Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) is an investment strategy where a fixed amount of money is invested at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, etc.), regardless of the asset's price at each interval. This is in contrast to lump-sum investing, where the entire amount is invested at once. DCA is widely used for both traditional investments (index funds, stocks) and cryptocurrency, where price volatility is often higher.

The core benefit of DCA is that it automatically buys more units when the price is low and fewer units when the price is high, which mathematically results in a lower average cost per unit than the simple average of the prices over the same period (this effect is sometimes called the 'DCA advantage'). It also removes the emotional and practically impossible task of trying to time the market perfectly.

DCA doesn't guarantee profit and doesn't eliminate market risk — if an asset's price trends consistently downward over the entire investment period, DCA will still result in a loss, just generally a smaller one than a single lump-sum purchase made at the start. DCA is best understood as a risk-management and behavioral discipline tool, not a guaranteed-return strategy.