Bitcoin DCA Projection Calculator
Project a Bitcoin DCA plan forward under any market view.
How to use this calculator
- Contribution amount — the fixed amount you plan to invest in each buy, in USD or EUR.
- Frequency — how often you’ll buy: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
- Time frame — how long you’ll keep the schedule running.
- What do you expect from Bitcoin? — your directional view of Bitcoin’s price at the end of your time frame.
- Target Bitcoin price — the price you expect BTC to hit by the end of your time frame.
- Price evolution scenario — the price path from today’s level to your target.
How to read the output
- Projected value — what your accumulated BTC would be worth if Bitcoin reaches your target price on schedule.
- Profit/loss and ROI — projected value minus total contributions, in dollars and as a percentage.
- Total invested — the sum of every planned contribution over your time frame.
- Bitcoin accumulated — the BTC you’d stack across all buys.
- Average cost per BTC — the effective price paid per coin across the whole plan.
- Lump-sum comparison — what your full budget would be worth at the target if invested all at once today.
Why the scenario matters
Two plans can end at the same target price and produce very different stacks. What separates them is the route the price takes while you’re still buying. The expectation you pick changes the available scenarios. The underlying principle stays constant: the scenario controls how many coins you stack, while your target sets what those coins are worth at the end.
Inside a Growth view, the route between today’s price and your target shapes the stack you end with:
- Late surge — price stays low for most of the schedule, then rallies. You accumulate cheap coins for years, and the move to your target happens after most of your buying is done.
- Early rally — price runs up quickly. Most contributions buy expensive coins. Same target, same budget, smaller stack.
- Dip, then rally — a 35% drawdown that bottoms a third of the way through. Buys made below today’s price lower your average cost, and those coins are all repriced at the target by the end.
Inside a Sideways view, the price ends where it started. The journey still shapes your cost basis:
- Choppy sideways — drifts flat with chop. Average lands close to today’s price.
- Trough, then back — drops 35% early before recovering. DCA buys the dip and lowers its average.
- Peak, then back — a 35% rally that fades. DCA accumulates expensive coins before the retrace.
Inside a Decline view, the scenario shapes determine where in the fall most of your buying happens:
- Steady decline — spreads the loss evenly across the schedule.
- Late crash — keeps the price high for most of your buys before dropping. Most buys happen near the top.
- Early crash — drops fast then flattens at the low. Most buys happen at the bottom.
- Bounce, then crash — a 35% bull-trap rally before the fall, mimicking the late stage of a market top.
Every smooth scenario layers light week-to-week noise on top of its underlying curve, so the chart behaves more like a market and less like a textbook. The chop is deterministic (the same inputs always render the same curve) and tapers to zero at the endpoints, so the line still lands exactly on your target.
Historical pulls the most recent stretch of real BTC daily closes, as many days as your time frame, and rescales them to start at today’s price and finish at your target. The dips, the bull runs, and the chop are all real. Only the endpoints are enforced. Treat it as a stress test against history, not as a prediction of the next cycle.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between this and the Bitcoin DCA calculator?
The Bitcoin DCA calculator simulates the past: what a schedule would have returned using real historical prices. This tool projects forward: you define a target price and a scenario, and it models what your plan would produce if that scenario plays out.Why does the scenario change my result if the target is the same?
Each contribution buys BTC at the price in effect that day. A path that stays low for longer lets more of your contributions buy cheap coins, so you end with more BTC, and the entire stack is valued at the target price at the end. The destination sets the final price; the route sets how many coins you hold when you arrive.Which scenario should I choose?
Run your plan through several. Within Growth, the early rally is the most conservative: it prices most of your buys near the target. If your plan still looks acceptable under that scenario, it doesn't depend on buying cheap coins that may never be available. Within Decline, the inverse is true: the early crash is the most punitive, because most of your buys happen before prices fall. Across all three views, the historical scenario is the most realistic, with its shape taken from actual BTC history rather than a stylized curve.What does the historical scenario use?
It takes the most recent stretch of real BTC daily closes (the same number of days as your time frame) and rescales the curve so it starts at today's price and lands exactly on your target. The shape, the dips, and the chop come from actual market behaviour; the endpoints come from you. A four-year plan pulls four years of history; a one-year plan pulls one year.Is a price drop good or bad for a DCA plan?
Bad if it's permanent, good if it recovers. Contributions made below today's price lower your average cost, and if the price later reaches your target, those discounted coins produce the largest gains in the plan. The Dip, then rally scenario inside Growth quantifies exactly that effect; the Trough, then back scenario inside Sideways isolates the same dynamic at a flat target.How realistic are these projections?
They're deterministic scenarios, not forecasts. The smooth scenarios trace a defined curve with light week-to-week chop layered on top, so the line behaves more like a market than a textbook, but the result is still reproducible from the same inputs. The historical scenario uses actual BTC price patterns. The projection excludes exchange fees and taxes. Use the results to compare plans and stress-test assumptions, not to predict an outcome.What target price should I use for Bitcoin?
We don't recommend one. The presets express targets as percentage moves from today's price, so you can frame any view symmetrically: +25% / +50% / +75% under Growth, the matching negatives under Decline. Custom lets you enter any number, including aggressive multiples for a strong bull case. Testing a modest target and an aggressive one against the same contribution schedule tells you more than any single number.Would a lump sum beat my DCA plan?
Depends on the view. In a monotonic rally, yes. A lump sum buys the entire stack at today's price and captures the full move. In Sideways and Decline views, DCA usually wins, because spreading the entry means some of your buys land below today's price, lowering your average cost. The breakdown shows the lump-sum-today comparison for your exact inputs, so the trade-off is visible at a glance.Can I model a falling or flat Bitcoin price?
Yes. The expectation switch at the top of the calculator has three options (Growth, Sideways, and Decline), and the target presets and scenarios swap to match. Sideways locks the target at today's price; Decline offers −25%, −50%, and −75% presets plus Custom. The projection stays honest in every direction.What's the difference between the expectation options?
Each option reframes the same calculation around a different view. Growth covers targets above today's price (+25%, +50%, +75%, or Custom). Sideways assumes the price ends roughly where it starts and lets you test cycle shapes that fade (peaks that retrace, troughs that recover). Decline covers targets below today's price and offers scenarios like a steady decline, a late crash, or a bounce that fails. Switching options never changes your contribution or time frame; it only changes how the price is assumed to evolve.