k and holding, it proves how narratives changes quickly. Just imagine someone stopped buying in January, simply because they're waiting for the price to go a lot more lower, They'd probably still be waiting till now, Lol.
To me, the real edge, both for new and old investors remains persistence and consistency, because these attributes beats cleverness. It's a lot more preferable for me to have more BTC at a slightly bad average cost, than have fewer Bitcoin while waiting around for a perfect time that eventually won't come. Bitcoin is a long term game and requires one with a long term outlook to really reap the benefits of Bitcoin and reach their financial goals easily without much stress. Just stay consistent in your accumulation without minding the temporary movements of the market, it's just as simple as that.