Here’s a question I think more small business owners are quietly asking: if my business throws off a little extra every month, should some of it go into bitcoin?
I want to answer it honestly, which means doing two things most bitcoin content won’t do at the same time. I’ll lay out the real case for it. And I’ll show you, with plain arithmetic, how badly it can hurt. Then you can decide whether the thesis is worth a small, fixed slice of your profit, or none at all.
Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links. If you use them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend what I use or would use. I’m not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice, and bitcoin can lose most of its value quickly.
The case, in one paragraph
There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. The rate of new supply gets cut in half about every four years; the most recent halving, in April 2024, dropped the block reward to 3.125 bitcoin. Nobody can print more. If you believe, as a lot of thoughtful people do, that the dollar slowly loses purchasing power over decades, then an asset with a hard supply cap is an interesting place to store the part of your wealth you won’t need for a long time. The strongest version of this argument is The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous. I’d recommend reading it even if you end up disagreeing, because it forces you to think about what money actually is.
For a business owner, the idea is simple: your business turns your time into dollars. Some owners want a small, automatic slice of those dollars turned into something they see as harder to dilute.
That’s the case. Now the part that matters more.
The crash math
Bitcoin has lost most of its value more than once. Roughly:
- From about $19,800 in December 2017 to about $3,200 a year later: down around 84%.
- From about $69,000 in November 2021 to about $16,000 in November 2022: down around 77%.
- From its October 2025 high near $126,000, it dipped under $75,000 intraday on September 15, 2026, and was still about a third below the peak on September 23.
Percentages hide how brutal this is, so here’s the recovery math. If something falls 50%, it has to double just to get back to where it was. If it falls 80%, it has to go up 400%. A drop that takes months can take years to recover, and nothing guarantees it recovers at all.
| If it falls by | $10,000 becomes | Gain needed to get back to $10,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 30% | $7,000 | +43% |
| 50% | $5,000 | +100% |
| 75% | $2,500 | +300% |
| 84% | $1,600 | +525% |
And unlike a business, bitcoin pays you nothing while you wait. No rent, no dividends, no monthly route cash. Its only return is someone paying more for it later.
Why the business part changes the equation
Here’s where I think owning a business actually makes this easier, not harder.
If your only income is a paycheck, a bitcoin crash lands on the same household that needs the money. If you have a business that pays you every month, and you’ve built the business correctly, the crash lands on a separate bucket. The route still pays. The reserve is still full. The next location still gets its machine. The bitcoin is down 70% and, honestly, nothing in your week changes.
That’s only true if bitcoin comes last. So here are the guardrails I’d use.
The guardrails
1. Fund the business first, every time
Operating cash first. Then a real reserve of a few months of fixed costs. Then the tax set-aside. Then high-interest debt. Then reinvestment in things that produce cash flow, and pay yourself. Only what’s left after all of that is surplus. Bitcoin, if you buy it, comes out of surplus and nothing else.
2. Pick a fixed percentage, and make it small
I’d pick a number like 5% or 10% of true surplus and leave it alone. The size test I use for any volatile asset is the one I described in the sleep test: imagine it drops 75% next month. If that would change a decision in your business or your household, the slice is too big.
3. Automate it and stop watching
Dollar cost averaging doesn’t magically beat buying all at once. I’ve argued before that DCA is a behavior tool, not a math edge. But behavior is the whole ballgame with bitcoin. A recurring buy on the same day each month takes away the temptation to buy more when it’s exciting and stop when it’s scary. River is a bitcoin-only service built around recurring buys, which helps because there’s nothing else there to tempt you.
4. Decide who owns it before you start
You can buy through the business or pay yourself and buy personally. A lot of small owners do the second because it keeps the books clean. If you want the business itself to hold it, talk to a CPA first. The entity and tax consequences depend on how your business is set up.
5. Plan custody and records from day one
Every recurring purchase is its own tax lot. Buy every two weeks for three years and that’s 78 lots, each with its own cost basis. Brokers began reporting digital asset sales on Form 1099-DA starting with 2025 transactions, but moving coins between services can scramble the trail, so keep your own records. I wrote about the mistakes that cost small investors in crypto taxes for small investors. As the stack grows, a hardware wallet like Ledger keeps your keys offline, which shifts the risk from an exchange to you. Write down your recovery phrase, store it safely, and make sure someone you trust knows how to find it.
What it looks like in a real life (hypothetically)
Let me sketch one illustrative path. This isn’t me and it isn’t a real person.
Andre (illustrative) runs a small route on the side of a full-time job. For the first two years, there’s no bitcoin at all. Every spare dollar goes to an old credit card, an equipment loan, and the next placement. By the end of year two, the card’s gone and the reserve is full.
In year three, the business nets about $1,800 a month after he pays himself. He sets 5% of that, $90 a month, to buy bitcoin automatically. Six months in, the price drops by half. His stack is worth a few hundred dollars less than he put in. He doesn’t sell, doesn’t buy extra, and doesn’t touch the business. The next machine goes in on schedule.
That’s what success looks like with this idea. Not a lottery ticket. A small, boring slice that a crash can’t reach anything important through.
The part nobody puts in the thumbnail
All of this assumes one thing: a business that actually produces surplus. That’s the hard part, and it has nothing to do with bitcoin. For a vending or route business, the surplus starts with good locations. There’s also an operator-focused guide to dollar cost averaging business profits into bitcoin, with a full order-of-operations checklist and sizing table.
If you’re still on the fence, don’t buy anything this week. Read the book, run the crash table with your own numbers, and see how it feels. If the idea still makes sense after you’ve pictured an 80% drop, then you’re making a decision instead of a bet. If you want to go deeper on keys and custody first, start with how to store bitcoin safely.
