Bitcoin has been kind to me this year. Especially the last few months. It may not get me to early retirement this cycle, unless some of the uber moon boys are right about it hitting $250K-$400K next year. But it has made me a lot more comfortable than I was a year ago.

Like many, I first heard about Bitcoin back in 2017 during the peak of its bull run. I admit I really had no idea what it even was. I likened it to website credits or tokens you might win playing an online RPG like World of Warcraft.

I didn’t think about Bitcoin again for a few years until 2020 after the Covid crash. I bought my first in September, right when it was around $10K. I made regular buys thereafter before sinking in a sizable amount almost a year later following its initial peak in March, 2021. I saw my investment nearly double in a matter of months, before plummeting down hard the following year.

It was wrenching to watch my investment sink by almost 75%. But having watched Bitcoin rise and fall twice before in ’17 and ’21, there accompanied my dismay a slight reassurance in the fickle decentralized digital currency. I kept stacking sats, HODLed and hoped, until eventually it climbed back to even early last year. This last run-up has finally put it into the six-figure zone at $100,000. A momentous achievement.

Is Bitcoin going to climb higher and higher into next year? Or will there be another calamitous crash? Who knows. There are many positive signs lining up for the currency. The incoming Trump Administration is very crypto-friendly. Trump has expressed interest in starting a national strategic Bitcoin reserve, which may prompt other countries to do the same. Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, continues to buy Bitcoin by the billions with his stock sale scheme. Wall Street has opened up numerous ETFs for Bitcoin, which have seen billions of inflows. China has dropped its opposition to it. The digital asset has certainly gone mainstream. While it hits road blocks here and there — MicroSoft shareholders just rejected putting it on their balance sheet Saylor-style, for instance — for the most part it just keeps bouldering ahead.

Will it one day be worth $13 million a coin? Or even a million a coin? I have no idea. I don’t do predictions, projections, or prognostications. Bitcoin attracts far too many Punxsutawney Phils who see price targets in their shadows. But fundamentally, if there are more and bigger buyers over time, the asset should see a gradual rise in value. Here’s a simple thought experiment. As of now, MicroStrategy owns almost 2% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist. If the U.S. acquires 1 million Bitcoin as is intended for the proposed strategic reserve, that would mean a 5% stake. That’s 7% between just two entities. If other countries and major corporations follow suit, that will place enormous buying pressure on an asset with a fixed supply. What happens then? Number go up, of course.

I do believe in Bitcoin long-term as a tool to counter centralized banking and its widepsread currency debasement and inflation. I’m not a Bitcoin trader. I have no plans to sell my holdings, unless I’m moving the proceeds into another investment or an asset of some kind. But unlike before, when my buys were largely random or inconsistent, I want to set up a DCA system. Therein lies a problem, as many exchanges charge exorbitant fees. I’ve been with Coinbase since 2020, but their charges are excessive.

Recently, a finance Youtuber named Marko — Whiteboard Finance informed me about River in one of his videos. River is a Bitcoin-only exchange that allows you to set up recurring buys for no fee after a week.

(NOTE: I’m not affiliated with River. This is simply my own experiment. I’m not even going to provide a link to the exchange, but it is easy enough to Google. Also, do your own research on Bitcoin and crypto and whatever else you want to invest in with your own money).

Here’s my simple plan:

Starting this month and going forward next year, I’m going to DCA $20 into Bitcoin every day through the end of 2025.

Twenty bucks every day. That’s $7,300 in total over the next 365 days.

River also currently pays 3.8% in BTC on cash deposits you make on the exchange. Since I’ll be dropping a good bit of that $7,300 up front, I should also see gains from that annual rate as well.

I already made my first buy yesterday, Dec. 12th. So, one day down, 364 to go.

Hey, wait! Why not just smash buy Bitcoin with that money right now?

Well, I plan to buy chunks of Bitcoin in addition to this daily DCA over the next year and beyond. But part of why I’m setting up this experiment is to take the hand-wringing and guess work out of when to buy Bitcoin. I struggle with paralysis-by-analysis a lot when it comes to making investment decisions. Well, with most decisions in life, if I’m being honest. Mostly that comes from fear. Fear of losing money. Fear of uncertainty. But also fear of missing out (FOMO). So, this DCA strategy with River is a happy medium. It’s a sizable enough purchase over a year to make a difference. But it’s not so much where I won’t have reserve funds to make bigger purchases when I feel it’s warranted.

I’ll be providing updates over the next year, perhaps monthly, on my 2025 Bitcoin Experiment. We’ll see how it goes.