Both online and IRL, the question I continue to hear the most is "How much Bitcoin should I get?"
I've spent some time putting a visual guide together that has helped some people close to me set stacking targets based on when they expect to retire. I hope this can also be helpful to you or the people you care about.
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How it works: 1) Decide the age at which you would hypothetically retire—the point at which you could live off it for the rest of your life if necessary (not that you'd actually want to sell it). There are groups of lines that represent retirement ages 35, 45, 55, 65 and 75 for simplicity.
2) Determine (in 2025 dollars) the annual expenses you expect to live on starting in your year of retirement (these are denoted by the different colors dark grey --> Bitcoin orange, $50,000/yr --> $300,000/yr)
3) Find your current age on the x-axis
4) Find where the line colored according to your expected annual living cost, within the Retire@ line group of your retirement age target, intersects with the line of your current age
The Bitcoin Needed Today (BTC) that corresponds with that point (see y-axis) is the minimum amount you should target.
If the several groups of lines are too difficult to navigate, look below in this thread's replies to see the isolated Retire@ cases by age (35, 45, 55, 65, 75).
Assumptions: 1) Future BTC price is projected by 50th percentile power law model. 2) Everyone dies at age 100. 3) Money supply (USD) grows at constant rate of 7%CAGR - meaning, whichever colored line you choose accounts for this 7% inflation from today to your retirement year, and beyond (ex: if you choose $100,000/year, in 2035 that would be about $196,715 - the model accounts for this). 4) The Bitcoin Needed Today amounts represent the minimum amount to prevent your BTC stack from hitting zero by age 100 - this is meant to be a minimum target, and therefore the individual should determine how much additional buffer BTC they should target. 5) Assumes a 'constant withdrawal rate in real 2025 USD terms', meaning the only increase year-year is to offset assumed 7% inflation. 6) Assumes no taxes will exist on withdrawals.
Disclaimers:
*this is NOT financial advice
**this is NOT a suggestion that you should sell your Bitcoin
Retire at 35:
Retire at 45:
Retire at 55:
Retire at 65:
Retire at 75:
• • •
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Rather than track the data, Luke suggests you should believe this trend will reverse course - rather than trending from mid-40%CAGR to mid-20% CAGR over the next 10-20 years, he tells you it will go toward 60%, 90%, or higher. Sound like good "planning?" Would you plan your loved one's retirement that way?
For good planning, I suggest start with accepting reality. Thinking something 'isn't bullish enough' isn't good enough.
Diminishing returns can be analogized with inflating a balloon.
When you are taking your first few breaths to inflate the balloon, the corresponding volume of the balloon increases substantially. But after those first few, you quickly start to realize that, to double the size of that balloon again (say to go from the size of a baseball to the size of a volleyball), it takes a lot more air and more breaths (maybe 30 breaths instead of 3 breaths).
Similarly, a much larger amount of capital inflows is required to push the market cap of Bitcoin up from 2 trillion to 20 trillion than it did from 100 million to 1 billion.
So when Luke talks about all the additional money in the system which has yet to flow into Bitcoin, realize there is a time dependence to this, and remember the balloon effect. Luke also provides no analytical method to show a short-term meteoric price surge.
🟠 How much Bitcoin does the average person need to retire?
Here, its calculated and presented in radial charts 🍥
for 96 countries, ages 5 - 75, retiring in 2025 - 2055.
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Based on each country’s average income level, adjusted for inflation (7% M2 expansion), and of course utilizing the highly reliable power law support line (5th percentile) as the BTC price model - check out the numbers based on your current age.
Assumes: spending the actual Bitcoin for annual living expenses, and expecting to live to age 100.
Highlights:
🍥MOST people in MOST countries still need less than 1 BTC for 2035 and out.
🍥If retiring this year, most countries need between 1-10 BTC.
🍥To retire in 2045 in BITCOIN-FRIENDLY countries:
• El Salvador: 0.023 - 0.13 BTC
• Switzerland: 0.26 - 1.5 BTC
• Portugal: 0.07 - 0.39 BTC
Many have asked, and so here it is: FULL re-post of Smitty's Bitcoin Retirement Guide 📙
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Paginated, 600 DPI, $50k - $1M USD annual expense scenarios, assumed future 7% average annual inflation, and does not account for taxes.
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BOOKMARK this so you can always refer back to it!
Been feeling like we're on the longest Bitcoin crab crawl ever?
Not only would you be right - but there is something else unique about the current "crab market" as I call it.
It is the first of all the crab markets to have a steeper slope than the previous one.
Keep reading 👇
I fitted each crab market using an exponential function, which gives us the growth rate of each (the is the "Crab Crawl Slope" in the inset plot.
