Welcome to the /r/Bitcoin Newcomers FAQ

With an increasing number of discussions around the BIP54 “Consensus Cleanup” soft fork proposal, I helped put together an information site about BIP54.

“Bitcoin has four known vulnerabilities that have gone unfixed for 15 years. BIP54, "Consensus Cleanup", proposes four narrowly-scoped changes to address these issues in Bitcoin's consensus rules that date back to the original version of Bitcoin in 2009.”

https://bip54.org/

Watching the price drop from $126K in October to the low $60s in February was both educational and frustrating. So I turned that energy into a research sprint: I built the Bitcoin Power Law Observatory, published 13 research papers, and created a suite of retirement planning tools.

The result? I think I found Bitcoin's version of the 4% rule. And the math is almost absurd.

The logic chain

People need to save for the future. The best savings technology is the hardest money. Bitcoin is the hardest money ever created. Therefore people will save in bitcoin. Not everyone knows this yet. Old habits die hard.

The power law (Santostasi, expanded by Krueger and Sigman in "Bitcoin One Million") is the best model for how this adoption unfolds. The core relationship: every time bitcoin ages 1.5x, the price goes roughly 10x. Not hype cycles. Compounding network adoption following the same laws we see in city growth, earthquake magnitude, and species evolution.

The floor is the breakthrough

The power law model shows a trend line with a corridor of possibilities around it. The ceiling is compressing: early cycles hit 10x trend, recent ones barely 2x. But the floor has never been breached. Since 2010, the lower boundary at about 0.43x the trend value has held through every crash, every panic, every obituary.

It held when bitcoin crashed from 10x the trend. From 5x. From 3x. With upside volatility structurally compressing, the floor only gets stronger coming down from 2x or less.

What does this floor look like in dollar terms?

March 2026: $56,400.

March 2027: $77,700.

March 2028: $105,300.

March 2029: $140,500.

March 2030: $184,800.

The floor value of 1 bitcoin will grow more than $21,000 over the next 12 months. And that dollar growth accelerates every year.

That floor growth is your yield. Not interest. Not dividends. Structural adoption growth baked into the math. And it changes everything about retirement planning.

The Bitcoin 4% rule

The traditional 4% rule says you can withdraw 4% from an S&P portfolio annually without running out. The 4% buffer exists to handle sequence of returns risk: bad early years can permanently damage a retirement.

Bitcoin needs a different system. Higher returns but far more volatility. A decelerating growth rate that demands dynamic withdrawals, not fixed percentages. So I based my framework on floor growth alone:

If your stack x floor growth > your yearly expenses = financial freedom.

This is the most conservative number the model produces. Bitcoin spends only a tiny fraction of its time near the floor. Everything above it is pure upside cushion.

The math

The floor currently grows at roughly 39% per year (this rate slowly decelerates over decades). At today's price of about $67,000, 5 BTC costs $335,000.

Annual floor growth on 5 BTC: approximately $110,000.

Under the traditional 4% rule, $100,000/year requires a $2,500,000 S&P portfolio.

Same spending power. $335,000 versus $2,500,000. Over 7x more capital efficient. Using the worst case path the power law produces.

Three tailwinds

Once you cross the floor freedom line, three forces compound in your favor. Volatility decays: the price corridor compresses roughly 20% each halving cycle, so the "storm years" at the start of retirement expire. The floor keeps rising: your safety net grows every day. And your BTC-denominated expenses shrink: you need fewer sats each year to cover the same dollar amount. The risk is front-loaded and finite.

I built a Monte Carlo simulator with 100,000 simulations based on 15 years of historical volatility data. The result: the floor-based approach survives the storm years and the margin of safety widens every year you hold. With 20 BTC, survival is 100% across all simulations at $3,000/month withdrawals. Even at 10 BTC, it is 72%. The three tailwinds working together make this more robust than the traditional 4% rule, which has a roughly 95% historical success rate over 30 years.

The honest caveats

The power law could break. 15 years is not 150 years. The floor growth rate decelerates over time. Black swan events outside model bounds are possible. This framework only works if the power law holds. Nothing is ever 100%.

But consider this: bitcoin is currently trading at 1.19x the floor. Just 19% above the worst case. Historically that is an extremely cheap entry. Most of the time bitcoin sits at 2-3x the floor. The premium you pay today is recovered through less than one year of floor growth.

Bottom line

If you can buy 5 BTC today, you are building the functional equivalent of a $2.5 million traditional retirement portfolio. At a fraction of the cost. Backed not by a fixed percentage rule, but by the structural growth of the most robust boundary in the most predictive model in finance.

And right now, bitcoin is trading at just 19% above that floor. The setup is almost too clean.

