Most People Invest in Bitcoin the Wrong Way. Here's What I'd Do With $1,000 Instead.

For years, I have invested in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) by repeatedly buying it in small, scheduled purchases and then ignoring it for as long as possible. Other approaches haven't worked for me in the past, and I know that I'm not alone.

Per a study by Morningstar in 2026, the average investor dollar allocated to spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) lost 5.8% annually from January 2024 through June 2026, while those funds returned 8.5% a year on aggregate. Clearly, the ETF investors were doing something wrong to produce that result. So if I had $1,000 in hand today and I wanted to invest it in Bitcoin, here's how I'd do it without underperforming.

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Volatility can work in your favor, but only if you're inured to it

The overarching theme of my successful Bitcoin investing activities has been taking my own weaknesses out of the loop using dollar-cost averaging -- executing regular purchases over time. That way, when the coin's inevitable volatility flares up, I don't have to do anything at all to get some upside from it.

With $1,000, I would make five separate scheduled purchases of $200 at intervals of one or two weeks, so the capital would be allocated in a maximum of two months. Aside from helping to cope with volatility, this approach is psychologically useful because it helps you to stop thinking about Bitcoin as a crypto lottery ticket that could explode in value overnight and make you rich. In the past, that explosion could well have happened, but the idea that buying a coin is a shortcut to wealth has generally served me and my portfolio rather poorly.

But there's a downside worth knowing. According to research from Vanguard about investments made from 1976 to 2022, a lump-sum purchase was superior to spread-out purchases as much as 73.7% of the time. That doesn't bother me at all.

In my experience, the fastest way to lose money with Bitcoin is to get scared into selling your position during volatile and unpredictable periods where it is temporarily in a downtrend. Believing that it's a lottery ticket means being more willing to let it go and move on to the next ticket when you should be buying more while it's cheap and resolving to hold it for years.

How long do you really need to hold Bitcoin?

It can take a long time for a Bitcoin purchasing strategy to pay off.

Investors who bought $1,000 of it right at the October 2025 all-time high near $126,080 have only $615 as of Sept. 2 based on the recent price of about $77,300. Making five spaced purchases would not have avoided that loss, though it would have mitigated it. And, speaking as someone who was buying the asset around that time, it's very understandable to be antsy about those purchases being underwater for so long.

That's why another rule I have about investing in Bitcoin is not to try to time the market, and instead to hold for a very long time -- perhaps even for the rest of my life.

Every dollar of the coin's return to its holders depends on someone else paying more for the same amount of it later. That can happen because the coin's supply is being eked out more and more slowly, and because there's a limit of 21 million coins that can ever exist. Therefore, the more patient (or stubborn) you are, the better your return is likely to be.

One full Bitcoin market cycle of about four years is the minimum holding period, but if you can stick it out for several market cycles, or even for 20 years, it will likely be better. Bitcoin's protocol cuts in half the reward paid to its miners every four years in an event called the halving, and the next is slated for mid-April 2028; it's the recurring and largely predictable nature of the halvings that has historically caused the coin's market cycles.

So space out your purchases, don't sell when you should be buying, and hold your Bitcoin for as long as you can. Let the asset become more scarce over time; the most work you ever need to do is planning out how much to buy.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.