@Trey
Bitcoin + FIRE | Newsletter: firebtc.io | VP Sales @unchained
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Recent Notes
If someone asks how much bitcoin they need to retire, the first number I want usually isn't their bitcoin balance.
I want to know what their life costs.
A clean BTC target sounds better because it travels faster. One bitcoin. 6.15 bitcoin. Some round number that feels like a finish line. Those can be useful for motivation, but they aren't enough for a retirement decision because retirement is a coverage problem.
Can your accessible portfolio fund your expenses for as long as you need it to?
That answer starts with three inputs: annual expenses, liquid investment portfolio value, and time horizon. Expenses tell you what has to be funded. Liquid assets tell you how much usable wealth you already have. Time horizon tells you how long bitcoin has to work before it needs to help pay the bills.
Two households can have the same net worth and need completely different BTC targets if one has most of the money trapped in home equity, or if one wants to retire now while the other has ten years of runway.
After that, you still have to stress-test taxes, account access, withdrawal order, bear markets, and spending flexibility. But at least you're solving the right problem.
Read the full piece: https://www.firebtc.io/p/the-3-inputs-before-anyone-can-answer
I want to know what their life costs.
A clean BTC target sounds better because it travels faster. One bitcoin. 6.15 bitcoin. Some round number that feels like a finish line. Those can be useful for motivation, but they aren't enough for a retirement decision because retirement is a coverage problem.
Can your accessible portfolio fund your expenses for as long as you need it to?
That answer starts with three inputs: annual expenses, liquid investment portfolio value, and time horizon. Expenses tell you what has to be funded. Liquid assets tell you how much usable wealth you already have. Time horizon tells you how long bitcoin has to work before it needs to help pay the bills.
Two households can have the same net worth and need completely different BTC targets if one has most of the money trapped in home equity, or if one wants to retire now while the other has ten years of runway.
After that, you still have to stress-test taxes, account access, withdrawal order, bear markets, and spending flexibility. But at least you're solving the right problem.
Read the full piece: https://www.firebtc.io/p/the-3-inputs-before-anyone-can-answer
My little Bitaxe has roughly a 1 in 5 million chance of finding a block on any given day.
Run it every day for a year and the odds improve to about 1 in 15,000, which means I should expect to hit a block sometime around the year 17,000. Not exactly a retirement plan.
But that misses why people care about solo mining in the first place.
A Bitaxe is a tiny open-source bitcoin miner that fits in your hand, runs on about as much power as a bright LED bulb, and gives you a physical connection to a network that usually feels abstract. You plug it in, point it at the network, and watch it try to solve the same puzzle as the industrial miners running entire warehouses.
The expected return is awful. The educational return is pretty good.
For my daughter, it was a Saturday project with wires, a little screen, and questions about hashes per second. For me, it was a simple way to show that bitcoin mining isn't magic and isn't reserved only for giant companies with cheap power contracts.
Anyone with a miner and a power source can participate. You can mine through a pool for steady sats, or you can solo mine and take the absurd long-shot bet. Either way, the door is still open.
That permissionless quality is easy to underappreciate until you see it humming on your desk.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/hashrate-hopium
Run it every day for a year and the odds improve to about 1 in 15,000, which means I should expect to hit a block sometime around the year 17,000. Not exactly a retirement plan.
But that misses why people care about solo mining in the first place.
A Bitaxe is a tiny open-source bitcoin miner that fits in your hand, runs on about as much power as a bright LED bulb, and gives you a physical connection to a network that usually feels abstract. You plug it in, point it at the network, and watch it try to solve the same puzzle as the industrial miners running entire warehouses.
The expected return is awful. The educational return is pretty good.
For my daughter, it was a Saturday project with wires, a little screen, and questions about hashes per second. For me, it was a simple way to show that bitcoin mining isn't magic and isn't reserved only for giant companies with cheap power contracts.
