regular-investing-in-box: Li Xiaolai's Free Book on Dollar-Cost Averaging

What the Repository Contains and Who It Is For

This repository hosts the text of a book called "On Regular Investing" (Chinese title: Ding Tou Gai Bian Ming Yun), authored by Li Xiaolai and published across three editions. The third edition is the current one, available online at https://onregularinvesting.com with https://ri.firesbox.com as a backup URL. The repository also holds the downloadable file formats: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI for both the Chinese and English versions.

The intended reader is any individual investor who has access to a securities market. The book's opening premise is that regular investing is the only reliable path for an ordinary person to build wealth across class boundaries, and that most people who could do it do not, because they do not understand the strategy or lack the psychological preparation to sustain it. The text is aimed at readers with no prior investing knowledge.

What the Book Covers Across 13 Chapters

The Chinese README serves as the book's first edition text and is organized into 13 chapters plus a finale and four appendices. The chapters move from the foundational argument (investing is the only reliable path for ordinary people to cross class boundaries) through the mechanics of why the securities market exists as an opportunity, the case for regular investing over other approaches, the psychology required to sustain a multi-year strategy, and the mechanics of selecting a long-term investment target.

Chapters 9 through 13 cover the psychological dimension in depth: the distinction between active and passive roles in determining outcomes, the importance of operating at the boundary of what is within your control, and why ordinary investors have a structural advantage over professional fund managers who face short-term performance pressure. The finale and appendices explain BOX, a blockchain ETF the author designed as an example investment vehicle, and describe the b.watch platform.

Translations in languages other than Chinese and English are in the Translations/ folder. A Chinese audiobook is in the audiobook/ directory. The third edition text is in the docs/ folder.

Downloading and Reading the Book

No build step is required to read the book. The third edition is accessible at https://onregularinvesting.com as a web page, with https://ri.firesbox.com as an alternate URL. For offline use, prebuilt files are in the docs/ folder of the repository. Cloning the repository gives you the full file tree:

git clone https://github.com/xiaolai/regular-investing-in-box.git
cd regular-investing-in-box

The README provides direct download links for each format. The English PDF is at:

https://github.com/xiaolai/regular-investing-in-box/raw/master/docs/pdf/on-regularinvesting-en.pdf

The Chinese PDF is at docs/pdf/on-regularinvesting-cn.pdf, the English EPUB is at docs/epub/OnRegularInvesting_en.epub, and MOBI files are in docs/mobi/. The repository's package.json is empty, so there is no Node.js toolchain to configure to access the book content. The full chapter text is in the root Markdown files (CHAPTER.01.md through CHAPTER.13.md) and Finale.md. Image assets for the book are in the images/ directory.

The Core Argument: Why Dollar-Cost Averaging Beats Market Timing

The book's central claim is that regular investing works because it removes the timing decision from the investor. By investing a fixed amount on a fixed schedule over a period of five to ten years, an investor buys more units when prices are low and fewer when prices are high, producing an average cost below the arithmetic mean price over the period. This is the standard dollar-cost averaging argument.

What distinguishes the book's approach is the emphasis on selection criteria for the investment target. The author argues that the asset must be one that will be higher in value over the long run than it is today, and that verifying this requires understanding the underlying trend rather than predicting short-term price movements. The book uses this to argue against active trading and against frequent switching between assets. The chapters on psychology (particularly chapters 8 through 12) treat the primary failure mode as behavioral: investors who understand DCA still abandon the strategy during downturns because they have not built the psychological commitment required to hold through a multi-year negative period.

BOX and the Appendices: A Blockchain ETF as the Primary Example

The appendices describe BOX, a blockchain ETF available at b.watch, as the specific investment vehicle the author recommends alongside the DCA strategy. BOX is described in the README as a no-management-fee blockchain ETF product. The appendices address three questions: why the author invests in blockchain digital assets, why BOX is the specific vehicle chosen, and how the b.watch platform works.

The book is explicit that readers can substitute BOX with any long-hold, broadly diversified asset. The README lists Apple stock, Maotai stock, Coca-Cola stock, and an S&P 500 index fund as examples. This means the bulk of the book's argument applies independently of the reader's view on blockchain. The BOX-specific appendices are effectively optional reading for someone who wants the DCA framework but prefers traditional equity markets.

An alternative framework with a similar DCA premise is John Bogle's passive index investing philosophy, best known through Vanguard's materials. The qualitative difference is that Bogle's approach focuses on low-cost traditional index funds in regulated equity markets, while this book presents DCA applied to a blockchain ETF as the primary example, with traditional equities as the secondary option.

License and Repository Maintenance

The repository uses a CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 license (Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives). This allows anyone to read, share, and quote the book with attribution, but prohibits commercial use and the creation of derivative works. The license image (CC-BY-NC-ND.png) is in the root directory. The README states explicitly that the project is a personal technical sharing effort and is not offered as a commercial product.

The repository is not archived. The last push was on 2026-09-27. There are no GitHub releases. The Python label on GitHub reflects tooling in the repository (likely the scripts under the data/ or docs/ generation pipeline) rather than the book's primary content, which is Markdown. The second edition of the book was published in print in China in December 2019 through Guomai Culture; the third edition is the current web version.

Editorial conclusion

Readers who want a book-length case for dollar-cost averaging, written from a personal finance and behavioral perspective rather than academic finance, will find the third edition at onregularinvesting.com and the downloadable files in the docs/ folder. Readers who prefer traditional stock market instruments will find the core DCA argument useful while the BOX-specific appendices are less relevant to them. The CC-BY-NC-ND license allows sharing and personal use but prohibits commercial reproduction and derivative works.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. Project website
3. README
4. xiaolai/regular-investing-in-box on GitHub