@jjg...dude, it was all in my original post.
You were referring to 2014 to now and my simple answer is this:
you are talking about investing (dcaing) $47K (nine years) during that period to accumulate 45 btc.
I did not invest anything close to that particular number, but if I take my investments (unevenly spread from 2014-2023) as X and calculate from there, then, in proportion, I got 113-14 BTC accumulated (surely, the actual number is completely different because 47K is a random number as well).
113 is a much bigger number than 45, is it not?
I don't profess an investment acumen, mostly it is due to bulk purchase earlier than later.
People who bristle at mining have no clue about bitcoin. Bitcoin's heart is block validation via mining. Anything else, and it is NOT the same.
You still seem to be fighting the hypothetical... yet you are implying that whatever you did outperformed regular DCA by 150%... and if you are saying that you spent even less dollars, but you still accumulated 150% more BTC? I am having difficulties believing that.. or how it might be applied to normies to be able to accomplish the same (a replicable model).
Another thing, you know that the hypothetical does not allow you to spend more than $5,200 per year because you would not have it.. so if you are giving yourself a higher budget in the beginning, then the DCA would have similar abilities.
mining vs dcaing part is just a cherry on top.
Still not generally applicable.. just like AverageGlabella mentioned it is capital intensive.. but also there is a need to have time, skills and inclinations to do that... Saying to mine seems off topic, a distraction and moving the goal posts as I already mentioned.
TL;DR dca=average return, buying at the lows OR early (in bitcoin)=better return and if you think that you cannot put yourself to buying at the lows, then do some mining, for crying out loud.
People who bristle at mining have no clue about bitcoin. Bitcoin's heart is block validation via mining. Anything else, and it is NOT the same.
No one is saying that you will make a killing from DCAing.
In some sense, we may well be talking past each other.. because I am not even suggesting that anyone coming into bitcoin might not advance his/her skills and get to know himself/herself along the way in order to tailor his/her approach to how s/he invests into bitcoin.
To the extent that you are squirming around and changing the facts, it's like we are talking about two different kinds of people. Frequently, I am referring to how any newbie might get into bitcoin and get off zero.. so where do you start? You start by starting to buy a small amount on a regular basis and then figuring out your particulars, and so if you are able to get all your shit in order, then you can move onto more advanced approaches to BTC accumulation.
You have way more flexibility once you have accumulated BTC and your BTC are in profits... and the longer that you are in, you are going to tailor a whole bunch of techniques.. Where do you start? How do you start accumulating BTC? You say that you have to make an assessment and figure out when you are going to get in? Is that what you are saying?
Another thing is that each person should be competing against himself/herself in terms of figuring out a BTC accumulation/investment strategy that works for him/her in terms of balancing financial and psychological matters.. and then figuring out investment targets, so starting out with a BTC accumulation target that might fall somewhere in the arena in which 1% to 25% would be allocated to bitcoin as compared to their whole investment portfolio would be a good start and the more aggressive would gravitate towards the higher end of the range and the less aggressive might just get somewhere in the lower end of the range to be happy with where they are at, but the devil is in the details regarding how they might apply the situation, and how long it might take them to go from zero% in bitcoin to their target amount...
I said for me it took a year to get to about a 10% allocation into bitcoin (between late 2013 and late 2014), but then in my second year I had gotten to about 13.5% (towards the end of 2015), which I considered to have had been about 3.5% overallocated.. even though I rolled with how the matter was playing out for me, and adjusted my BTC portfolio management strategies based on where I had gotten in comparison to where I had intended to get, so based upon such allocation that thereafter was affected by BTC price performance that mostly went up from there, I had to thereafter come up with BTC portfolio management strategies to figure out how to deal with my having had caused myself to have had become overallocated in BTC and to largely retain such ongoing overallocation.. which has been a personalized BTC portfolio dynamic that has continued to affect my bitcoin investment approach.. in terms of continuing to let the winners ride.. but at the same time feeling o.k. to shave off profits at almost any time too... but I surely am not expecting others to either start in the same position as me or to even be able to reach their target BTC accumulation levels in a similar short period of time as me.. even though surely there are people who end up allocating into bitcoin much quicker than me, so that could end up affecting them in positive or negative ways, in part based on if they end up in profits or not.. and if so how much in profits.. and then managing such profits, if they have them... or riding through the volatility if they are not in profits for relatively extended periods of time.
Nonetheless the vast majority of normies do not have lump sums that they can front load into any investment (BTC or otherwise), and that is part of the reasons why DCAing tends to work well for normies to build an investment position, and it may well take them 10 years or longer to build a decently sized investment portfolio, whether their investments pay off well or not, in the beginning years of their investment, they may still be building the amount that they are able to invest in order to have more options that come from having had built a larger investment portfolio.. which tends to take many years rather than just being available for most normies.