The number.
It is everything in FIRE circles.
Your number.
When I worked at the large crypto exchange, one of the Chinese guys walked up to me one day and asked, “What’s your number?”
We were already connected, and his body language made it clear he wasn’t asking for my phone number. I knew exactly what he meant. My number. The amount of money I needed to retire.
I assume he asked other people the same question.
I can’t recall what I told him; I know my net worth was still under a million dollars at the time, likely under three hundred thousand. Whatever my reply, it was far below the number I carry today.
When I started investing in 2012, my goal was to retire by 40 with one million dollars. I reasoned that a million would yield forty thousand a year forever under the 4% rule, more than enough to cover my cost of living. Meticulously planned, I had a Google Sheet mapped out with a diversified portfolio that would produce income once I hit my number. I named it “Apollo 12.” – What NASA did after they reached the moon.
I remember exactly where I was when I crossed the first million. Sitting in a Jakarta bar in the middle of the day, throwing back tequila shots with a Chinese guy I had just met. We couldn’t speak a word of each other’s language but we didn’t let that stop us. He passed out in his chair. I stumbled home to my girlfriend, who made me sleep on the couch. Lying there, I checked my phone. My portfolio had ticked over one million.
That was my number. I enjoyed it for all of thirty minutes before I moved it to two million.
One million is cool, but two million made me a multi-millionaire. That sounded better. My number had slid.
At two million I reasoned that two and a half would be even better. Two and a half million would throw off one hundred thousand a year under the 4% rule. That became my new number.
When my portfolio surged through two and a half, I didn’t even stop to notice. The run continued. At three million I realised I didn’t really have a number anymore. The line kept sliding, and I let it. By four million I had stopped asking myself when I would quit.
A friend did ask me. “When is it going to be enough? When will you sell some bitcoin and retire?” I knew it wasn’t here. Not yet.
I had read that five million was the line for a new category, the Very High Net Worth Individual. VHNWI. That became the next target. My number slid once more.
Then I pulled the trigger and moved to Bali. I toured villas and broke my long-held rule against property ownership. I wanted one. A villa I could call my headquarters. But the definition of VHNWI is five million excluding your primary residence. So my number adjusted again: five and a half million. Five in liquid assets and a fully paid-off villa.
I still keep a meticulous spreadsheet for my post-Bitcoin portfolio. It runs macros, pulls data from APIs, tracks dividend yields in multiple currencies, and calculates every cent of projected income. At time of writing, my number sits at five and a half million. Five liquid and a beautifully paid off villa.
But I can already feel the skis greased for another slide. I imagine it might become five million, plus a villa, plus a three-year cash buffer. That rounds to six million.
So it goes with human nature.
“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer
I hope I can find the strength to pull the trigger when I hit my number, and that I reach it within the next twelve months.
Buying bitcoin is the easy part. Selling it is infinitely harder.
As any good bitcoiner knows, the answer to “How many bitcoin do you have?” is “Not enough.”
Unfortunately, it seems that the answer to the question. “What is your number?” might be damned to forever be “More.”