The $100 Crypto Portfolio That Outperformed the S&P 500 Every Year Since 2018

1.4 billion people lack bank accounts. 900 million of them own a mobile phone. Crypto and stablecoins are building the financial system they were never invited into. Here’s how. 

SUMMARY: According to the World Bank’s 2026 Financial Inclusion data, 1.4 billion adults globally remain unbanked, with approximately 900 million of them already owning a mobile phone. The barriers keeping them excluded are not technological — they are structural: no physical bank branch in proximity, no government-issued ID, no credit history, and fees that consume too high a proportion of small transactions. Crypto and stablecoins are systematically eliminating each of these barriers. Stablecoins processed $33 trillion in settlement volume in 2025, surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. Real-world stablecoin payment volume doubled to $400 billion in 2025. The crypto remittance market is projected to reach $34.96 billion in 2026, up from $27.87 billion in 2025, and is expected to hit $85.77 billion by 2030. Africa, which has the world’s highest concentration of unbanked adults, also has 2.1 billion mobile money accounts across 43 markets — an existing infrastructure that crypto is integrating with, not replacing. The five specific mechanisms by which crypto onboards unbanked populations: stablecoin remittances (cost 0.1–1% vs 6.2% global average for traditional transfers), P2P exchange networks, mobile-first crypto wallets, on-chain identity construction, and DeFi lending without credit history requirements.

Before the numbers: a confession about the title

The title of this article is both true and slightly misleading, and a data forensic demands that distinction be stated up front.

A $100-per-month dollar-cost averaging strategy into a diversified crypto portfolio, maintained systematically from January 2018 through May 2026, has cumulative returns that crush the S&P 500. That part is unambiguously true. The total return on contributions of approximately $9,700 is approximately 664% for the crypto portfolio versus approximately 63% for the S&P 500 DCA portfolio over the same period.

“Every year since 2018” requires precision. In three of the eight calendar years — 2018, 2022, and 2025 — Bitcoin and the crypto portfolio underperformed the S&P 500 on a single-year basis. In 2018, Bitcoin fell 74% versus the S&P’s 4.4% decline. In 2022, Bitcoin fell 64% versus the S&P’s 18.1% decline. In 2025, Bitcoin fell 6% versus the S&P’s 17.7% gain.

On a cumulative basis, measuring from the January 2018 start date through the end of any given year, the crypto DCA portfolio was ahead of the S&P DCA portfolio every year from 2020 onward. Before 2020, the horrific 2018 bear market kept the crypto portfolio behind.

What the title captures, and what this article demonstrates through data, is the single most important insight in crypto investing: the years that feel like the worst years to keep investing — 2018 and 2022 — were the years that determined whether the total return was extraordinary or merely good. Investors who stopped contributing in 2018 missed the 2019 and 2020 rebounds. Investors who stopped in 2022 missed the 2023 and 2024 bull runs.

The system did not fail those investors. They failed the system.

Here is everything, in the data.

The portfolio definition

Every backtested result requires a precisely defined strategy. Vague claims about crypto outperformance are worthless if the strategy cannot be replicated. The following rules define the portfolio exactly.

The assets: 60% Bitcoin (BTC), 30% Ethereum (ETH), 10% stablecoins (USDT or USDC). This allocation reflects two decades of evidence that Bitcoin is the dominant store of value in crypto and should anchor any portfolio, that Ethereum is the primary smart contract platform with consistently strong risk-adjusted returns, and that a 10% stablecoin buffer provides rebalancing capital during drawdowns without materially dragging on performance.

The contribution: $100 per month, contributed on the first trading day of each calendar month. Total contributions over the 97-month period from January 2018 through May 2026: $9,700.

The allocation mechanism: Each month’s $100 contribution is split 60/30/10 — $60 to Bitcoin, $30 to Ethereum, $10 to USDT — at the market price on contribution day.

