Long-term thinking · Investing notes/Edited by Chen Mo/Updated monthly
A dollar-cost averaging notebook written for ordinary people. No price calls, no return promises, no guessing tomorrow's price — just how to use DCA and compounding to thicken your assets over many years, while still sleeping at night.
Register with Manfu's Binance invite code for a trading fee discount*.
* Whether a discount applies, and how much, is whatever Binance's sign-up page and your account fee page show · Disclosure · Investing carries risk; this is not investment advice
Editor's pick · read this before opening an account
How an ordinary person starts: opening an account, your first buy, and automation
Which platform to pick, the security settings you shouldn't skip after signing up, how big a first buy should be, and how to switch on a weekly auto-buy — step 0 through step 5.
Not sure yet? Start with the Complete DCA Guide · or play with the backtest calculator
The most common way to lose money in crypto is to pile in at the most expensive moment and bail out at the cheapest. Dollar-cost averaging starts from the opposite place: admitting you can't predict prices.
DCA is built for ordinary people who are honest enough to say they aren't geniuses. It gives up the fantasy of buying the bottom and selling the top, and in exchange you get the calm of not watching charts all day, and a decision handed to discipline instead of emotion. This site is a record of that method itself — and of the potholes people most often step in along the way.
If you had put $200 a month into bitcoin from the start of 2021 — no timing, no skipping…
Figures are approximated from bitcoin's public monthly closing prices. This stretch also included the 2022 crash in price — the account was underwater for a while, and that's exactly what DCA asks you to sit through. Past performance does not indicate future results. Plug in your own amount and start date and run it yourself →
Buying bottoms and selling tops is a delusion only a few ever live. DCA drops the prediction game and hands your buying over to a fixed rule — you don't need to be right about the market, you only need to not get off the train.
What usually decides the outcome isn't how low you bought, but how long you stayed in. Compounding is a quiet machine — as long as you keep it running.
Set up automatic buys, then go live your life. No daily chart-watching, no anxiety over every move — this is the most underrated benefit of DCA.
What DCA is, why it works, how to set up automatic buys, how much to invest and for how long — the whole method in one piece, ready to act on by the time you finish.
Using real historical data to show why "staying invested" decides the outcome more than "buying the dip."
Which slice of your spare money should this be? Should you take profit? How do you stay calm in a crash? This covers the genuinely hard part of DCA.
No mysticism, just the practical steps: choosing a platform, what to watch when you sign up, how to set up a weekly auto-buy, and how small your first buy should be so it doesn't sting.
Don't size it down from "how much I want to make" — size it up from your cash flow. A formula that won't force you to quit.
An unrealised loss is built into DCA, not a failure. How to tell "the account is red" apart from "the method is wrong."
DCA is the accumulation phase, but the money is meant to be spent. Three sound ways to take profit, and why you shouldn't sell on a gut feeling.
Afraid of chasing highs, afraid of missing out. DCA already gives up timing, so a bull market just means you buy less per dollar — but there's one thing you must never do.
Value averaging sounds cleverer — but is it really right for ordinary people? The honest cost, and an honest conclusion.
Same method — so where does crypto differ from traditional assets? Volatility, correlation, regulation and custody, across four dimensions.
Does frequency actually change the outcome? The data answers, and why "what you can stick to" matters more than "what's optimal."
Academic research says lump sum has the higher expected return, so why do I still recommend DCA for most people?
When the account is a sea of red, the hardest part of DCA isn't technical — it's psychological. How to coexist with fear.
Pausing the plan, chasing rallies, checking constantly, using leverage, investing money you can't afford to lose — each one has a cost, and each one has a fix.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, or a basket? The logic behind choosing what to buy, and why "less is more."
An invite code is entered once at sign-up and can't be changed afterwards. What it actually saves a long-term DCA investor.
Roughly where the feature lives, which choices you'll make, and what happens once it's set. Hand the discipline over to the system.
No comparing on dimensions that don't concern you — just a framework you can apply yourself.
Cost is one of the few variables a DCA investor can control. The mechanics, plus a method for keeping it down.
The halving is coming, tempted to ambush the bottom? How to use the four-year cycle, and why the point of DCA is exactly that you don't time it.
A valuation ratio quoted all over the data sites, which taken apart is just two rulers multiplied together. Where the formula and the zones came from, and why it is a tool for understanding rather than a licence to time.
On one side, Binance Convert Recurring buying on a schedule; on the other, fund shares bought through a broker. Where the fees sit, when trades can fill and what happens when a plan breaks, laid side by side from the official pages.
Tally six DCA buys at assumed prices to see the smile curve turn: break-even is your average cost. At 80, the buy at 100 is down 20%, the account up 33.33%.
Buying bitcoin on one fixed weekday, the best and worst days differ by just 0.48% to 1.23% in BTC per dollar. Thursday led since 2017, Saturday over 5 years.
Enter an amount and a start date, and see what DCA would have done using real historical prices. More vivid than ten articles.
Open tool →Put a fixed sum in each month — what does it grow into across different annual rates and time horizons? See compounding's "late-stage acceleration."
Open tool →Before your first buy, tick off what you need to settle: amount, frequency, profit-taking discipline, the spare-money line.
Open tool →Where are we in the four-year cycle now, and what happened around past halvings? Read it as a historical reference, not a forecast.
Open tool →The first step in DCA is simply having an account that can buy automatically. Register on Binance with Manfu's invite code BN1516 for a trading fee discount* (the rate is whatever Binance shows); Binance lets you set up an automatic DCA plan. Read the guide first, and only start once the method feels right for you — there's no rush.
Disclosure: if you enter this site's Binance invite code BN1516 when you register, Manfu may receive a referral fee, and you pay nothing extra for it. Investing carries risk; everything here is education and method-sharing, not investment advice.