The question that obsessed me
How many Bitcoin do you really need to retire? This question kept me up at night, so I spent over a month building a dynamic table to answer it. The table looks simple, but behind it are formulas that factor in your living costs, inflation, life expectancy, Bitcoin's compound annual growth rate, and more. The result is a retirement calculator, a Bitcoin price projection tool, and an anti-inflation planner all in one.
Why city averages don't work for you
At first I thought about using average costs from different cities to estimate how many Bitcoin you need. I looked at websites like Expatistan and the Schiff Sovereign Index, which compare cost of living by city and category. But I realized that relying on city averages is guessing blindly. Some people spend a lot on food and coffee, like me. Others survive on instant noodles. Some support a big family with kids at international schools. Others live solo and spend almost nothing.
That is why I made a customizable table. You fill in your own monthly spending, not some generic city average. You can also adjust for future plans. For example, if you live in Beijing now and spend a certain amount, you can check how much cheaper Chiang Mai or Taipei would be and adjust your expected expenses accordingly. This makes the calculation personal and meaningful.
The three numbers that shape your future
The first input is your expected monthly living costs when you retire. In my case, I spend about 10,000 USD per month for my family today. If I retire in 20 years, my kids will be gone and I probably will not travel as much, so I might only need half that amount, around 5,000 per month. You do you.
The second input is inflation. I use 3 percent as a safe default because that is close to the average in the US and France over the last several years. In China it feels higher, maybe 4.5 percent, especially for food and education. I do not recommend putting one or two percent. Look at iPhones: ten years ago an iPhone 6 cost just over 600 USD, and now an iPhone 15 Pro Max starts around 1,200 USD. Inflation quietly eats away your money's purchasing power.
The third input is time: today's year, your target retirement year, and how long you expect to live. I am 38 now, and if I retire at 60, that is 2047. French population data says the average French man dies around 2067, which gives me about 20 years of retirement to fund.
A conservative Bitcoin price model
The calculator also needs a Bitcoin price projection. At the time I recorded this, Bitcoin was around 110,000, though it had just touched 121,000. I use that as the current price and then let the table auto project future prices based on growth assumptions.
Historically Bitcoin has returned something like 30 percent per year, but I play it safe. I assume 20 percent annual growth for the next 10 years, then 10 percent for the following years, then 5 percent, then 3 percent. In the long term 3 percent just covers inflation. You can tweak these percentages in the green cells, but leave the white and yellow cells alone so the formulas do not break. This model forces you to ask yourself what vision you have for Bitcoin's future.
What the calculator told me
The results surprised me. For my situation, where I would spend about 5,000 per month at retirement, I only need about 1.8 Bitcoin by that date. A little more than one coin. That is far less than most people assume.
If you are a solo traveler living in Thailand on 1,500 per month, the tool suggests you only need around 0.5 Bitcoin. And if you already hold some Bitcoin, the picture gets even better. Let's say you have 10 Bitcoin today and you want to spend 3,000 per month in ten years. The calculator shows you only need 3.7 Bitcoin worth at that point. With 10 Bitcoin, you could actually retire in about five years, because by then your coins would already cover your target spending.
The point of having a clear number is to avoid panic and build a plan. If you need two Bitcoin and you have none, you know what to aim for. You can start a disciplined DCA strategy today, adapting the monthly amount to your retirement goal, whether that is 0.5, 1, or 1.8 Bitcoin.
The smarter move: keep your Bitcoin, borrow against it
A common mistake is thinking retirement means selling all your Bitcoin to spend. I will not sell mine. Instead, I plan to lend them or use them as collateral, using services like Strike or whatever exists in 20 years. This way I keep my Bitcoin, and Bitcoin keeps growing during my retirement years.
That means I might need even less than the 1.8 Bitcoin the calculator suggested for my retirement date. Because between my retirement year and my death, the Bitcoin I hold will continue appreciating. I can leave the capital and whatever I keep accumulating to my kids. That is a much better plan than cashing out.
Your Bitcoin number is a plan, not a panic
The real value of this exercise is the clarity that comes from answering three questions: where will you live, how much will you spend, and what do you believe about Bitcoin's future growth. Once you plug in those answers, you often discover you need less Bitcoin than you thought. And if you already hold coins, you may be much closer to freedom than you realize.
So do not sell your Bitcoin. Run your own numbers, adjust for your life plans, and let the plan guide your actions. Freedom is cheaper than most people think.