What would have happened if an investor had put C$50 every week into several different assets from the beginning of 2020 through the end of 2025? This page compares Bitcoin, U.S. and Canadian equities, gold, silver, Canadian housing and Canadian bonds during one of the most unusual economic periods in modern history.
The user requested the period “2020 to the end of 2025.” That is six complete calendar years when both endpoints are included. Each asset therefore receives the same C$15,600 of contributions.
The calculation is a consistent DCA model, not a literal trade-by-trade weekly backtest. Each published calendar-year return is converted to an equivalent weekly compound return, and C$50 is added at the start of each modeled week. That preserves each year's published return while treating every investment consistently.
A logarithmic vertical scale is used because Bitcoin's growth would otherwise compress the conventional investments into a narrow band near the bottom of a normal linear chart.
| Investment | Contributed | End-2025 value | Gain / loss | Value / contributions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (CAD) | C$15,600 | C$49,509 | +C$33,909 | 3.17× |
| Silver (CAD) | C$15,600 | C$45,037 | +C$29,437 | 2.89× |
| Gold (CAD) | C$15,600 | C$34,195 | +C$18,595 | 2.19× |
| TSX total return | C$15,600 | C$26,300 | +C$10,700 | 1.69× |
| S&P 500 total return (CAD) | C$15,600 | C$25,999 | +C$10,399 | 1.67× |
| Canadian housing index | C$15,600 | C$16,548 | +C$948 | 1.06× |
| Canadian bonds | C$15,600 | C$16,268 | +C$668 | 1.04× |
The purpose of this comparison is not to claim that the best-performing asset was obvious in advance. It shows what disciplined, repeated purchasing can do when an investor continues buying through crashes, recoveries, inflation, rate increases and periods of extreme volatility.
COVID-19 caused an abrupt global shutdown and a severe market shock in early 2020. Governments responded with extraordinary fiscal programs to support households, workers and businesses. Central banks separately cut interest rates, created liquidity facilities and purchased large quantities of bonds and other eligible securities.
It is common to describe this period as governments “pumping money into the markets,” but that wording mixes together two different policies. Fiscal stimulus put money and credit support into the economy, while central-bank monetary policy lowered financing costs and added liquidity to financial markets. Both could influence asset prices, but not every dollar of government support went directly into stocks, Bitcoin, gold or housing.
Canada committed more than C$345 billion in its COVID-19 Economic Response Plan. The Bank of Canada cut its policy rate to 0.25% and began Government of Canada bond purchases at a minimum of C$5 billion per week. Similar emergency policies were adopted throughout the G7.
The Federal Reserve ultimately maintained purchases of about US$80 billion of Treasury securities and US$40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities per month. Its balance sheet rose from roughly US$7.4 trillion at the end of 2020 to nearly US$8.5 trillion by September 2021.
The European Central Bank expanded its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme to a €1.85 trillion envelope. The Bank of England maintained a total asset-purchase target of £895 billion by late 2020. These were exceptionally large interventions designed to stabilize financing conditions during the pandemic.
Extremely low interest rates, fiscal transfers, recovering earnings, restricted consumption during lockdowns and abundant liquidity coincided with strong gains in many financial and housing markets. Bitcoin also experienced very large price swings.
Inflation accelerated and central banks changed direction. Interest rates rose quickly, bond prices fell, growth stocks weakened, housing cooled and Bitcoin suffered another major drawdown. A DCA investor continued buying through that decline instead of needing to guess the market bottom.
Markets did not recover uniformly. Equities, Bitcoin and precious metals had very different paths, while Canadian housing and bonds behaved differently again. That dispersion is exactly why a DCA comparison is informative: the same contribution schedule can produce dramatically different outcomes depending on volatility and return.
Dollar-cost averaging removes the requirement to make one perfect market-timing decision. When an asset falls, the same C$50 buys more units. When it rises, the same C$50 buys fewer. The investor keeps accumulating through both fear and optimism.
That does not make DCA risk-free. If an asset permanently declines, repeated purchases can simply add more money to a losing investment. DCA is a contribution discipline—not a guarantee of profit and not a substitute for diversification, valuation, risk management or suitability.
This page is for educational and historical discussion only. It is not financial, investment, tax, accounting or legal advice and is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Bitcoin, precious metals, securities, real estate, bonds or any other investment. Historical returns do not predict future returns. Bitcoin and other investments can be highly volatile and can lose substantial value. Data can differ among providers because of pricing times, benchmarks, exchange rates and methodology. Verify important figures independently and consider professional advice appropriate to your circumstances.