What if you invested $50 a month in Bitcoin from 2016?
Money left sitting in a bank account quietly loses ground year after year. This is that same money, moved on a plain schedule instead: $50 every month from 1 January 2016 to November 11, 2026 stacks 1.79 BTC (178,865,609 sats), and the stack is worth $131,796 at the latest close.
That is 20.1x the money put in (+1,912%), from 131 buys of $50. The latest close in the series is $73,684 on November 11, 2026.
Orange: what the stack was worth. Grey: money put in so far.
Year by year
| Year | Invested | Bitcoin bought | Value at year end |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | $600 | 1.15 BTC | $1,116 |
| 2017 | $600 | 0.3150 BTC | $20,268 |
| 2018 | $600 | 0.0823 BTC | $5,702 |
| 2019 | $600 | 0.1009 BTC | $11,789 |
| 2020 | $600 | 0.0611 BTC | $49,466 |
| 2021 | $600 | 0.0138 BTC | $79,487 |
| 2022 | $600 | 0.0227 BTC | $28,809 |
| 2023 | $600 | 0.0224 BTC | $74,647 |
| 2024 | $600 | 0.0099 BTC | $165,712 |
| 2025 | $600 | 0.0060 BTC | $155,843 |
| 2026 (so far) | $550 | 0.0076 BTC | $131,796 |
What this shows a saver
This plan made 131 buys and needed no decision after the first one. The average buy price across the whole run was $3,662, against a latest close of $73,684. Nobody picking dates by hand buys at the average; a fixed schedule is how a saver actually ends up there.
The weak years are part of the record, not a footnote. At the end of 2016 the stack was worth $1,116 on $600 put in, the softest year-end of the run. By the end of 2024 it was worth $165,712 on $5,400 put in. The plan did not change between those two lines. The price did, and the schedule kept buying through both.
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More replays of this plan
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Other plans from 2016
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How this replay works
Replayed on daily Bitcoin prices (source: Coinbase, via btcdollarcostaverage.com) from 1 January 2016. The first available price buys immediately; after that, buys land on the 1st of each month. No fees, spread or taxes are included, and a real purchase costs a little more than the simulation.
This page replays past prices. It does not buy, sell or hold Bitcoin, and it cannot know future prices. Education only, not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results.