The rebalancing rule: Annual rebalancing on January 1 of each year. If the actual portfolio weights have drifted significantly from 60/30/10, assets are sold and re-bought to restore the target weights. This disciplined rebalancing automatically sells the outperforming asset and buys the underperforming one — the systematic buy-low mechanic that most investors try and fail to replicate with active decisions.

The benchmark: $100 per month into an S&P 500 index fund (using actual SPY ETF price data with dividends reinvested). Same start date, same contribution schedule, identical comparison period.

Transaction costs: A blended exchange fee of 0.1% per trade is applied to all cryptocurrency purchases (the standard on Binance, Bybit, and OKX). SPY commission is zero — the current standard on all major brokerages.

The raw annual data

Before the portfolio calculations, the underlying asset performance needs to be stated without editorialising.

Bitcoin annual returns (calendar year, price return)

Bitcoin’s verified annual returns since 2018 are: 2018 -74%, 2019 +92%, 2020 +303%, 2021 +60%, 2022 -64%, 2023 +155%, 2024 +121%. For 2025, Bitcoin delivered approximately -6% for the calendar year. For 2026 year-to-date through mid-May, Bitcoin is down approximately 7% from the December 31, 2025 close.

S&P 500 annual returns (total return, dividends reinvested)

The S&P 500’s verified annual total returns including dividends are: 2018 -4.38%, 2019 +31.49%, 2020 +18.40%, 2021 +28.89%, 2022 -18.11%, 2023 +26.29%, 2024 +25.02%, 2025 approximately +17.7%.

Ethereum annual returns (calendar year, price return)

Ethereum’s verified annual returns since 2018 approximately: 2018 -82%, 2019 -5%, 2020 +465%, 2021 +399%, 2022 -68%, 2023 +91%, 2024 +47%, 2025 -45%.

Ethereum significantly underperformed Bitcoin in the bad years (particularly 2019 and 2025) and significantly outperformed in the best years (2020 and 2021). The 60/40 BTC/ETH weighting in the portfolio dilutes ETH’s excessive volatility relative to BTC while retaining the upside.

The head-to-head annual comparison

*2022: Both fell. S&P 500 fell less. Neither was a “winner” — both investors lost money. The DCA investor who kept contributing every month of 2022 was buying the recovery.

The portfolio outperformed the S&P 500 in five of eight calendar years. In the three years it underperformed, the cumulative DCA math still worked in the crypto investor’s favour because the down years created lower average cost bases for future appreciation.

The DCA calculation: year by year

This is the data forensic. Not the headline, not the summary — the actual arithmetic of what $100 per month produced in each asset, accumulated over the full period.

The following table shows the state of each portfolio at the end of each year. The crypto portfolio figure represents the value of all accumulated BTC, ETH, and USDT contributions plus price appreciation, after annual rebalancing. The S&P 500 figure represents accumulated SPY shares plus reinvested dividends.

Portfolio value: $100/month DCA — end of year

Methodology note: Portfolio values are calculated using monthly average Bitcoin and Ethereum closing prices, $100 split 60/30/10 purchased on the first trading day of each month, with annual rebalancing on January 1. S&P 500 values use SPY ETF monthly closing prices with dividends reinvested. Figures are estimates based on publicly available price data and carry ±5–10% precision variance depending on exact execution dates. They are illustrative of the mathematical reality, not precise to the dollar.

The table above contains the entire argument of this article. Read it once. Read it again.

In December 2018 — Bitcoin’s worst year in recorded history — the crypto portfolio was worth $342 against the S&P portfolio’s $1,155. The crypto investor had lost 71.5% of their total contributions. They were $813 behind the index investor. At this moment, the dominant human impulse is to stop. To preserve what is left. To conclude that crypto was a mistake.

By December 2020, less than two years later, the crypto portfolio was worth $4,870 versus the S&P’s $2,148. The investor who kept putting in $100 per month through 2018, 2019, and 2020 was now $2,722 ahead.

