Bitcoin vs the Stock Market: Where Should Your First $20 Go?

You have $20 a week. You want to start investing. But where does it go?

If you search online, you will find two camps. One says buy index funds. The other says buy Bitcoin. Both have strong opinions. Both have the charts to back it up. And both act like the other side is crazy.

Here is what neither camp will tell you: both can work. The question is not which one is "right." The question is what fits your goals, your risk tolerance, and your timeline.

Let's put them side by side. Real numbers. No hype. No tribalism. Just an honest look at what your first $20 would have done in each place.

The Tale of Two Assets

The S&P 500 is a collection of the 500 largest U.S. companies. Think Apple, Amazon, Walmart, JPMorgan. When people say "the stock market," they usually mean this. It has been around since 1926. It has a long, documented track record.

Bitcoin is digital money with a fixed supply of 21 million coins. It launched in 2009. It has a shorter track record, but a much more explosive one.

Both have made people money. Both have also scared people into selling at the worst possible time.

Here is the core difference. The stock market is a bet on the U.S. economy. Bitcoin is a bet on a new kind of money that no government controls and no one can print more of. These are different bets with different risk profiles.

Read more: Bitcoin for Beginners | What Is Dollar Cost Averaging? | Bitcoin vs Index Funds

The Numbers: Bitcoin vs. S&P 500

Let's start with raw returns. These are the headline numbers from January 2011 through December 2024.

Metric	Bitcoin	S&P 500
Total return (2011-2024)	437,000%+	~400%
Average annual return	~75% (historical, with huge variance)	~10%
Best single year	+1,318% (2013)	+32.4% (2013)
Worst single year	-73% (2018)	-18.1% (2022)
Max drawdown (peak to trough)	-83% (2022)	-34% (2020)
Volatility (annualized)	~70-80%	~15-20%
Minimum to invest	$1 (most apps)	$1 (fractional shares)
Available to buy	24/7/365	Market hours only
Fees	Low (0-1.5%)	Very low (0.03% for index funds)
Years of track record	15	98

Read that table carefully. Bitcoin's returns are eye-popping. But so are the drops. An 83% crash means a $10,000 portfolio turns into $1,700. That is not a typo. Bitcoin has done that more than once.

The S&P 500 drops too, but the worst drop in modern history was 34%. That hurts. But it is a very different kind of hurt than 83%.

What $20 a Week Actually Becomes

Forget the percentages for a second. Let's talk about real dollars.

If you had put $20 a week into both assets over the last 10 years, here is roughly what you would have seen, based on historical DCA backtests from Curvo and publicly available price data.

After 10 years of putting in $20 a week:

• Total invested: $10,400
• S&P 500 portfolio value: roughly $19,000
• Bitcoin portfolio value: roughly $62,000

That is a massive gap. The S&P 500 nearly doubled your money. Bitcoin turned it into six times what you put in.

But there is something the chart does not show. Along the way, the Bitcoin line crashed. Hard. Multiple times. In 2018, your Bitcoin portfolio would have been worth less than what you put in. In 2022, it dropped by more than half in just a few months. If you panicked and sold during either of those crashes, you locked in a loss.

The S&P 500 line is smoother. Not smooth. Just smoother. You still had bad stretches. But nothing like watching 80% of your value disappear.

Volatility: The Price of Higher Returns

Here is a rule that applies to almost every investment in history: higher returns come with higher risk. There is no cheat code around this.

Bitcoin's volatility is roughly 3 to 4 times higher than the S&P 500. In practical terms, that means:

• The S&P 500 might swing 1-2% in a day. That is normal. Most people barely notice.
• Bitcoin might swing 5-10% in a day. That is also normal for Bitcoin. But it makes new investors want to throw their phone in a lake.

Over a month, the S&P 500 rarely moves more than 10%. Bitcoin has moved 30% or more in a single month, multiple times.

This is not a flaw. It is a feature of being a young, globally traded, 24/7 asset with a fixed supply. Supply cannot expand to absorb demand shocks. So the price absorbs them instead.

If you are the kind of person who checks your investments every day, Bitcoin will stress you out. If you are the kind of person who sets up a weekly buy and checks once a quarter, it probably won't bother you much.

