EAPR
Innovator Emerging Markets Power Buffer ETF - April
stock NYSE ETF

Firstly, the term "DCA" or "dollar/pound/unit cost averaging" in finance has a very specific meaning. It does not just mean "purchasing on a regular basis" as most laymen in investing/cryptocurrency circles use it. Instead, it specifically means "choosing to spread out an investment over time, making smaller purchases on a regular basis even though you have the ability to make a large purchase immediately".
If the money you're investing over your overall investment period (e.g. a year) isn't money that you have right now (e.g. if you want to invest monthly for 12 months, but you couldn't just purchase the full 12 months' worth today), then that's not DCA, that's just lump-sum investing on a regular basis, because you're not *choosing* to invest monthly rather than making a single purchase today — you're *compelled* to, because the only way for you to make a single purchase would be to wait 11 months to amass the funds, at which point you'd only be getting 1 month of market exposure (rather than 2–12 months) for the first 11 months' worth of funds.
For example, if the funds you're investing are from income received monthly, then buying monthly based on a budget derived from that monthly income is *not* DCA, it's just monthly lump-sum investing. If you get paid annually and invest monthly, that *is* DCA. Likewise, if you're just slowly drip-feeding existing savings into bitcoin rather than choosing to take out a large amount and make a single purchase of bitcoin, that *is* DCA.
> is there an advantage to doing it once a week?
The general trade-off with performing DCA is that it reduces both the volatility *and* overall return of your portfolio. Roughly speaking, it cuts them both in half, regardless of whether the numbers are positive or negative. This can be good or bad depending on your outlook and risk appetite.
In the limit, as investment/DCA frequency decreases to zero (e.g. from monthly, to weekly, to daily, to hourly), for assets with relatively low volatility, the effective return typically goes down from *r* to (e^(*r*)& minus;1)÷*r* − 1, where *r* is the return on a lump-sum investment. For example, if Bitcoin grows by 50% in a year, with a fairly consistent upward trend over the entire year, and you invested a fixed amount of dollars every day rather than just buying 365 times that amount on day 1, then you can expect to realise a return of about (e^(0.5)−1)÷0.5 − 1 ≈ 30% rather than 50%.
If the asset is quite volatile over the investment timeframe, then the comparison depends quite heavily on the specific shape of the price graph, but in summary, you would expose yourself to more risk by trying to time the market, and only realise significantly more profit if you time it correctly, otherwise you will realise a significant loss. A lump-sum investment at the very start of the investment timeframe performs the best except when the asset experiences a significant net depreciation over the investment timeframe. This is basically where the whole idea of "time in the market beats timing the market" comes from. That said, performing DCA can reduce your portfolio's volatility significantly, which can ease personal worries about your investments.
If the asset already has basically zero volatility over the timeframe that you're considering splitting your investments over, then DCA doesn't have any benefit (there's no volatility to reduce), it just cuts your profits over that timeframe in half. For example, if a bank savings account offers a guaranteed fixed rate of interest of 5% EAPR (4.88% gross per year), and you have $1,200 available to put into it today, then there's no benefit in depositing $100 per month for 12 months instead, because there's no investment risk to mitigate. You'll just make a profit of $31.50 rather than $60.

Firstly, the term "DCA" or "dollar/pound/unit cost averaging" in finance has a very specific meaning. It does not just mean "purchasing on a regular basis" as most laymen in investing/cryptocurrency circles use it. Instead, it specifically means "choosing to spread out an investment over time, making smaller purchases on a regular basis even though you have the ability to make a large purchase immediately".
If the money you're investing over your overall investment period (e.g. a year) isn't money that you have right now (e.g. if you want to invest monthly for 12 months, but you couldn't just purchase the full 12 months' worth today), then that's not DCA, that's just lump-sum investing on a regular basis, because you're not *choosing* to invest monthly rather than making a single purchase today — you're *compelled* to, because the only way for you to make a single purchase would be to wait 11 months to amass the funds, at which point you'd only be getting 1 month of market exposure (rather than 2–12 months) for the first 11 months' worth of funds.
For example, if the funds you're investing are from income received monthly, then buying monthly based on a budget derived from that monthly income is *not* DCA, it's just monthly lump-sum investing. If you get paid annually and invest monthly, that *is* DCA. Likewise, if you're just slowly drip-feeding existing savings into bitcoin rather than choosing to take out a large amount and make a single purchase of bitcoin, that *is* DCA.
> is there an advantage to doing it once a week?
The general trade-off with performing DCA is that it reduces both the volatility *and* overall return of your portfolio. Roughly speaking, it cuts them both in half, regardless of whether the numbers are positive or negative. This can be good or bad depending on your outlook and risk appetite.
In the limit, as investment/DCA frequency decreases to zero (e.g. from monthly, to weekly, to daily, to hourly), for assets with relatively low volatility, the effective return typically goes down from *r* to (e^(*r*)& minus;1)÷*r* − 1, where *r* is the return on a lump-sum investment. For example, if Bitcoin grows by 50% in a year, with a fairly consistent upward trend over the entire year, and you invested a fixed amount of dollars every day rather than just buying 365 times that amount on day 1, then you can expect to realise a return of about (e^(0.5)−1)÷0.5 − 1 ≈ 30% rather than 50%.
If the asset is quite volatile over the investment timeframe, then the comparison depends quite heavily on the specific shape of the price graph, but in summary, you would expose yourself to more risk by trying to time the market, and only realise significantly more profit if you time it correctly, otherwise you will realise a significant loss. A lump-sum investment at the very start of the investment timeframe performs the best except when the asset experiences a significant net depreciation over the investment timeframe. This is basically where the whole idea of "time in the market beats timing the market" comes from. That said, performing DCA can reduce your portfolio's volatility significantly, which can ease personal worries about your investments.
If the asset already has basically zero volatility over the timeframe that you're considering splitting your investments over, then DCA doesn't have any benefit (there's no volatility to reduce), it just cuts your profits over that timeframe in half. For example, if a bank savings account offers a guaranteed fixed rate of interest of 5% EAPR (4.88% gross per year), and you have $1,200 available to put into it today, then there's no benefit in depositing $100 per month for 12 months instead, because there's no investment risk to mitigate. You'll just make a profit of $31.50 rather than $60.