Crypto’s favorite buy-the-dip strategy failed to make money for Ethereum and Cardano investors who stuck with it since the start of 2022.
An investor who placed $100 into Ethereum every month from January 2022 through August 2026 would have contributed $5,600 but ended up with about $4,898, a 12.5% loss, CryptoRank data showed. The same strategy applied to Cardano would have left just $2,616, representing a 53.3% loss.
Elsewhere, the results were far stronger. The $5,600 invested in Tron's TRX token would have grown to $16,521, a 195% return. Bitcoin would have produced $8,660, XRP $8,465, and Solana $8,025, leaving all three with gains of more than 40%.
The differences show how dollar-cost averaging, or DCA, can soften poor entry prices without guaranteeing a profit. Buying a fixed amount regularly allowed investors to accumulate more tokens during downturns, but the outcome still depended on how strongly each asset recovered.
2024 rally created most of the gains before the reversal
The strongest returns from the strategy were built during the 2024 crypto rally, when portfolios accumulated through the previous two years surged in value.
By the end of 2024, the hypothetical Solana portfolio had reached $17,728, while XRP stood at $14,345, Bitcoin at $10,193 and Cardano at $7,251.
That rally coincided with a major expansion of institutional access to crypto. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products in January and spot Ethereum products in May, giving investors regulated vehicles for gaining exposure to the two largest digital assets.
The rally further accelerated after Donald Trump won the November 2024 presidential election. Trump had campaigned on making the US a global crypto hub, building a national Bitcoin stockpile and replacing SEC Chair Gary Gensler, whose enforcement-heavy approach had drawn years of criticism from the industry.
Following his electoral victory, Bitcoin reached repeated record highs as traders bet on a more favorable regulatory environment, while ETF inflows also accelerated.
Trump has since followed through on parts of that agenda. His administration established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and US Digital Asset Stockpile, while he signed the GENIUS Act, creating a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins.
The subsequent market downturn, however, erased much of the wealth those recurring buyers had accumulated.
Solana's portfolio fell from $17,728 at the end of 2024 to $8,025 by August 2026, wiping out $9,703, or nearly 55%, even as the investor continued adding $100 every month.
XRP dropped by $5,880 from its 2024 level to $8,465, while Cardano surrendered $4,635 to finish at just $2,616. In Cardano's case, the reversal was severe enough to turn what had been a profitable position at the end of 2024 into a 53.3% loss on the full $5,600 invested by August 2026.
Bitcoin proved more resilient. Its portfolio rose further to about $10,800 in 2025 before retreating to $8,660 this year. Ethereum followed a similar path, reaching $6,501 in 2025 before falling to $4,898, below the investor's cumulative contributions.
The retreat has also reduced the value of assets held by US crypto ETFs. SoSoValue data shows the market has fallen from more than $123 billion during its expansion to roughly $92 billion as crypto prices declined. Bitcoin ETFs alone now hold about $78.3 billion, while Ethereum products hold roughly $10.6 billion.
TRX was the clear exception. Its DCA portfolio increased at every annual snapshot, climbing from $1,000 in 2022 to $3,679 in 2023, $11,032 in 2024, $13,723 in 2025 and $16,521 by August 2026.
DCA softened crashes but also diluted winning trades
Even the losing Ethereum and Cardano portfolios show how recurring purchases reduced the damage from entering the market near the beginning of 2022.
Ethereum traded around $3,770 at the start of that year and near $1,900 in early August 2026, leaving the token roughly 50% lower. The hypothetical DCA portfolio, however, lost only 12.5% because later purchases were made at considerably lower prices.
Cardano produced a similar result. ADA fell about 85% from roughly $1.38 to $0.20 over the period, while the recurring investment lost 53.3%. Buying through the decline lowered the investor's average cost, although not enough to return the position to profit.
Meanwhile, Solana shows how powerful that effect can be when an asset stages a strong recovery.
SOL remained about 59% below its early-2022 price of $170 by August 2026, yet the monthly investment was still up 43.3%.
This is because buyers who continued purchasing through its post-FTX collapse, when it traded below $10, accumulated far more tokens before the subsequent rebound.
However, TRX demonstrated the other side of the strategy. The token climbed from roughly $0.075 at the beginning of 2022 to about $0.33 by August, a gain of more than 300%, while the DCA portfolio returned 195%.
Because each successive $100 purchase bought fewer tokens as TRX appreciated, recurring purchases captured less upside than deploying the same capital earlier would have.
The results show that DCA was most effective when prices collapsed and later recovered strongly. It reduced losses in Ethereum and Cardano and transformed Solana's poor starting point into a profitable position, but it also limited the gains available from an asset such as TRX that rose relatively consistently throughout the period.
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