How the Crypto Investing Calculator works

The formula

Step by step

1. Your growth assumption is scaled by the scenario multiplier (bear ×0.4, base ×1, bull ×1.8).
2. Staking APY is added to the scaled growth rate and compounds monthly on the whole position.
3. Monthly DCA contributions are added at the end of each month.
4. The staking-rewards figure is the difference between projecting with and without the staking APY.
5. A worked example using the calculator's own defaults: $5,000 to start, $250 a month, 15% annual growth, 5% staking APY, ten years, base case. The projection is $130,365 on $35,000 contributed. Of the $95,365 above what you paid in, $56,005 is price growth and $39,360 is the staking layer — the three figures in the readout add back to the total exactly.
6. The scenario multiplier scales the GROWTH assumption only — it never touches staking. In the bear case 15% becomes 6% but the 5% APY is unchanged, so the same ten years project $69,195, of which $19,128 is still staking. A staking yield is paid in units of the asset and does not fall because the price does — which also means the bear case is less bearish than it looks if you left a high APY in the box.
7. Staking is modeled as a rate added to price growth and compounded on the whole position, not as a separate pile of coins. The APY you type is treated as nominal and divided by twelve, so 5% entered compounds to 5.116% a year.

Assumptions & limitations

• These are hypothetical projections from assumptions you enter — NOT predictions.
• Constant growth and staking rates; crypto is extremely volatile and can lose most or all of its value.
• No live or historical price data is used.
• Rewards are assumed to be paid on the entire position, restaked immediately, and never slashed, locked, or subject to an unbonding delay. Real staking programmes lock the asset, can penalise a validator's stake, and the entity paying you can fail — crypto asset accounts carry no deposit insurance.
• Both growth and staking are compounded in dollars, which quietly assumes rewards are worth what the underlying is worth at the moment they are paid. Nothing here models a token whose price falls faster than the yield accrues, which is the ordinary outcome rather than an edge case.
• The staking-rewards line is the difference between running the projection with and without the APY, floored at zero. It is an attribution, not a separately tracked balance — with a negative growth assumption the split stops being meaningful even though the total is still correct.