Anyone with a miner and a power source can participate. You can mine through a pool for steady sats, or you can solo mine and take the absurd long-shot bet. Either way, the door is still open.
That permissionless quality is easy to underappreciate until you see it humming on your desk.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/hashrate-hopium
Bitcoin drawdowns have a way of making everyone suddenly forget their time horizon.
When bitcoin drops 20% or 30%, the easy reaction is to treat the move like new information about the asset itself. Maybe the cycle is over. Maybe the thesis changed. Maybe this time is different.
Sometimes the honest answer is much simpler: markets hate uncertainty, investors sell liquid risk assets when they want cash, and bitcoin trades 24/7 while the rest of the financial system gets to close for the weekend.
That doesn't make the drawdown fun, but it does make it normal.
For a FIRE plan, the useful question isn't whether bitcoin can fall hard. It can, and it will. The useful question is whether your plan already accounts for that reality.
If you need next month's rent from your bitcoin stack, volatility is a problem. If you have cash reserves, a long time horizon, controlled expenses, and a steady savings rate, volatility becomes something different. It becomes the cost of holding an asset with a fixed supply while the world slowly figures out what that means.
Corrections are where plans get tested. They expose leverage, impatience, and oversized positions. They also give disciplined savers a chance to keep buying an asset they wanted anyway, at a lower price than last week.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/blood-in-the-streets
When bitcoin drops 20% or 30%, the easy reaction is to treat the move like new information about the asset itself. Maybe the cycle is over. Maybe the thesis changed. Maybe this time is different.
Sometimes the honest answer is much simpler: markets hate uncertainty, investors sell liquid risk assets when they want cash, and bitcoin trades 24/7 while the rest of the financial system gets to close for the weekend.
That doesn't make the drawdown fun, but it does make it normal.
For a FIRE plan, the useful question isn't whether bitcoin can fall hard. It can, and it will. The useful question is whether your plan already accounts for that reality.
If you need next month's rent from your bitcoin stack, volatility is a problem. If you have cash reserves, a long time horizon, controlled expenses, and a steady savings rate, volatility becomes something different. It becomes the cost of holding an asset with a fixed supply while the world slowly figures out what that means.
Corrections are where plans get tested. They expose leverage, impatience, and oversized positions. They also give disciplined savers a chance to keep buying an asset they wanted anyway, at a lower price than last week.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/blood-in-the-streets
2
A lot of people are doing the right things and still feel like they’re falling behind.
They work hard, spend less than they earn, keep cash in a high-yield savings account, contribute to retirement accounts, and buy index funds.
That should be enough to build breathing room, but it doesn’t feel like enough anymore.
The problem is that dollars make a weak long-term savings asset. Prices don’t rise evenly, but the things that matter most for a FIRE plan, like housing, education, insurance, and childcare, keep eating more of the paycheck. Your discipline can be real and your purchasing power can still leak away.
That’s why investing became mandatory. People don’t buy stocks because they love volatility, earnings calls, or portfolio theory. They buy them because sitting in cash means accepting debasement as the default plan.
Bitcoin changes that starting point. A fixed supply doesn’t remove risk, and it doesn’t make planning optional, but it gives savers a monetary asset that can’t be printed to cover someone else’s shortfall.
For FIRE, that matters because the goal isn’t to look wealthy on a statement. The goal is to protect the time you traded for money and turn it into future freedom.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/why-saving-feels-like-a-scam
They work hard, spend less than they earn, keep cash in a high-yield savings account, contribute to retirement accounts, and buy index funds.
That should be enough to build breathing room, but it doesn’t feel like enough anymore.
The problem is that dollars make a weak long-term savings asset. Prices don’t rise evenly, but the things that matter most for a FIRE plan, like housing, education, insurance, and childcare, keep eating more of the paycheck. Your discipline can be real and your purchasing power can still leak away.
That’s why investing became mandatory. People don’t buy stocks because they love volatility, earnings calls, or portfolio theory. They buy them because sitting in cash means accepting debasement as the default plan.
