Dollar Cost-Averaging, or DCA, is a great way of investing in a market as prone to volatility as crypto is. As a newcomer to investing, it was a term completely foreign to me, but one that has proven to be incredibly helpful.

The principle is simple. Say you have a lump sum of fiat (USD, let's say $100) that you want to invest into Ethereum (ETH). Instead of putting in a single order for $100 worth of ETH, DCA involves splitting that $100 into smaller investments over a period of time. This can either be done at regular time intervals, or regular price intervals. 

For example, if the cost of ETH was $2321 at the time of you wanting to invest, you could say "okay, I'm going to put in $20 every week, on Sunday at 3PM".

Alternatively, if you wanted to support your portfolio in a bearish market, you could say "okay, I'm going to put in limit orders for $20 worth of ETH at $10 intervals", which in our example would look like this: $20 of ETH@$2321, $20 of ETH@$2311, $20 of ETH@$2301, $20 of ETH@$2291, and $20 of ETH@$2281. In this situation, one might (and I know this happened to me) ask the question "if i'm planning on buying ETH at $2281, why would I buy it at a higher cost, when I can just wait for it to get lower?". The answer to this can be seen through the very rationale for DCA in the first place:

It is impossible to always accurately predict how a market will act. Yes, Technical Analysis (TA - the study of chart patterns) and Fundamental Analysis (FA - the study of information relating to a particular coin) can be a great resource to use when deciding on investments and trends, but in the short-term, the market can be incredibly volatile and hence difficult to predict. Returning to the previous question I had posed, the answer is simple: you don't know if/when the price will reach that desired level of $2281. It might get down to $2291 before skyrocketing back up, or never even break $2300. In a situation like that, you would have been better off investing along the way down, instead of attempting to catch the bottom, as you wouldn't have invested anything and would've been left with all your cash in hand. 

All considered, DCA eliminates the need to perfectly 'time the market' and helps you reduce the average cost you pay over a period of time. It's a great method of investing, and when done right, will generate you some nice returns!

As always, don't forget to DYOR, and have a good one!