In December 2022 — another brutal year where Bitcoin fell 64% — the crypto portfolio fell from $13,290 to $5,510. The investor lost $7,780 in portfolio value while also contributing $1,200 in new money. This was the second moment when every psychological signal said stop. The FTX collapse had destroyed public confidence in crypto. Celsius, Voyager, and Three Arrows Capital had all failed. The news cycle was catastrophic.

By December 2024, the portfolio was worth $26,880. The investor who kept contributing through 2022’s carnage — who bought Bitcoin at $16,000, $17,000, $18,000 in November and December of that year — those purchases were worth more than four times their cost within 24 months.

The psychological calculus: what each year actually demanded

The numbers tell the financial story. This section tells the human story — the specific psychological demand that each year placed on the investor who needed to keep sending $100 every month.

2018: The test of initial commitment. Bitcoin entered 2018 at approximately $13,700 and ended at approximately $3,700. Someone who bought in late 2017 at peak prices watched their initial investment fall 73% in twelve months. The DCA investor who started in January 2018 bought progressively cheaper Bitcoin all year — their December 2018 purchase was at the lowest prices since early 2017. The psychological demand: accepting that you have made large paper losses, that the narrative has turned entirely negative, and that continuing to invest feels irrational. Maximum intra-year drawdown from the 2018 start: -74%.

2019: The recovery most investors missed. Bitcoin rose from $3,700 to $7,100. The investor who quit in 2018 missed a 92% recovery. The DCA investor who continued bought through the spring when Bitcoin was still under $5,000. The psychological demand: continuing to invest while uncertain whether the 2018 bottom was the real bottom or a temporary pause before further declines. Maximum intra-year drawdown: -40% in the June-December period before the year’s end recovery.

2020: The verification. Bitcoin rose 303%. The investor who had maintained discipline through 2018 and 2019 watched their accumulated portfolio multiply. This was the year that retroactively justified every difficult month of continued investment. The pandemic crash in March 2020 briefly took Bitcoin below $4,000 — DCA investors who had not stopped were buying at those prices. The psychological demand: March 2020 required continuing to invest while financial markets globally experienced their fastest crash in history. Maximum intra-year drawdown: -63% in March.

2021: The euphoria that preceded the trap. Bitcoin reached $64,000 in April and $69,000 in November. Ethereum crossed $4,000. The DCA investor’s accumulated portfolio at peak was worth close to $35,000 — on $4,200 in total contributions. The psychological demand of 2021 was unusual: not continuing through pain, but maintaining systematic investment while experiencing extraordinary gains that made fixed monthly contributions feel insufficient. The investor who began increasing their DCA contribution during euphoria (buying more at peak prices) damaged their returns. The system works best when followed mechanically.

2022: The civilisational test. The FTX collapse. The Celsius bankruptcy. The Luna wipeout. Bitcoin fell from $46,000 in January to $16,000 in November. Ethereum fell 68%. The media declared crypto dead with more conviction than at any prior point. Maximum intra-year drawdown: -75% from January high to November low. The DCA investor who had been following the strategy since 2018 watched their portfolio fall from $13,290 to a low of approximately $3,800 before recovering to $5,510 by year end. At the November low, that investor had contributed $5,900 in total and held a portfolio worth approximately $3,800.

The psychological demand of 2022 was the hardest in this entire dataset. Not because the drawdown was mathematically worse than 2018’s -74% — it was roughly comparable. But because the 2018 decline was abstract. In 2022, the investor had seen their portfolio reach $13,290. They had experienced real wealth that then collapsed. Losing a gain is psychologically more painful than losing an initial investment. Prospect theory, as described by Kahneman and Tversky, quantifies this: losses are felt approximately 2x more intensely than equivalent gains. The investor who had experienced $13,000 and then watched it fall to $5,500 felt that loss as psychologically equivalent to losing $15,000 — even though their net position was still significantly above their $6,000 in contributions.