When you plot each of the slopes, they actually behave as a power law on their own (R2 > 99.5). This means that the slope of the CURRENT CRAB WALK we are in should have a slope LESS STEEP than the one from 2019-2020...
Yet, it is STEEPER. Here are the values:
2019-2020 Crab walk slope = 0.001566
Current Crab walk slope = 0.001769
EXPECTED Current Crab walk slope = 0.001227
The red dashed line and red dot in the plots represent the expected price trajectory and crab market slope for this current crab market; compare that to the most recent orange data.
Smitty's Bitcoin Retirement Guide: e-Book Edition 📙
*Only here on X*
The wait is finally over - you're going to want to bookmark this.
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🧵Thread👇
Without detailing the exact instructions on how to use the guide, this time around, I will explain the important changes - and from there, please engage, share, and enjoy!
1) Updated Model: This is a critical solution, and I'll explain why. Rather than using the median (50th quantile) power regression model, as was used in previous versions, Smitty's e-Book uses the 5th quantile. Why? Statistically, theoretically, this ensures that 95% of the time the desired annual withdrawal rate (living/spending costs) will not need to be down-adjusted due to volatility - because by definition, only 5% of the price falls below this 'support' line (see my other models). Therefore, you should only expect to need to down-adjust roughly once in 20 years. This makes this e-Book version more conservative, while maintaining realism and (clearly) attainability of stacking targets (see the various pages).
2) e-Book Format: I'm only posting these to X for now; but since in the past there has been so much positive engagement, I wanted to keep the overall 'brand' while enhancing the stylings so that it feels like an easy mini reader for folks comparing spending/stacking scenarios for retirement. It is also high DPI, now with nice borders, headers/footers and even page numbers. Feel free to print out and make a physical copy, or choose your favorite scenario, laminate and post on the wall.
3) Table addition: I've been meaning to include this change for a while. Not all of us are graphic/visually inclined, and indeed many of us are table/spreadsheet inclined. Therefore, below the graphs, I added easy-to-read look-up tables which exactly map to the Retirement Years and Current Age from the graphs, along with exact color-matching according to Current Age. No more needing to follow lines and line intersections; should also help for the visually impaired.
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As always, the key assumptions in the guide to remember:
1*Assumed 7% annual inflation rate going forward (not easy to predict but historical expansion has been pretty close to this).
2*Taxes not accounted for - tax policy is too variable and too liable to change in any given year - please do your own homework for your own situation.
3*You're living to 100 (or at least planning your conservative BTC spend-down plan out to that age).
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So, as always, flip through the replies in this thread, and enjoy the new tool!
"Helping you develop a better Bitcoin stacking target for life planning." - Sminston With
Sminston's Bitcoin Retirement Guide (Part Deux):
Retirement Year
Again helping to answer the question of "How much Bitcoin should I get?"
A thread 🧵👇
. . .
Instructions to use this version:
1) Find the chart in the replies (below) that corresponds to your expected annual living cost (in 2025 dollars) (e.g. $50k/year, $150k/year, etc.).
2) Find the year you expect to retire on the x-axis.
3) Find the colored, curved line (legend for reference) that corresponds to your *Current Age* (if it doesn't have your exact age, find the two closest to your current age and imagine a curved line drawn between them).
3) Trace up the vertical line from your retirement year to a colored line (if the colors don't help, just count the lines - there are only 8 of them).
4) Find where the vertical line of your retirement year meets your Current Age line - then trace this to the y-axis value they meet at. This y-axis value is your "Bitcoin Needed (BTC)" to retire that year. Whether you obtain that Bitcoin today, or in the future, by that date you need that amount of Bitcoin.
. . .
Assumptions are the same as the last Bitcoin Retirement Guide post:
1) Future BTC price is projected by 50th percentile regression power law model.
2) Everyone dies at age 100.
3) Money supply (USD) grows at constant rate of 7%CAGR - meaning, whichever colored line you choose accounts for this 7% inflation from today to your retirement year, and beyond (ex: if you choose $100,000/year, in 2035 that would be about $196,715 - the model accounts for this).
4) The Bitcoin Needed Today amounts represent the minimum amount to prevent your BTC stack from hitting zero by age 100 - this is meant to be a minimum target, and therefore the individual should determine how much additional buffer BTC they should target.
5) Assumes a 'constant withdrawal rate in real 2025 USD terms', meaning the only increase year-year is to offset assumed 7% inflation.
6) Assumes no taxes will exist on withdrawals.
Disclaimers:
*this is NOT financial advice
**this is NOT a suggestion that you should sell your Bitcoin