Over the past couple of years, we have observed a shift in behavior among everyday Bitcoiners.
They are less intent on trading volatility and short-term gains like they were in the hype-driven frenzy of 2017.
Instead, they are focused on accumulating Bitcoin over time, or stacking sats.
Stacking Sats — The Basics
“Sats” refers to the satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, named after Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator — Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin is divisible to the 8th decimal point, so 0.00000001 Bitcoin = 1 satoshi, and 100 million satoshis = 1 Bitcoin.
“Stacking sats”, a term that started off as a meme, has exploded into a movement.
Stacking sats is used colloquially among Bitcoiners to describe the act of accumulating Bitcoin regularly through buying, earning, or even mining. The term was popularized by podcaster Matt Odell and has been adopted by Bitcoiners everywhere including Jack Dorsey.
People from all walks of life believe that Bitcoin has value and that it will appreciate in the long run, as it has since its inception.
Whether it’s protecting wealth against inflation, investing in digital gold, or opting out of a financial system controlled by commercial and central banks, Bitcoiners all have their own reasons as to why they’re stacking sats.
Three easy ways to accumulate Bitcoin and stack sats over time are dollar-cost-averaging, buying the dip, and earning Bitcoin.
Dollar-Cost Averaging
Dollar-Cost Averaging, or DCA, is an investment strategy in which you buy a fixed dollar amount of an asset in a fixed recurring time interval, regardless of the price.
For example, buying $10 worth of Bitcoin every week is a weekly DCA into Bitcoin.
DCA has two main benefits: it dampens the effect of short-term volatility on your investment, and it reduces psychological strain.
Spreading out your purchases over time reduces the risk of mistiming the market while still providing exposure to long-term gains.
Buying on a fixed schedule regardless of the price is less mentally taxing than trying to time your purchases.
You’re less likely to FOMO-buy the top when you’ve got a schedule you’re sticking to.
To implement a DCA strategy, determine how much you’d like to buy, how often, and on what platform.
If you’d like to automate this, consider using Cash App, as it allows for automatic recurring buys at pre-set time intervals.
Buying the Dip
You may have heard “BTFD!” or “buy the f-ing dip” on Twitter or Reddit, but it’s far from just a bullish battle cry to rally social media traders.
Buying the dip is an effective way to accumulate Bitcoin for the long run, and centers around buying when the price falls.
If you’re bullish on Bitcoin long-term, then buying the dip is akin to buying something on sale or at a discount.
Consistently buying whenever there’s a market pullback enables you to have lower entry points while still maximizing your exposure on the upside.
One option is to buy smaller dips more frequently, with small amounts, such as buying $25 worth every time Bitcoin is down >5% in one week.
Another method is to wait for large corrections, such as the drop to ~$4K in mid-March 2020, and buy larger amounts less frequently.
Buying the dip requires investors to pay attention to price, unlike dollar-cost averaging, but yields better returns in the long run because your buys are more opportunistic.
Thankfully, Swan Bitcoin helps you buy the dip, automatically.
Deposit cash into Swan Bitcoin, straight from your paycheck, bank account, debit, or credit card, at your own pace — every week, month, paycheck, or just one time.
We use powerful technology to identify the best times to buy Bitcoin and buy the dip for you.
Saving $25 a week turned $3175 into $5205 over the last 2.5 years, giving you nearly 20% more Bitcoin than Dollar-Cost Averaging with the same amount.
When you stack sats with Swan Bitcoin, you get the convenience and investing discipline of DCA, but your cash is allocated to Bitcoin at the best times instead of on a fixed schedule. Automatically buy the dip with Swan Bitcoin and get the most Bitcoin for your buck.
Earning Bitcoin
A third way to stack sats, however, doesn’t rely on trading or investing, but rather spending.
You can earn Bitcoin back on purchases you make through products such as Fold and Lolli.
These companies enable consumers to earn Bitcoin rewards in the same way they’d earn cash back or points through credit cards.
Lolli gives you sats back through a chrome extension when you shop online at over 500 brands you love.
The extension notifies you when you’re shopping at one of their partners, making sure you’re not missing out on any sats.
Fold lets you buy prepaid cards and earn Bitcoin back when you make purchases at their partner retailers, including Amazon.
They’re also rolling out a Bitcoin rewards VISA debit card later this year.
While a few percentage points back on purchases doesn’t seem like much, Bitcoin rewards products are an easy way to accumulate Bitcoin by doing something you were already going to do — spending your fiat money.