Dollar-Cost Averaging Into Bitcoin vs XRP Since the 2025 Peak: Which Crypto Held Up Better?

Quick Read

• Buying $100 of XRP a month since July 2025 has accumulated roughly 819 tokens for $1,400, and that position is down 41.5%.

• The same DCA approach in Bitcoin has held up better at a 16.5% loss, buying about 0.01418 BTC for $1,100 over 11 months.

• The XRP price needs to reach $1.71 to recover the full $1,400, while Bitcoin needs roughly $77,600 to recover its $1,100.

If you’d put $100 into XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) every month since its $3.65 cycle high in July 2025, the highest price XRP reached in that market cycle, you would have invested $1,400 over 14 months and accumulated roughly 819 XRP.

Meanwhile, dollar-cost averaging (DCA) into Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), starting three months later when the BTC price reached $126,000 on October 6, 2025, would have put in around $1,100 and bought 0.01418 BTC.

The XRP price has fallen 73% since its 2025 peak and Bitcoin 49% since reaching a new all-time high, so which monthly buying strategy has held up better between the two cryptos?

XRP DCA Falls 41.5% Despite Appeal Dismissal and ETF Launches

At $1 today, the 819 XRP tokens would be worth $819, amounting to a loss of about $581 or 41.5% over the last 14 months. Spreading the buying out is what limited the amount lost, because $1,400 put into XRP all at once at $3.65 would be worth only $384 today, which is a loss of over $1,000. Meanwhile, the XRP price is down 73% across that stretch, so monthly buying cut the loss by more than 30 percentage points.

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However, XRP fell through every good news that normally would have lifted the price. XRP gained regulatory clarity when the SEC and Ripple appeal was dismissed in August 2025, and spot XRP ETFs launched by November, giving institutional investors another way to buy XRP without holding it directly. But XRP still fell as broader market sentiment turned negative. By the end of December 2025, six months of buying at a rate of $100 monthly had put in $600 and bought 218 tokens, which were worth around $400, a 33.2% loss.

Eight months into 2026, XRP’s price has kept falling and every rally has faded. Ongoing U.S. and Iran tensions have weighed on the whole crypto market and the XRP price, and the uncertainty over the CLARITY Act has kept buyers away. XRP fell by 27.1% in Q1 and 22.4% in Q2, and it is down 3.70% so far in Q3 with six weeks of the quarter left.

The CLARITY Act cloture vote on September 15 is XRP’s biggest catalyst before then, though it leaves only 15 days to turn the quarter around. Cloture is the procedural step that allows the Senate to move toward a full vote on the bill instead of stalling it. If the cloture succeeds, XRP could rally toward $1.50 to $2, and the 819 tokens would be worth roughly $1,230 to $1,640. That would cut the 41.5% loss to about 12.3% at $1.50, or turn it into a 17% gain at $2.

Bitcoin’s DCA Falls 16.5% Over 11 Months

A $100 investment in Bitcoin at $126,000 on October 6, 2025 would have bought about 0.000794 BTC, which is less than a thousandth of a coin. However, four days later, the crypto market crashed after President Donald Trump’s decision to reignite trade tensions with China. That triggered massive selling, with over $19 billion in leveraged positions liquidated within 24 hours as traders who had borrowed to buy were forced out. The BTC price fell to around $104,500, reducing the $100 investment by 17.1% to around $83.

Then, Bitcoin made several attempts to reclaim its highs and failed, falling to $87,500 by year-end. Three months of buying at $100 per monthy would have put in $300 and accumulated roughly 0.00281 BTC, worth approximately $246, which is a loss of roughly 18%. Bitcoin then kept declining through Q1 2026, reaching $68,100 by the end of March.

However, those lower prices are where the DCA strategy did its work. Bitcoin recovered to $76,300 by the end of April, slipped to $73,600 in May, then fell to $58,600 by the end of June but recoverd to $60K before the month ended. The June low was the best buying month of the whole run, since a $100 investment would have bought more than twice as much BTC there as it did at the $126,000 peak.

Bitcoin’s price now trades near $64,800, making the 0.01418 BTC worth about $919 and leaving the $1,100 with a loss of around $181, or roughly 16.5%. Bitcoin itself is down 49% from its peak, so the monthly approach cut that loss by more than 30 points too.

Which Crypto Held Up Better?

Bitcoin has held up better, with a 16.5% loss against XRP’s 41.5% decline, even though the Bitcoin price has fallen further from its own peak. However, these two investments did not start at the same time, since XRP’s buying began three months earlier and therefore covered three additional months of falling prices with an extra $300 going in.

Even matched over the same 11 months, Bitcoin still performed substantially better. XRP fell around 33.1% across its first 11 months, against Bitcoin’s 16.5%. To recover the full $1,400 invested, XRP must reclaim $1.71, while Bitcoin must reach approximately $77,600 to recoup its $1,100. But XRP only needs $1.43 to reduce its loss to 16.5% and match Bitcoin’s current performance.

That $1.43 is the number to watch, because it is just above the $1.32 resistance XRP last cleared in May, and the September 15 vote is the only scheduled event that could take it there.

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