To not work for 30 years, how many bitcoin do you need right now? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

To not work for 30 years, how many bitcoin do you need right now?

3413 sats \ 44 comments \ @yoshi 24 Jun 2023 bitcoin

For tax reasons it’s best to quit your job when selling satoshis.

How much bitcoin would you need to retire right now and live fairly comfortably for 30 years?

My guess would be 21 bitcoin is the minimum stack level required to do it right now if happy to live in low cost of living countries. Which would be $2k a month at current prices.

All while holding a scarce asset that should appreciate in value. So your retirement would get more fruitful as you aged.

A glorious concept.

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414 sats \ 6 replies \ @2bithits 24 Jun 2023

2024-28 = 1BTC 2029-33 = 0.1BTC 2034-38 = 0.01BTC etc

About 1.2 BTC should be right

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @SatoshiNakanodo 24 Jun 2023

1.2BTC to retire right now and live for 30 years? I suppose it depends on where you live, but I'm skeptical that this would be enough unless you're already self-sufficient. In most developed countries you'd likely spend that down to zero before the next cycle top. You need to have enough to last you through the beginning part of the growth curve and still have enough for future appreciation.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @2bithits 24 Jun 2023

Yes, its still risky.

Better wait for the next cycle to see how high we go & more importantly how low we fall.

If the "institutions are coming" turns out to be true, it could go to a million. Even still, the foundations for spending/accepting BTC are not ready yet.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 24 Jun 2023

I tend to think this is going to be somewhere around the correct answer. Maybe a bit more than this, aim for 1.5BTC to be safe. Cost of living will go up over time but Bitcoin should outpace that.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @nymatix 24 Jun 2023

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 24 Jun 2023

Fair enough

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nymatix 24 Jun 2023

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467 sats \ 14 replies \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

I could probably retire on 10’s of bitcoin if I went back my default monkish frugal state.

tbh though I’m more afraid of retirement than not. Needing money forces me to be useful or otherwise suffer materially. Without the threat of suffering, I find myself (and others) prone to delusions of usefulness.

Obviously, there’s a balance to be struck. You want to be “hungry” yet not so hungry you’ll enslave yourself to eat. I’ve noticed some wealthy people accomplish this by constantly upgrading their lifestyle (or taking risky bets on new ventures), but I’m not sure it’s always conscious.

339 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

We are born a marble slab. The goal is to die a beautiful sculpture.

372 sats \ 1 reply \ @KingZing 25 Jun 2023

I have to disagree tbh.

Way too many people are working at zombie jobs that are easily replaced, for far too long and paid far too little.

I know this very well because I work in manufacturing, it's not rare to see a whole department replaced completely by machines.

And it wasn't that the factory couldn't do it sooner, they just couldn't be bothered.

What's worse is they can only really fall back to another manual labor job, which still face the same risk.

Being able to choose when to retire and expand your knowledge/skills in things you actually enjoy doing is great.

Sometimes it do mean you won't be earning anything, but what's useful to society (/business) doesn't mean what's useful for your own personal life journey.

I have taken a few long leaves from working due to personal reasons, every time I wished it could be longer just because there's so much to do.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 25 Jun 2023

I don’t think we disagree. I think we just might not understand what each other means.

When I didn’t graduate from high school, I worked dead end jobs and barely got by for the first 4 years. That sucked and I’d much rather “retire” than do that forever.

But those also aren’t always the only two options.

249 sats \ 1 reply \ @gmd 24 Jun 2023

probably a lot of selection bias for the complainers but /r/FATFIRE is filled with unhappy people

99 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

I can imagine.

ime most normal FIRE people are pretty grounded. The game keeps them grounded/focused.

224 sats \ 1 reply \ @0000 24 Jun 2023

Don't worry, you are always one serious medical issue away from being homeless.

33 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

🤞

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @franzap 24 Jun 2023

I'm exactly the same.

It's a great thing not to be rich (without being poor). I am close to some very well-off families and their kids didn't really become good at anything. I always guessed their feeling deep down is "Daddy will provide" or "will eventually get the inheritance"

340 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

I am close to some very well-off families and their kids didn't really become good at anything.

