đââď¸đ¨ The Stacking Sprint
FIRE BTC #38 - Four years to financial freedom
I used to think of pursuing FIRE as an all-or-nothing endeavor. Like a switch thatâs either on or off. Youâre either financially free or youâre not.
But now that Iâve crossed that threshold, and it doesnât really matter for me anymore, Iâve realized there might be a better way to think about it.
At some point in your FIRE journey, the momentum of your savings starts doing the heavy lifting. Adding more doesnât move the needle as much. Itâs hard to say exactly when that shift happens, but I want to offer a rule of thumb that captures the idea. One that gives you permission to start living like youâre free, even before you technically are.
I call this the Stacking Sprintâa focused period of extreme saving and stacking to build your base.
For most people, four years is the sweet spot. It lines up with bitcoinâs halving cycle, is long enough to change your life, and short enough to stay motivated.
⥠The Stacking Sprint
Pursuing FIRE is often framed as more of a marathon, and thatâs the mindset I adopted through most of my journey. Sure, I was trying to save as much as possible, as fast as possible, but in hindsight, the âmarathonâ framing was limiting.
Itâs a vague, open-ended approach that can wear on you over time. And I believe it unnecessarily delays the point when you can loosen up and actually enjoy your wealth.
But what if you could front-load the effort? What if you went all-in for a focused stretch of ruthless stacking, then shifted into a more relaxed, coasting mode?
The Stacking Sprint is about finding that balance. Build a strong enough foundation early, and you can pull forward the point where your savings rate drops and your lifestyle spending increases without jeopardizing your long-term goal or even meaningfully delaying it.
It all hinges on understanding that compounding creates an inflection point where, after a certain threshold, each additional sat has a smaller impact on your path to financial freedom. In other words, thereâs a point of diminishing returns.
If you havenât read my writing on the power of compounding, check it out below.
đ Diminishing returns on additional saving
In the early days of building your stack, every bit of effort moves the needle. Youâre starting from basically zero, so a 10% increase might mean going from 0.1 BTC to 0.11 BTC. Thatâs something you can realistically achieve just by staying disciplined with your savings. At todayâs prices (~$120k/BTC), thatâs $1,200âdoable in days, weeks, or months at most.
But fast forward a few years. Once youâve built a solid base, that same 10% gets exponentially harder. Going from 1 BTC to 1.1 BTC means saving $12,000. From 5 BTC to 5.5 BTC? Thatâs $60,000. And growing from 10 to 11 BTC means stacking another $120,000.
And thatâs if bitcoinâs price stays flat. If the price doubles or triples while youâre trying to add more, achieving that growth trajectory only gets harder. I donât know if youâve noticed, but bitcoin has a habit of doing just that in very short periods of time.
Itâs the same pattern we see with Bitcoin Treasury Companies. Early on, they can grow their BTC per share quickly by stacking aggressively on a small baseline. But as their BTC NAV grows, their BTC yield drops, and it gets harder to justify the stock trading at a premium.
If you want a deeper dive on this dynamic, check out my recent FIRE BTC issue on mNAV here:
This is just the math catching up. The bigger your stack, the harder it is to grow it further through brute-force saving. Youâre battling both bitcoinâs asymmetric upside and the law of diminishing returns.
The good news is: you donât have to.
At a certain point, stacking more becomes marginal. Over time, each additional sat may yield similar dollar gains, but those gains barely move the needle relative to what youâve already built.
Thatâs why the Stacking Sprint works. It takes advantage of the phase when your effort is most efficientâbefore compounding takes over and stacking becomes increasingly expensive.
đŁ From sprinting to coasting
The Stacking Sprint isnât meant to last forever, which is why I call it a âsprintâ.
After a few focused years of intentional saving, aggressive stacking, and delayed gratification, the game starts to change. Your foundation is built, and compounding is working in your favor. Bitcoin is doing the heavy lifting.
This is when you can strategically enter the coasting phase.
The Stacking Sprint sets you up for a more relaxed phase where youâre no longer scrutinizing every expense or delaying gratification until you hit your FIRE number. You can let off the gas, spend more freely, and start saying yes to the things you postponed during the sprint: more travel, more hobbies, more time with friends, a bit more comfort and ease.
Youâre still on track, because your stack is growing in the background. Youâve front-loaded the hard work and can now start enjoying life a little more freelyâearlier than you otherwise would if you waited until your FIRE number is hit.
Perhaps that means exploring work outside of your job.
The Stacking Sprint isnât about permanent sacrificeâitâs about creating the conditions for sustainable freedom early. It puts you in a position to start living better before you retire, knowing youâre not trading your future for short-term comfort like a lot of people do.
đ§ Reframing your FIRE approach
One of the most common challenges people face after reaching financial independence is learning how to actually enjoy it.
Theyâve spent years grinding, optimizing, and delaying gratification. Those habits are hard to shake. Even when theyâre objectively well off, they struggle to loosen up. They keep running the old playbook, even though theyâve already won the game. I have struggled with this personally.
FIRE teaches you how to save, but not how to spend.
The Stacking Sprint helps reframe that. It gives you a mental container for the hard part. You front-load the discipline, then intentionally shift into a new phase that allows you to improve your lifestyle without putting your future financial freedom at risk.
Sprint when it counts the most. Then coast your way to FIRE, and let bitcoin do the heavy lifting.
Thatâs it for this week â thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Trey âď¸
Thanks for the insight. I call it an excitingly scary journey.
Let Bitcoin do the heavy lifting đŞđž