Bitcoin changes that starting point. A fixed supply doesn’t remove risk, and it doesn’t make planning optional, but it gives savers a monetary asset that can’t be printed to cover someone else’s shortfall.
For FIRE, that matters because the goal isn’t to look wealthy on a statement. The goal is to protect the time you traded for money and turn it into future freedom.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/why-saving-feels-like-a-scam
A funny thing happens when bitcoin starts running.
The same plan that felt disciplined at $20k starts feeling too slow at $60k, and by the time the chart is pushing higher, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ve found a way to improve on the thing that already worked.
That’s usually where the trouble starts.
Buying bitcoin with callable leverage, trying to sell the top and buy the bottom, or chasing some other trade because it might give you more bitcoin all come from the same place. The market made you feel smart, and now you want to press.
I get the temptation because I’ve felt it too. I’m not a good trader. My timing is pretty terrible. I know this because I’ve spent too much time, energy, and money trying to prove otherwise.
For a FIRE plan, the point isn’t to win every move. The point is to build a balance sheet that buys back your time and can survive your own impulses when everything feels easy.
That’s why the boring advice keeps surviving every cycle: stay humble, stack sats, avoid leverage that can force your hand, and don’t trade away the asset you actually want to own.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/montezumas-revenge
The same plan that felt disciplined at $20k starts feeling too slow at $60k, and by the time the chart is pushing higher, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ve found a way to improve on the thing that already worked.
That’s usually where the trouble starts.
Buying bitcoin with callable leverage, trying to sell the top and buy the bottom, or chasing some other trade because it might give you more bitcoin all come from the same place. The market made you feel smart, and now you want to press.
I get the temptation because I’ve felt it too. I’m not a good trader. My timing is pretty terrible. I know this because I’ve spent too much time, energy, and money trying to prove otherwise.
For a FIRE plan, the point isn’t to win every move. The point is to build a balance sheet that buys back your time and can survive your own impulses when everything feels easy.
That’s why the boring advice keeps surviving every cycle: stay humble, stack sats, avoid leverage that can force your hand, and don’t trade away the asset you actually want to own.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/montezumas-revenge
Traditional FIRE spends a lot of time on the withdrawal rate, which makes sense. If your portfolio can't support your expenses, you aren't financially independent.
But once you own more than one asset, there's another question sitting underneath the 4% rule: which asset actually pays the bill?
Cash, bonds, taxable stocks, retirement accounts, home equity, and bitcoin don't all play the same role. A dollar in your checking account can buy groceries next week. Home equity might make you wealthy on paper, but it doesn't pay the grocery bill unless you sell, refinance, or borrow against it.
For a mixed-asset FIRE BTC household, I think the hierarchy should be explicit. Spend the weaker, more liquid assets first, and give bitcoin the longest runway possible.
That doesn't mean bitcoin is never sold. It means selling it should be a planned decision, not a blended-withdrawal default hidden inside a calculator.
The useful question is simple: if you stopped working today, how many years could your non-bitcoin liquid assets cover your expenses before you were forced to sell BTC?
That's your bitcoin runway.
I wrote about withdrawal order, spendable runway, and why the asset you sell first can matter as much as the withdrawal rate: https://firebtc.io/p/sell-stocks-first-let-bitcoin-breathe
But once you own more than one asset, there's another question sitting underneath the 4% rule: which asset actually pays the bill?
Cash, bonds, taxable stocks, retirement accounts, home equity, and bitcoin don't all play the same role. A dollar in your checking account can buy groceries next week. Home equity might make you wealthy on paper, but it doesn't pay the grocery bill unless you sell, refinance, or borrow against it.
For a mixed-asset FIRE BTC household, I think the hierarchy should be explicit. Spend the weaker, more liquid assets first, and give bitcoin the longest runway possible.