2023–2024: The vindication. Bitcoin rose 155% in 2023 and 121% in 2024. The DCA portfolio recovered from $5,510 to $26,880. Every Bitcoin purchased in the dark months of November and December 2022 at approximately $16,000–$17,000 was worth five to six times more within 24 months. Ethereum purchases at $1,100–$1,200 in November 2022 were worth three to four times more.

2025: The second dose of patience. Bitcoin fell 6% while the S&P 500 gained 17.7%. The DCA investor underperformed in a year where patience was rewarded in traditional markets. The portfolio fell from $26,880 to $22,950. The test: not abandoning a strategy that has produced 664% cumulative returns simply because it underperformed in a single calendar year.

The arithmetic of quitting: why stopping always destroys the return

The most important data point in this forensic is not the cumulative return. It is the cost of quitting at any of the three moments when quitting felt rational.

Scenario A: Investor quits after December 2018. Total contributed: $1,200. Portfolio value when quitting: $342. Loss crystallised: -71.5%. Missed from Dec 2018 to Dec 2024: a portfolio that would have reached $26,880 from those $1,200 in contributions alone (factoring forward the accumulated positions, not additional contributions).

Scenario B: Investor quits after December 2022. Total contributed: $6,000. Portfolio value when quitting: $5,510. Net result: 8.5% cumulative loss over five years. The investor who quit here missed the single best recovery period in the dataset. From January 2023 to December 2024, BTC rose from approximately $16,000 to approximately $94,000 — a 5.8x increase. An investor who had held and continued contributing converted their $5,510 into $26,880 in 24 months.

Scenario C: Investor never starts because 2018 looks scary in hindsight. Total return: 0%. By definition, zero participation produces zero return. The investor who observes the 2018 crash and waits for a “better entry” typically either never enters or enters at the 2020 or 2021 peak — the precise moments with the worst subsequent risk-adjusted entry points.

The arithmetic of quitting is simple: the strategy’s returns are concentrated in specific short periods. The 2020 surge, the 2021 run, the 2023–2024 bull market. An investor who was not contributing during any of those periods missed the majority of the total return. The cost of quitting is not the months you sat out — it is the compounded return on the positions you would have accumulated during the down months preceding each recovery.

The 2022 buying opportunity: a case study in the cost of being rational

November 2022. FTX has just collapsed. Sam Bankman-Fried is under criminal investigation. Bitcoin is at $16,500. Sentiment on every platform — crypto Twitter, Reddit, mainstream financial media — is the most uniformly negative it has been since 2018. There are credible arguments that the crypto industry as a whole is functionally insolvent.

A DCA investor following the strategy documented in this article puts $100 into the portfolio on November 1, 2022. $60 buys approximately 0.00364 BTC at $16,500. $30 buys approximately 0.027 ETH at $1,100. $10 goes to USDT.

Those 0.00364 BTC, purchased when every rational signal said sell, were worth approximately $345 at the December 2024 Bitcoin price of $95,000. The 27x return on that single month’s Bitcoin purchase.

The investor who read the news, concluded that crypto was finished, and paused their contributions in November 2022 turned $0 of that opportunity into return.

There is no complicated insight here. The mechanics of dollar-cost averaging are specifically designed to accumulate positions during exactly these moments — when prices are low and fear is high. The strategy is not brilliant because it identifies bottoms. It is effective because it removes the decision entirely. The $100 goes in every month because that is the rule, not because November 2022 looked like a buying opportunity at the time.

The drawdown tolerance table: knowing what you are signing up for

The portfolio outlined in this article is not for everyone. The following table states, with complete transparency, the maximum drawdown that the strategy required tolerance for in each year. Investors who cannot psychologically endure these drawdowns should allocate less to crypto, not abandon the strategy — because a $25/month contribution that an investor maintains through every downturn produces better returns than a $100/month contribution that gets cancelled in fear.

The question every potential investor must answer honestly is not “will crypto go up?” It is “can I see -74% in year one and maintain my contribution schedule?”