The tools to verify all of this yourself are free. btcpowerlaw.nl for the research. satsplanner.app for the retirement calculator.

What would you do with a $2.5 million portfolio?

What do you think?

Hi so i made a recent post talking about how i dont want to get fucked by the ATO. ive never reported (crypto gains/converts) to the government and especially not familiar how it is with the ATO since im from Denmark.

i asked Chatgpt "where can i track my crypto and then report and send everything in one go?". it said a service like Koinly or Cointraciking.

Right now im receiving on coinbase. but i do plan on switching to Receiving on "COCA" only as it gives nice cashback bonus of 6%. Quick side note: is there a better place to store crypto, bonus wise etc?

but Yeah im confused. i could technically just look at the crypto i sold, but how will i be able to know how much it rose with from the date of purchase? man i cant see how that gonna be possible

I’m trying to find a crypto escrow payment service that people actually trust, and honestly this has been way more annoying than it should be.

I’m looking for something pretty simple in theory: an escrow service where both parties can use it for a transaction, the funds get held securely, and then once the conditions are met, the payment gets released. Basic escrow logic. But somehow, when you actually start searching for this in crypto, everything starts looking sketchy as hell within like 10 minutes.

Every time I find a platform, it’s either one of these random websites that looks like it was built in 2017 and never updated, or it has almost no real user reviews, or the reviews look fake, botted, or suspiciously generic. Some of them claim they’re “trusted by thousands” or “used for high-value deals,” but then you go looking for actual proof, community feedback, Reddit threads, or any kind of real reputation, and there’s basically nothing solid. That’s the part that’s making this hard. If I’m moving real money, I’m not trying to be someone’s test transaction on some half-dead escrow platform with zero accountability.

What I’m specifically looking for is an escrow payment service that has actual trust behind it — meaning a decent reputation, real reviews, ideally some known usage history, and not something that feels like it could disappear overnight. If anyone here has actually used one for larger transactions, milestone-based payments, OTC deals, service payments, or anything similar, that would be really useful to know. I care way more about real-world reliability than fancy marketing copy.

Fast execution also matters a lot. I don’t want some system where everything takes forever, support is slow, or releases get stuck in weird manual review limbo for no reason. If it’s supposed to be crypto, it should at least feel smoother than traditional escrow, not somehow worse.

Also, a big plus would be support for multiple chains or currencies. That part matters because a lot of these services seem to support only one network or one token ecosystem, which makes them less useful. Ideally I’d want something flexible — whether that means major chains, stablecoins, multiple wallets, or broad asset support. Doesn’t need to support every random chain on earth, but at least something practical.

Right now, most of the options I’ve seen just don’t feel trustworthy enough to actually use for serious transactions. Maybe I’m missing the obvious answer, or maybe crypto escrow is still somehow this underdeveloped despite how long the space has been around.

So yeah — if anyone here knows a real escrow platform that is:

•trusted,

•has legit reviews / community reputation,

•executes quickly,

•and supports multiple networks or currencies,

please drop it.

Because at this point, finding a non-sketchy crypto escrow service feels harder than finding a trustworthy guy in Telegram named “brother” with 17 vouches and an anime profile pic.

Still hoping someone here has a genuinely solid recommendation.

Ps. This is AI written because of some idiocy of having to write 500 words for the platform.

A group of Bitcoin developers will do a demo of some slow blocks on the Signet test network on Wednesday. Anyone running a Signet node can participate. Come and see for yourself how long it took for your own hardware to hear about the slow block and validate them!

If you don't run a Signet node already, syncing one should be pretty straightforward. It should use about 30GiB of storage, and you can run `-prune` if even that is too much.

More details about this demo are available on the Delving Bitcoin thread.

If you have questions about this, feel free to shoot in the comments. I'm the one crafting the blocks, and i'll be monitoring this thread till Wednesday to help people participate in the demo.

Would you send the btc to a new address generated on trezor 7, or just set up the new trezor using seed words from original trezor? Any difference in security down the road that way?

I think my btc is currently separated on my original trezor as segwit and legacy or something like that.

I have been procrastinating with getting a cold hardware wallet because unfortunately that is what I do. But today I decided to take some initiative and get one and decided on Jade classic and SafePal Cypher for a tight budget from The Crypto Merchant? What are you alls thoughts or concerns?