Terrifying. I'm not sure what's worse: being a cog in a machine you hate or a cog that's never been put to real use.

In a similar vein, I've seen people plateau as adults once they hit an income/wealth level. There are rare exceptions of course, but it seems to require replacing the hunger for survival with a hunger for something else (afaict achievement in the admirable cases).

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @franzap 24 Jun 2023

Yeah. There are so many things that can be improved in the world. I'm sure that "hunger" has to do with having had some kind experience of hardship or discomfort as a child.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @nymatix 24 Jun 2023

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112 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

We can convince ourselves that false things are true.

In this case, we convince ourselves that we are useful when we aren't. Utility is something you can test in the market. If you aren't for sale, there is no such test and instead our utility is self-graded.

1224 sats \ 1 reply \ @nymatix 24 Jun 2023

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 24 Jun 2023

I agree. Our lives are ours to live, and regardless of whether we get a second opinion, the self-grade ends up being the one that matters most anyway.

284 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoiner1 24 Jun 2023

It depends on where and how do you want to live.

Some people needs 2.000 € month and others needs only €700.

21 btc sounds to much in my opinion.

I'm a married man and with less than that, we will try to get a decent life for the rest of the days..

298 sats \ 1 reply \ @SatoshiNakanodo 24 Jun 2023

Why retire?

While you're stacking, work to transition yourself to doing something you love.

But it's a fair question and fun to think about. Too many variables for my brain to calculate though.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @nymatix 24 Jun 2023

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144 sats \ 0 replies \ @birdeye21 24 Jun 2023

In 30 years? Probably much less than we think.

Think of the internet's impact over the last 30 years. You basically can't imagine life without it today.

And no one could possibly imagine its impact 30 years ago.

I think the same will be true of Bitcoin. If your guess is 21 now, I'd take the under, well under, if we were betting.

No one can know of course. But I think history proves that we have a tendency to vastly underestimate new paradigms, and it's impossible for us to see the new paradigm from within the existing one.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @carlosfandango 25 Jun 2023 freebie

Dollar cost average in and dollar cost average out in the future…

And whilst we talk about HODL and not selling a pristine asset it still requires some of it to be spent to maintain its utility beyond a store of value. Lazslo buying his pizzas was a significant event because he spent his Bitcoin and proved its use.

504 sats \ 2 replies \ @orthwyrm 24 Jun 2023

If you think Bitcoin will appreciate by, say, 15% / year forever then your "make it" stack would be:

Annual expense * 100 / 15 = Stack

For example if you lived on $30k / year (1 BTC), your stack would have to be $200k (6.7 BTC).

This is of course a crude calculation and doesn't take into account volatility, market saturation, etc.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @yoshi OP 24 Jun 2023

15% seems a sensible appreciation rate. On the calculation;

Annual expense * 100 / 15 = stack

Is this working to 30 years? The 100 is throwing me off.

210 sats \ 0 replies \ @orthwyrm 25 Jun 2023

The calculation is valid so long as Bitcoin appreciates. That won't happen forever; when we're on a bitcoin standard, growth will begin to taper.

I took this idea from the early retirement guys. They favour low-cost index funds, like the Vanguard Lifestrategy Fund. If you assume that annual stock market returns average at 7%, and inflation averages at 3%, then on the whole the funds appreciates by 4% per year in real purchasing power.

So if you skim off 4% this year to cover expenses, your fund is worth as much as it was the year before (adjusted for inflation).

Suppose you have annual expenses of $40k. Our calculation becomes:

$40,000 * 100%/4% = $1,000,000

If you are more bearish on stocks and think the fund will appreciate by only 3% in real terms, then it becomes:

$40,000 * 100%/3% = $1,333,333

Or even worse at 2%:

$40,000 * 100%/2% = $2,000,000

This calculation is all about averages though. Some years the stock market dumps hard, and other years it rips. I believe I've read that the 4% rule has held up even in extreme scenarios like the great depression, because the market eventually bounces back.

This logic should apply to Bitcoin too. While Bitcoin doesn't generate a yield, unlike the dollar it actually appreciates in purchasing power. And so long as it keeps appreciating each year, you can skim something off the top without eating into your overall purchasing power.