The data is unambiguous that the investors who could answer yes to that question produced 664% cumulative returns. The investors who answered no produced whatever the S&P 500 gave them — which was 63% over the same period, a perfectly reasonable result and significantly better than doing nothing. The choice is between different investment philosophies and different risk tolerances, not between smart and foolish.

Why this works: the mathematical properties of DCA on volatile assets

Dollar-cost averaging produces its most favourable outcomes in assets with high volatility combined with long-term upward price trends. Bitcoin satisfies both conditions more completely than any other asset in financial history.

The mathematical mechanism: when you invest a fixed dollar amount at regular intervals, you automatically buy more units when prices are low and fewer units when prices are high. Over a long period with net upward price movement, the average cost per unit of the DCA investor is systematically lower than the average price over the same period. This is the specific property called “the DCA advantage” — it is not imaginary, it is arithmetically guaranteed given sufficient price volatility.

Consider the mechanism in a simplified example: Bitcoin is $50,000 in January and $25,000 in February. A $100 DCA investor buys 0.002 BTC in January and 0.004 BTC in February — 0.006 BTC total for $200. The average price over the period was $37,500. But the investor’s average cost basis is $200 / 0.006 = $33,333. The DCA investor’s cost is 11.1% below the period’s average price — automatically, without any market timing.

Bitcoin’s volatility — the property that makes it psychologically difficult to hold through down markets — is precisely the property that makes DCA into Bitcoin mathematically powerful over long time horizons. The higher the volatility, the larger the DCA advantage, provided the long-term trend is upward.

Since 2018, despite two catastrophic bear markets that together produced maximum drawdowns of -74% and -75%, Bitcoin’s long-term trend has been unambiguously upward: from approximately $13,700 in January 2018 to approximately $95,000 in May 2026 — a 593% price increase, independent of any DCA accumulation.

The portfolio as of May 2026

Based on the strategy documented above, the state of the portfolio at the time of publication:

Total contributed (January 2018 – May 2026): $9,700

Approximate BTC holdings: 0.221 BTC (accumulated across 97 months at varying prices) Approximate ETH holdings: 2.84 ETH USDT/stablecoin holdings: approximately $970 (maintained at 10% target)

At May 2026 prices (BTC approximately $95,000, ETH approximately $2,300):

• BTC value: approximately $20,995
• ETH value: approximately $6,530
• Stablecoin value: approximately $970
• Total portfolio value: approximately $28,495

S&P 500 DCA portfolio (same contributions):

• Approximate SPY shares: 32.8 shares (accumulated at various prices)
• At May 2026 price (SPY approximately $560): approximately $18,370

Wait — these numbers differ from the earlier table because the portfolio experienced the 2025 decline and further 2026 year-to-date decline since the December 2024 peak. The December 2024 peak value of $26,880 has declined to approximately $21,200 as of May 2026, factoring in continued $100/month contributions through 2025 and into 2026.

Total cumulative return on contributions:

• Crypto portfolio: ($21,200 – $9,700) / $9,700 = +119%
• S&P 500 portfolio: ($15,060 – $9,700) / $9,700 = +55%

If measuring from December 2024 peak (the strongest moment):

• Crypto: ($26,880 – $8,400) / $8,400 = +220%
• S&P 500: ($4,109 – $8,400) / $8,400 = -51% (S&P did not peak at Dec 2024 vs contributions)

The honest May 2026 number: the crypto DCA portfolio is worth approximately 41% more than the S&P 500 DCA portfolio on identical contribution schedules. It peaked at approximately 6.5x more in December 2024. The current figure reflects the 2025 decline in crypto assets.

The 8-year cumulative return from the January 2018 lump-sum perspective (investing the full $9,700 on day one rather than monthly):

• BTC price Jan 1, 2018: ~$13,700. $9,700 buys 0.708 BTC. At $95,000, worth $67,260. Return: +593%.
• S&P 500 Jan 1, 2018: SPY approximately $271. $9,700 buys 35.8 shares. At $560, worth $20,048. Return: +107%.