That doesn't mean bitcoin is never sold. It means selling it should be a planned decision, not a blended-withdrawal default hidden inside a calculator.
The useful question is simple: if you stopped working today, how many years could your non-bitcoin liquid assets cover your expenses before you were forced to sell BTC?
That's your bitcoin runway.
I wrote about withdrawal order, spendable runway, and why the asset you sell first can matter as much as the withdrawal rate: https://firebtc.io/p/sell-stocks-first-let-bitcoin-breathe
Many bitcoiners have a stacking plan.
Very few have an exit plan.
That sounds strange because bitcoin already feels like the exit plan. It is the off-ramp from a broken fiat system, so talking about "exiting" bitcoin can sound like going backward.
That's not what I mean.
The real question is how your stack eventually funds your life. If bitcoin is supposed to buy back your time, it has to connect to your expenses, your other assets, your withdrawal order, your taxes, and the life you're actually trying to build.
Otherwise, the default answer is always more. More sats, more work, more waiting, more reassurance.
FIRE helps because it starts with a useful question: how much does your life cost? From there, bitcoin changes the math because the asset mix matters and the withdrawal order matters.
If I own stocks and bitcoin, the bitcoin is the last thing I want to sell. I'd rather let the highest-upside asset keep compounding while lower-upside assets handle the early withdrawals.
The point isn't to stop stacking too early. The point is to know what the stack is supposed to make possible.
I wrote about how bitcoiners can turn a stacking plan into a real financial independence plan: https://www.firebtc.io/p/bitcoiners-need-an-exit-plan
Very few have an exit plan.
That sounds strange because bitcoin already feels like the exit plan. It is the off-ramp from a broken fiat system, so talking about "exiting" bitcoin can sound like going backward.
That's not what I mean.
The real question is how your stack eventually funds your life. If bitcoin is supposed to buy back your time, it has to connect to your expenses, your other assets, your withdrawal order, your taxes, and the life you're actually trying to build.
Otherwise, the default answer is always more. More sats, more work, more waiting, more reassurance.
FIRE helps because it starts with a useful question: how much does your life cost? From there, bitcoin changes the math because the asset mix matters and the withdrawal order matters.
If I own stocks and bitcoin, the bitcoin is the last thing I want to sell. I'd rather let the highest-upside asset keep compounding while lower-upside assets handle the early withdrawals.
The point isn't to stop stacking too early. The point is to know what the stack is supposed to make possible.
I wrote about how bitcoiners can turn a stacking plan into a real financial independence plan: https://www.firebtc.io/p/bitcoiners-need-an-exit-plan
1
Almost everyone who gets serious about bitcoin eventually asks the same question: how much BTC do I actually need to retire?
A single number feels useful because it turns a messy life into a scoreboard. 6.15 BTC is fun as a meme, and the 25x rule is useful in traditional FIRE because it ties retirement to spending. If you spend $100k a year, the baseline target is $2.5M.
But bitcoin makes the asset side of the equation different. It has a different return profile, deeper drawdowns, different custody and tax issues, and a very different effect on how people save.
So I'd start with three inputs before obsessing over the BTC balance:
1. Annual expenses
2. Liquid investment assets
3. Bitcoin as a percentage of that liquid portfolio
Same net worth, different bitcoin allocation, completely different plan.
The piece that matters most is sequence risk. If bitcoin is the asset that changes the retirement math, selling it first in a bear market can defeat the point of owning it. A better plan gives bitcoin time, uses cash or income when needed, and decides the withdrawal order before volatility shows up.
Read the full article: https://firebtc.io/p/how-much-bitcoin-do-you-really-need
A single number feels useful because it turns a messy life into a scoreboard. 6.15 BTC is fun as a meme, and the 25x rule is useful in traditional FIRE because it ties retirement to spending. If you spend $100k a year, the baseline target is $2.5M.
But bitcoin makes the asset side of the equation different. It has a different return profile, deeper drawdowns, different custody and tax issues, and a very different effect on how people save.