The main caveat is that Bitcoin is absurdly volatile. A historic dump in the stock market is a normal day in Bitcoin land. I kinda plucked that 15% figure from thin air, but you could drop it to a more conservative 10% if you wanted to hedge against extreme volatility.

504 sats \ 1 reply \ @HardRich 24 Jun 2023

Check out https://ficalc.app - using your numbers, you have a 96% chance of not running out of money (assuming bitcoin grows at normal market rates). So, yeah, I think it's doable with your numbers.

The only thing I might worry about is that ficalc shows that starting your retirement prior to a rough economy lowers your chances of success. Since it feels like we're heading for a recession/deprecation or stagflation I'd be worried to start "retirement" now. I'd want to wait until the economy felt like it was coming back or until bitcoin decoupled from the market. That being said, a 4% chance of failure is pretty darn small.

Of course, ficalc assumes your stack grows at normal market rates. It doesn't take into account the fact that bitcoin has tended to grow 150-200% each year (over 10+ years). If bitcoin continues to grow at insane rates then 21 might make you insanely rich and you might decide to move to a high cost of living country. :)

I'm with you, though, I tend to believe that around 21 bitcoin might be all a person needs. But, even if I had that amount, I wouldn't feel comfortable "retiring" right now. Maybe when the SMA1458 (https://charts.bitbo.io/sma1458/) is at around $100k at today's dollar... Just gotta keep stacking before it gets to that rate.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @yoshi OP 24 Jun 2023

That calculator is great, thanks for sharing!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @skreep_ 24 Jun 2023

A good rule of thumb, according to JL Collins "The Simple Path To Wealth" is that when you can live off 4% yield of the wealth you've accumulated, you can move from the "Wealth Accumulation" phase of your life to the "Wealth Preservation" phase of your life.

If you wanted to comfortably retire today, you'd need to be sitting on like 66 btc.

If bitcoin is trading for $1M fiat, then you would need about 2 btc.

and hopefully NGU outpaces your spending.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullama 26 Jun 2023

6.15 BTC of course 😂

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @02ca65ddd8 26 Jun 2023 freebie

I love this

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @f6287b82CC84bcbd 26 Jun 2023

build a few bitcoin accepting businesses and you will always be stacking without even having to work.

Other than family or close friends, no-one will remember you after you die. But your legacy/businesses will hopefully live on forever.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @energycurrency 25 Jun 2023

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 25 Jun 2023

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02fa90fd41 25 Jun 2023

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinosphere 25 Jun 2023

Any talk about retirement must start with how much money per month you expect to SPEND in retirement. Like if you're living on $5k per month now, will that go up because you are going on vacations or down because you're planning on moving to a cheap commune or something.

Once you have a target number, and subtract your age from your life expectancy age, you have a dollar amount to plan for exactly.

Let's say you're 50 and $5k a month is fine for your retirement. If you plan to live to 90, then you need no less than $2.4 million dollars to fully retire on.

Bitcoin is obviously going up, so the only question remains is how little bitcoin can you stack in order to make $2.4 million worth in the future? It may be less than 1 bitcoin in the long run but for the next few years you'll burn thru more than 1 BTC per year at current rates.

Realistically, you're probably going to need something like: 1.5 BTC for 2023. 1 BTC for 2024 1.5 BTC for 2025 0.5 BTC for 2026-2028 0.01 BTC for 2029-2031 0.0001 BTC for 2032 etc Then in 30 years you will probably be about to treat sats like today's dollars. (i.e. 60,000 sats for 2053 onwards)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @mrtali 24 Jun 2023

Don't retire, continue working and focus on strengthen your main source of income. After paying bills, buy goods and enjoy life...with extra savings buy btc for your retirement.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lumor 24 Jun 2023

How much would you need in order to leave the fiat mine and take a job in helping bitcoin succeed?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @f6287b82CC84bcbd 26 Jun 2023

6.15

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 24 Jun 2023

Difficult to say because at current prices you likely need at least 1BTC per year but that could change dramatically in the coming years. In a few years you might only need .1BTC per year. Also, why would you want to sell your BTC stack down when you can just borrow fiat against it to live on. At least until we reach mass adoption and returns aren't exponential.