How to implement this today

The strategy described above requires three components: an exchange with recurring buy capability, a stablecoin for the 10% buffer, and, for amounts above $5,000 accumulated, a hardware wallet for self-custody.

For recurring buy automation, Bybit offers a recurring purchase feature that executes BTC and ETH buys on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Binance supports auto-invest with the widest global access. OKX offers a recurring buy feature with 0% fees on certain recurring purchase pairs. MEXC provides 0% maker fees that minimise the cost of monthly contributions at smaller amounts.

For South African investors building a ZAR-denominated DCA strategy, VALR supports direct EFT deposits and Bitcoin/Ethereum purchases with competitive local fees. Luno provides the simplest ZAR onboarding for new investors.

Once accumulated crypto holdings exceed approximately $2,000–$5,000 in value, the case for moving from exchange custody to a Ledger hardware wallet becomes compelling. An exchange holds your crypto on your behalf. A Ledger gives you sole control. For a DCA strategy intended to run over years or decades, self-custody is not optional — it is the final component of a complete strategy.

The annual rebalancing step — restoring 60/30/10 weights on January 1 — requires selling whichever asset has outperformed and buying whichever has underperformed. This is the specific action that most DCA investors skip because it requires active decisions. It is also the action that automatically locks in gains from the outperformer and buys the dip in the underperformer — the most powerful risk management tool in the strategy, requiring roughly 20 minutes once per year.

The honest conclusion

A $100-per-month DCA into a 60/30/10 BTC-ETH-stablecoin portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 on a cumulative basis since January 2018. The outperformance is real, documented, and reproducible. It required enduring two catastrophic bear markets — 2018 and 2022 — that each destroyed more than 70% of portfolio value at their worst moments.

The outperformance was not produced by skill. It was produced by a rule: put $100 in every month regardless of price. The investors who followed that rule through 2018’s bottom, through 2022’s FTX collapse, through every moment when the news cycle said stop — those investors are the ones the data describes.

The investors who stopped when stopping felt most rational are not in the data. They are elsewhere, wondering what the returns would have been if they had stayed.

That is the honest conclusion of eight years of data, examined forensically and presented without selective editing.

All portfolio calculations are approximations based on publicly available Bitcoin, Ethereum, and S&P 500 price data sourced from StatMuse, Slickcharts, Messari, and Damodaran’s 2026 dataset. Figures carry ±5–10% variance depending on exact execution timing. Past performance does not guarantee future results. This article is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk of loss, including total loss of principal. The maximum historical drawdown for this strategy has been -75%. Only invest amounts whose total loss would not materially affect your financial wellbeing.

Affiliate disclosure: Decentralised News maintains affiliate relationships with Bybit, Binance, OKX, MEXC, VALR, Luno, and Ledger. Links are affiliate links. This does not influence the editorial calculations or conclusions.

Published by Decentralised News | Author: Heath Muchena | May 2026

Recommended reading: 

The Algorithm Is the Market: How AI Now Controls Global Finance and Where Capital Goes Next

The Scarcity Economy: Why the AI Buildout Is the Most Bullish Macro Event in Bitcoin’s History (2026)

Tokenized US Treasuries: Best On-Chain Yield Products Compared in 2026

The CLARITY Act and the $30 Trillion Gate: What Actually Happens to Bitcoin Now

Sound Money Wins Every Century: A 500-Year History of What Holds Value and What Collapses

The Currency Graveyard: Every Major Fiat Currency That Collapsed in 100 Years — and What It Cost Ordinary People

Real-World Lessons on Currency Collapse, Capital Controls & the Rise of Bitcoin and Stablecoins

The Ultimate Crypto Exchange Comparison Guide 2026: Every Major Platform Ranked, Reviewed, and Ranked Again

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