Polkadot Investment Calculator
What would buying DOT have been worth? Pick a plan and a start date and this replays it against real daily Polkadot closes.
What DOT actually did, in the data this page replays
Measured from the 2,218 daily closes this page replays — 18 August 2020 to 13 September 2026, from Binance. Figures are bounded by that window, not by the asset’s whole life.
| History available | 6 years and 1 month (from Binance) |
|---|---|
| Bought on the first day, held to the last | 0.325× — a loss of 67.5% |
| Highest close in this window | $53.82 on 4 November 2021 |
| Where it sits against that high | 98.1% below |
| Deepest fall | −98.6%, 4 November 2021 → 18 August 2026 |
| Time to get back to that peak | still below it |
| Separate falls of 50% or more | 2 |
| Days spent more than 20% below a previous peak | 90.7% |
| Best calendar year | 2021: +222.1% |
| Worst calendar year | 2022: -84.9% |
| Annualised volatility | 102% |
DOT year by year
First close to last close each year. 2020 and 2026 are partial — the data starts mid-2020 and 2026 is still running.
| Year | Change | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | +198.8% | partial year |
| 2021 | +222.1% | best full year |
| 2022 | -84.9% | worst full year |
| 2023 | +87.6% | |
| 2024 | -22.7% | |
| 2025 | -74.6% | |
| 2026 | -49.6% | partial year |
The part the calculator does not show you
Held from the first day in this data to the last, DOT returned 0.325× — a loss of 67.5%. Long holding periods are usually presented as the thing that rescues a volatile asset, and over this particular window for this particular coin, they did not. It is worth setting the calculator above to the full range and seeing that result written out before assuming time fixes an entry.
The deepest fall took DOT down 98.6%, from $53.82 on 4 November 2021 to $0.752 on 18 August 2026 — 4 years and 9 months of falling. DOT has not been back to that peak since. Anyone who bought on 4 November 2021 is still waiting, 15 months later — which is the scenario a backtest showing a positive average return quietly averages away.
102% annualised volatility is ordinary for a major crypto asset and still several times a stock index. All DOT calculators →
Frequently asked questions
＋Would buying DOT on the first day of this data and holding have made money?
No. Held across the whole window the position ended at 0.325× — a loss of 67.5%. That is worth stating plainly because "hold long enough and it recovers" is the usual advice, and over the 6 years and 1 month we hold for DOT it did not happen.
＋What is the worst DOT has fallen?
98.6% in this data, from 4 November 2021 down to 18 August 2026 — 4 years and 9 months of falling. It has not returned to that peak since, so anyone who bought at the top is still waiting. Bear in mind our DOT series starts in 2020; a deeper fall before that date would not appear here.
＋How often does DOT lose half its value?
2 separate falls of 50% or more appear in this data, and the position spent 90.7% of all days more than 20% below a previous peak. A drop of that size is not an exceptional event for this asset — it is a recurring feature of the record, which is the thing to size a position around.
＋What were DOT's best and worst years?
2021 was the best at +222.1%, and 2022 the worst at -84.9%. The gap between those two is the reason a single average annual return is a poor description of this asset: almost nobody experiences the average, they experience one of the two extremes depending on when they bought.
＋Is 6 years and 1 month of data enough to trust this backtest?
Reasonably. 6 years and 1 month spans roughly one full cycle for DOT — enough for the drawdown figure to mean something, not enough to call it a pattern. The assets here with a decade or more behind them support firmer conclusions.
What to keep in mind for DOT
DOT's high nominal yield is partly compensation for inflation — judge it against price performance, not in isolation.
Polkadot fees are small, but existential-deposit rules mean an account can be reaped if you drain it below the minimum balance.
A backtest is one path that already happened. It shows what this plan produced through the exact sequence of prices DOT went through — not what a similar plan will produce through a sequence nobody has seen yet.