Buying bitcoin every month since 2014: what it would be worth today

Someone who bought $500 of bitcoin every month since 2014 would have put in $76,500 by the end of the data. It would be worth $4,384,198, about 57 times the money paid in. The same purchases of the S&P 500 would have grown to $210,620, or 2.8 times.

The bitcoin figure is staggering, but the road there went through falls of more than two thirds. We look at both.

How the investment grew

• Bitcoin
• S&P 500 (SPY)
• Paid in

2026

• Bitcoin$4,384,198
• S&P 500 (SPY)$210,620
• Paid in$76,500

Value at the end of each year; for the last year at the end of the data (September 2026). Source: Tiingo, our calculation.

The road went through deep falls

On month-end prices, bitcoin has fallen by half or more 3 times since 2014. The deepest fall was 73%, from the peak of October 2021 to the bottom of December 2022. Within the months the drops were deeper still; month-end prices do not show them.

Peak	Bottom	Fall	New high
January 2014	April 2015	−72%	December 2016
December 2017	January 2019	−73%	October 2020
October 2021	December 2022	−73%	March 2024

At the end of the data (September 2026) bitcoin was 28% below its high of July 2025.

Buying every month did not smooth the falls away. At the worst moment (January 2015) the investment was worth 47% less than the money put in. Anyone who sold then would have locked in a loss.

The start year matters

Much of the result comes from the early years, when bitcoin was cheap. Later starts ended with far smaller multiples, and 10 of the 12 starts dropped below the money paid in at least once along the way.

Start	Paid in	Value	Change	Worst below paid in
2014	$76,500	$4,384,198	+5,631%	−47%
2015	$70,500	$3,303,842	+4,586%	−6%
2016	$64,500	$1,417,564	+2,098%	–
2017	$58,500	$505,990	+765%	–
2018	$52,500	$269,654	+414%	−44%
2019	$46,500	$193,725	+317%	−3%
2020	$40,500	$114,489	+183%	−19%
2021	$34,500	$67,020	+94%	−51%
2022	$28,500	$55,918	+96%	−41%
2023	$22,500	$35,388	+57%	−3%
2024	$16,500	$18,085	+10%	−23%
2025	$10,500	$10,369	-1%	−33%

The weakest result belongs to the start in 2025 (-1%). The later someone started, the less time the investment had to recover from the falls.

Every month or all at once

Putting the whole $76,500 in during the first month would have grown to $7,990,579. The lump sum won because the first purchase came at one of the lowest prices in the data. Buying every month is not meant to give the highest return. It protects you from putting everything in just before a big fall, and you can pay for it out of your regular income.

What to take from it

• The past need not repeat. The result is driven mostly by the years when bitcoin was a small, cheap asset. That says little about how it will grow from here.
• You can lose a lot, or all of it. Bitcoin has no issuer or earnings behind its price, only what buyers will pay. It has already lost more than two thirds of its value more than once, and nothing guarantees it will recover the next time.
• Fees and taxes. They are left out. Exchanges charge a fee on every purchase, and gains on crypto are taxable.
• This is not a recommendation. The article shows what would have happened in the past, not what will happen.

See also: Lump sum or dollar-cost averaging?

Pick another period, amount or fee in the DCA calculator. It also compares bitcoin with S&P 500 and world stock ETFs or with gold.