Fifteen trading days hold more than all of bitcoin's 225% three-year gain, Grayscale finds

Grayscale kept every other daily move and dropped only the chosen rallies ^[4], so the 15 sessions can be priced on their own. Divide the full period's 3.25 multiple by the 0.89 left without them and those days compounded to about 3.65 times ^[20], or roughly 9% apiece on a geometric average ^[21]. They are fewer than 1.5% of the days in the window ^[23]. The gains fall off slowly. The best five days compounded to about 1.67 times, the next five to 1.54 and the five after those to 1.43 ^[19].

Run the same division on the Nasdaq-100 and its 15 best days come to about 1.73 times ^[24]. The index kept roughly a fifth of its three-year gain without them ^[25]. Bitcoin kept none of its gain and finished 11% down ^[3].

Pandl wrote: "Investors waiting for volatility to subside or the outlook to become clearer may find that much of the repricing has already occurred." ^[9] His case for consistent, long-term exposure rests on the argument that the strongest sessions cannot be reliably predicted ^[12].

The run removes up days only ^[4]. The report, next to FINRA's description of market timing ^[14], notes that strong sessions sometimes arrive during turbulent periods ^[15]. A timer who leaves in a sell-off plausibly skips some of the worst days as well. Grayscale's published figures do not include a worst-days version. The window is also a single stretch of three years ending Sept. 23 ^[8], and another end date would rank different days. And the author has a position. Grayscale is a digital asset investment manager ^[17] that has launched four model portfolios for financial advisors ^[16], so a finding in favor of staying invested fits what it sells.

I think the penalty holds for the allocator most likely to try timing, the one waiting for calm, because that wait runs through the turbulent stretches where strong sessions sometimes land ^[15]. The counter-case is an exit rule disciplined enough to dodge the worst days along with the best, and nothing published so far rules it out. This view is wrong if removing bitcoin's 15 worst days lifts the three-year multiple by more than the 3.65 times the best days added ^[20]. Past that threshold, missing both ends beats holding. In that case the study is a measure of volatility, which is where the report itself places the trade-off ^[18].