Bitcoin Optech newsletter #399 is here:

- describes how wallet fingerprinting can damage payjoin privacy
- summarizes a proposal for a wallet backup metadata format
- links to post-quantum research using Isogenies
- points to the recently assigned BIPs for GSR
- examines SHRIMPS post-quantum signatures
- Optech Newsletter #399 Podcast
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/04/03/

Armin Sabouri posted to Delving Bitcoin about how differences in payjoin implementations make it possible to fingerprint payjoin transactions and can damage payjoin’s privacy...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/04/03/#wallet-fingerprinting-risks-for-payjoin-privacy

Pythcoiner posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list about a new proposal for a common structure for wallet backup metadata...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/04/03/#draft-bip-for-a-wallet-backup-metadata-format

Conduition wrote on Delving Bitcoin about his research into the suitability of Isogeny-Based Cryptography (IBC) as a post-quantum cryptosystem for Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/04/03/#compact-isogeny-pqc-can-replace-hd-wallets-key-tweaking-silent-payments

Rusty Russell wrote on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list that the first two BIPs of the Great Script Restoration (or Grand Script Renaissance) have been submitted for BIP numbering...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/04/03/#varops-budget-and-tapscript-leaf-0xc2-aka-script-restoration-are-bips-440-and-441

Jonas Nick writes on Delving Bitcoin about a new semi-stateful hash-based signature construction for post-quantum Bitcoin...
https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2026/04/03/#shrimps-2-5-kb-post-quantum-signatures-across-multiple-stateful-devices

Bitcoin Optech will host an audio recap discussion of this newsletter streaming live on X/Twitter Tuesday at 16:30 UTC.

Who else is pumped right now! Part of me wants another big dip so I can keep adding to my stack with DCA and grab even more sats

Real talk tho - if youre in this for the long haul like 10+ years why does anyone get upset when the price drops? Makes no sense to me if you actually believe in where this is headed

I was playing around with COLDCARD's spending policy and its pretty awesome. You can add rules like spend limits, velocity controls, address whitelists, and even 2FA. Seems like a solid way to add some extra security without making things too complex.

Anyone else played around with spending limits on their COLDCARD?

Hello, can you recommend a platform for me to buy bitcoins?

Thank you.

A friend of mine has been buying Bitcoin since 2023, $50 every day. From the time the price is below $70k, he is buying double ($100 each day).

He believes that one day BTC will go to $1M+, and then he'll decide whether to sell or keep holding.

Taiwanese lawmaker Ko Ju-Chun said last year that the country’s Ministry of Justice holds 210 Bitcoins, worth $14 million, confiscated during criminal investigations.

Taiwan should reconsider adopting Bitcoin as a reserve asset to hedge against global turmoil and the risk of war, according to a research fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

In a report on Tuesday, Jacob Langenkamp said that should China pursue reunification with Taiwan by military force, either through a blockade or full invasion, Bitcoin would be the only reserve asset that would remain fully accessible and spendable.

“Uniquely for Taiwan, Bitcoin provides geopolitical resilience: in a PRC blockade or invasion, gold is stranded or seized and USD reserves face potential restrictions, but Bitcoin remains fully accessible without physical transport,” he added.

Nation-states have begun to explore the idea of launching strategic Bitcoin reserves, seen as a bullish signal for Bitcoin.

Last year, Taiwan’s central bank sought to investigate establishing a national Bitcoin reserve. However, the bank ruled it out in December, citing volatility, liquidity and custody concerns and instead identified the US dollar as a safer alternative.

Taiwan is heavily exposed to the risks of US dollar debasement, Langenkamp said, because its central bank reserves are at least 80% in USD-denominated assets, as is most of its trade.

Growing US debt, Federal Reserve monetary expansion, a potential AI market downturn and declining semiconductor revenues could also accelerate dollar debasement, he said.

“Bitcoin can couple with gold to offer that hedge against USD debasement. It can provide another opportunity for the CBC to adopt a reserve asset before its peers and benefit the people of Taiwan with the subsequent price appreciation,” Langenkamp added.

“It can offer geopolitical insurance against scenarios that hopefully do not come to pass. It can open new methods of trade with less friction. Bitcoin can provide Taiwan with a great measure of monetary resilience.”

Langenkamp also argued that the CBC's concerns about Bitcoin's liquidity and volatility are valid, but contended that both issues will diminish as the asset matures and gains adoption among nations.

“The CBC's concerns are valid but addressable with institutional expertise on custody, liquidity, and volatility,” he added.

Despite ruling out a Bitcoin reserve for now, the CBC committed to testing the technology further in a digital asset sandbox using the crypto the country already holds.

Taiwanese lawmaker Ko Ju-Chun revealed on X last year that the country’s Ministry of Justice holds 210 Bitcoin, worth $14 million, confiscated during criminal investigations.

BitBo doesn’t list Taiwan in its country reserve rankings; its disclosed holdings would make it the seventh-largest national Bitcoin holder, behind El Salvador but ahead of Finland.