So I'd start with three inputs before obsessing over the BTC balance:
1. Annual expenses
2. Liquid investment assets
3. Bitcoin as a percentage of that liquid portfolio
Same net worth, different bitcoin allocation, completely different plan.
The piece that matters most is sequence risk. If bitcoin is the asset that changes the retirement math, selling it first in a bear market can defeat the point of owning it. A better plan gives bitcoin time, uses cash or income when needed, and decides the withdrawal order before volatility shows up.
Read the full article: https://firebtc.io/p/how-much-bitcoin-do-you-really-need
Traditional FIRE advice treats global diversification as a fund-selection question. Do you need VXUS with VTI? Are you taking country risk if your stock portfolio is American?
I understand the concern, but the simple-path answer makes sense to me. If you own a broad US index, you own companies that sell into the world. The largest holdings in VTI and the S&P 500 earn revenue overseas and depend on global supply chains.
That gives you international exposure without adding another fund, another allocation decision, and another reason to tinker.
Bitcoin takes the idea further. You aren't getting exposure through corporate wrappers, brokerage accounts, dividend policy, or the legal system of one country. You're holding a global monetary asset with a fixed supply, available to anyone who can connect to the network.
For a FIRE investor, the goal isn't to collect every asset class. The goal is to build a simple balance sheet that compounds purchasing power and gives you more control over your future.
US index funds give global business exposure. Bitcoin gives global monetary exposure.
Read the full essay on global diversification, US index funds, and bitcoin as a borderless savings asset: https://firebtc.io/p/going-global
I understand the concern, but the simple-path answer makes sense to me. If you own a broad US index, you own companies that sell into the world. The largest holdings in VTI and the S&P 500 earn revenue overseas and depend on global supply chains.
That gives you international exposure without adding another fund, another allocation decision, and another reason to tinker.
Bitcoin takes the idea further. You aren't getting exposure through corporate wrappers, brokerage accounts, dividend policy, or the legal system of one country. You're holding a global monetary asset with a fixed supply, available to anyone who can connect to the network.
For a FIRE investor, the goal isn't to collect every asset class. The goal is to build a simple balance sheet that compounds purchasing power and gives you more control over your future.
US index funds give global business exposure. Bitcoin gives global monetary exposure.
Read the full essay on global diversification, US index funds, and bitcoin as a borderless savings asset: https://firebtc.io/p/going-global
The standard emergency fund advice sounds responsible: keep 6-12 months of expenses in cash so you can survive a job loss, medical bill, or some other annoying surprise life throws at you.
I get the emotional appeal. Seeing a cash pile in the bank feels like control.
The problem is that control has a price, and the price is usually hidden. If your monthly expenses are $5,000, a six-month cash cushion is $30,000 sitting in a savings account while the rest of your plan is trying to compound.
Even if that cash earns 4%, it still has to fight the constant debasement of the dollar. Meanwhile, the money that could have been in stocks or bitcoin is not participating in the upside that actually moves you closer to financial independence.
The right question is not, "What if something bad happens?" Of course something bad can happen. The better question is whether hoarding cash for a possible disruption is worth giving up years of expected compounding.
For someone with liquid investments, disciplined spending, and a long time horizon, the emergency fund does not need to be a separate pile of dead money. Your portfolio can be the buffer, and as it grows, the buffer gets stronger.
Read the full essay on emergency fund math, expected value, and why liquid compounding assets can be a better safety net: https://firebtc.io/p/emergency-economics
I get the emotional appeal. Seeing a cash pile in the bank feels like control.
The problem is that control has a price, and the price is usually hidden. If your monthly expenses are $5,000, a six-month cash cushion is $30,000 sitting in a savings account while the rest of your plan is trying to compound.
Even if that cash earns 4%, it still has to fight the constant debasement of the dollar. Meanwhile, the money that could have been in stocks or bitcoin is not participating in the upside that actually moves you closer to financial independence.