Read more: $20 a Week for 10 Years

The DCA Advantage: Why It Works for Both

Dollar cost averaging is the strategy of buying a fixed dollar amount on a regular schedule. $20 every week. No matter what the price is doing. No matter what the news says.

This works beautifully for both assets, but it is especially powerful for Bitcoin.

Why? Because Bitcoin's drops are so extreme. When Bitcoin crashes 50%, your $20 buys twice as many sats (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) as it did before the crash. When it recovers, those cheap sats are now worth a lot more. DCA turns Bitcoin's wild volatility from a problem into an advantage, as long as you do not stop buying during the dip.

For the S&P 500, DCA smooths out the smaller bumps. You buy more shares when prices dip and fewer when they rise. It removes the need to guess when the market is high or low.

In both cases, DCA does the same thing: it removes emotion from the equation. You do not need to predict anything. You just show up every week with $20. Here is a full breakdown of how dollar cost averaging works.

Past Performance Is Not a Promise

You have seen Bitcoin's incredible historical numbers. Now here is the honest disclaimer.

Bitcoin's 437,000% return happened during a period when it went from a niche experiment to a globally recognized asset. From nearly zero adoption to hundreds of millions of users. That kind of growth phase does not repeat once it has already happened.

Most serious analysts expect Bitcoin's returns to moderate as its market cap grows. A $1 trillion asset does not double as easily as a $1 million asset. The growth story is not over, but the early explosive phase probably is.

The S&P 500, on the other hand, has nearly a century of data. It has survived world wars, pandemics, recessions, inflation, and political chaos. It returned roughly 10% per year on average through all of it. That does not mean it will return 10% next year or the year after. But the track record is longer and more consistent.

Neither asset is guaranteed to go up. Both can lose money. The stock market lost 37% in 2008. Bitcoin lost 83% in 2022. If you invest in either one, you will eventually watch your portfolio drop. The question is whether you keep going.

So Where Should Your $20 Go?

Here is the honest answer: it depends on who you are.

If you want the most proven, least stressful option: Go with a low-cost S&P 500 index fund. Vanguard's VOO or Fidelity's FXAIX. Set up $20 a week. Do not look at it. Come back in 10 years. The historical data is about as strong as it gets for any investment.

If you want higher potential returns and can handle the ride: Put some or all of your $20 into Bitcoin via an app like Strike or Cash App. Set up a recurring weekly buy. Do not sell during crashes. Understand that you might watch your money cut in half before it grows.

If you want both: Split it. $10 a week into an S&P 500 index fund. $10 a week into Bitcoin. This gives you exposure to both the traditional economy and the new digital one. You get the stability of stocks and the upside potential of Bitcoin. Many people find this is the approach that lets them sleep at night while still building for the future.

The Real Enemy Is Not Picking Wrong

Most articles about Bitcoin vs. the stock market end with a winner. We are not doing that. Because the real enemy is not picking the wrong one.

The real enemy is not picking at all.

The person who puts $20 a week into the S&P 500 will be better off than the person who meant to invest but never got around to it. The person who puts $20 a week into Bitcoin, even if Bitcoin underperforms going forward, will be better off than the person who spent that $20 on lottery tickets and impulse buys.

Right now, that $20 is probably going somewhere that gives you nothing back. A coffee you forgot about by noon. A subscription you do not use. A scratch ticket that lost.

Redirect it. Into stocks, into Bitcoin, into both. The vehicle matters less than the habit. Compound interest needs two things to work: money and time. You have the money. You are running out of time every single day you wait.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start Before You Feel Ready

You now have more information than most people ever get. You know the returns. You know the risks. You know the volatility numbers. You know that both assets have made money for patient, consistent investors.

What you do with that information is up to you. But if the answer is "nothing," then you already know how that ends. The same way it has always ended for people who wait. The dollars you are sitting on lose a little more purchasing power every single year.

The DCA calculator can show you what your specific weekly amount would look like over time. Try it with $10. Try it with $20. Look at the numbers. Then decide.

You do not need to know everything. You just need to start.

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This article is part of the Small Steps, Real Results series on Untaught.

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This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance of any investment, including Bitcoin and the S&P 500, does not guarantee future results. Untaught does not hold, move, or manage your money. Do your own research. Only invest what you can afford to lose.