The right question is not, "What if something bad happens?" Of course something bad can happen. The better question is whether hoarding cash for a possible disruption is worth giving up years of expected compounding.
For someone with liquid investments, disciplined spending, and a long time horizon, the emergency fund does not need to be a separate pile of dead money. Your portfolio can be the buffer, and as it grows, the buffer gets stronger.
Read the full essay on emergency fund math, expected value, and why liquid compounding assets can be a better safety net: https://firebtc.io/p/emergency-economics
People ask if it is too late to buy bitcoin, and I usually ask a different question: how many people do you personally know who own a meaningful amount?
Most answers are still basically zero.
That matters because the capital sitting on the sidelines is not only retail money waiting for a better app or a cleaner headline. Family offices manage wealth for families worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or more, and Deloitte estimates the space controls over $5 trillion of assets.
These are not tourists chasing a chart. They are paid to preserve capital across generations, which means they already think in decades, diversify across stores of value, and accept volatility when the long-term case is strong enough.
The funny part is that many of their bitcoin questions are still Bitcoin 101 questions. Utility, volatility, regulation, custody, sizing. Same learning curve, just with bigger balance sheets.
As those questions get answered, the decision shifts from whether bitcoin belongs in the portfolio to how much. With a fixed supply and trillions of dollars still barely allocated, that is the part of adoption I think FIRE investors should take seriously.
Read the full essay on why family offices may become a major source of bitcoin demand: https://firebtc.io/p/a-family-office-affair
Most answers are still basically zero.
That matters because the capital sitting on the sidelines is not only retail money waiting for a better app or a cleaner headline. Family offices manage wealth for families worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or more, and Deloitte estimates the space controls over $5 trillion of assets.
These are not tourists chasing a chart. They are paid to preserve capital across generations, which means they already think in decades, diversify across stores of value, and accept volatility when the long-term case is strong enough.
The funny part is that many of their bitcoin questions are still Bitcoin 101 questions. Utility, volatility, regulation, custody, sizing. Same learning curve, just with bigger balance sheets.
As those questions get answered, the decision shifts from whether bitcoin belongs in the portfolio to how much. With a fixed supply and trillions of dollars still barely allocated, that is the part of adoption I think FIRE investors should take seriously.
Read the full essay on why family offices may become a major source of bitcoin demand: https://firebtc.io/p/a-family-office-affair
❤️1
The popular bitcoin advice is simple: never spend your bitcoin. Spend the dollars, save the sats. I get the instinct. Dollars are designed to lose purchasing power over time, and bitcoin has a fixed supply. If you have both, it feels almost irresponsible to hand over the asset with the better long-term upside.
But opportunity cost does not come from the payment rail. It comes from the expense.
If you buy a $100 dinner, your FIRE plan takes the same hit whether the merchant receives dollars, sats, or a credit card swipe that gets paid off later. You have $100 less that could have gone into your stack, and if that dinner becomes a recurring expense, your FI number rises by roughly 25x the annual amount under the 4% rule.
Spending bitcoin can be fine if you spend and replace. Spending dollars can still be wasteful if the purchase was lifestyle creep wearing a reasonable outfit. The real question is whether the expense deserves a place in the life you are trying to buy back.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/spending-bitcoin
But opportunity cost does not come from the payment rail. It comes from the expense.
If you buy a $100 dinner, your FIRE plan takes the same hit whether the merchant receives dollars, sats, or a credit card swipe that gets paid off later. You have $100 less that could have gone into your stack, and if that dinner becomes a recurring expense, your FI number rises by roughly 25x the annual amount under the 4% rule.
Spending bitcoin can be fine if you spend and replace. Spending dollars can still be wasteful if the purchase was lifestyle creep wearing a reasonable outfit. The real question is whether the expense deserves a place in the life you are trying to buy back.
Read the full piece: https://firebtc.io/p/spending-bitcoin
2
