Everything you need to know about your Bitcoin portfolio dashboard and retirement planning tools
BTC Until I Die is a personal Bitcoin portfolio tracker and retirement planning toolkit. It brings together everything you need in one place: live portfolio valuation, historical performance charts, and two powerful retirement planners that model how you could live off your Bitcoin without ever selling it.
The site is built around the Buy · Borrow · Die philosophy — the idea that you accumulate Bitcoin, borrow against it for living expenses, and pass the remaining wealth to your family. You never sell, so you never trigger a taxable event.
Real-time BTC, ETH and SOL prices with profit/loss, cost basis, and return calculations updated every time you open the page.
Growth over time, yearly breakdowns, monthly accumulation patterns, best-performing buys, and a "time machine" showing what-if scenarios.
Classic Buy·Borrow·Die planner — refinance to your target LTV each year and take the growth as tax-free cash.
Income-first model — set the monthly income you need, and the model works backwards to check if your Bitcoin can sustain it for 30+ years.
The landing page is your entry point. It features the BTC Until I Die branding, a rotating carousel of notable Bitcoin quotes from prominent figures in the space, and a curated grid of recommended Bitcoin-focused YouTube channels — hand-picked for quality commentary and education.
Click "Enter the Dashboard" to access your full portfolio and planning tools. You can always return to the landing page by clicking the "BTC Until I Die" title in the dashboard header.
↑ Back to topThe first thing you see on the dashboard. This section gives you a snapshot of your entire crypto portfolio at a glance.
The row of cards across the top shows your key metrics:
The total amount of Bitcoin you hold, summed from all your recorded transactions.
Your total cost basis — how much you've spent acquiring your crypto in pounds (or dollars, depending on your currency toggle).
What your entire portfolio is worth right now at live market prices.
The difference between your current value and total invested. Green means you're up; red means you're down.
Your percentage return on investment across the whole portfolio.
Your average purchase price per Bitcoin — useful for understanding your dollar-cost average.
Below the KPIs is a full table of every purchase you've recorded. Each row shows the date, amount, price paid, current value, and profit/loss. Transactions are sorted by date with the most recent at the top.
Click the +Add Purchase button in the header to record new buys. Your transactions are saved in your browser's local storage, so they persist between visits on the same device.
Navigate to Charts using the sidebar. This section visualises your portfolio's performance across several dimensions.
The main chart shows two lines: your portfolio value (orange) and your cost basis (grey) over time. The gap between them is your unrealised profit. Each dot on the value line marks an individual purchase. You can toggle to see BTC accumulation instead of pound value.
A year-by-year breakdown showing how much Bitcoin you bought and spent in each calendar year. Useful for seeing how your DCA (dollar-cost averaging) strategy has evolved.
A month-by-month bar chart of your buying activity. Orange bars show BTC purchased; faded bars show pounds spent. Great for spotting your accumulation patterns and consistency.
Highlights your single most profitable purchase by percentage return. Expand the "Top 5" to see your best-performing buys ranked by both percentage gain and absolute profit in pounds.
A powerful what-if tool. It shows what your portfolio would be worth today if every purchase had been made 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 years earlier at that date's Bitcoin price. This illustrates the compounding power of early accumulation — and why the best time to buy was always yesterday.
↑ Back to topThe first of two retirement planners. This is the classic Buy · Borrow · Die model.
You hold Bitcoin as collateral and never sell it. Each year, as Bitcoin appreciates, you refinance your loan to your target LTV (loan-to-value ratio). The new, larger loan pays off the old one, and you pocket the difference as tax-free cash — because borrowing isn't a taxable event.
You pay the loan interest from other income sources (pension, rental income, etc.). This means 100% of your LTV headroom is available as spendable cash each year.
Interest is added to the loan balance. Simpler, but your loan grows faster and eats into your available headroom over time.
The left panel lets you adjust every input: how much BTC you hold, the starting price, your target LTV, expected growth rate, loan interest rate, and the number of years. The planner recalculates instantly as you change any value.
↑ Back to topThe second, more detailed planner. This uses an income-first approach — you tell it how much monthly income you need, and it works backwards to check whether your Bitcoin can sustain it.
Each year, your BTC price grows by the growth rate set for that year (editable per year for scenario planning).
Your loan is always kept at exactly 50% of your collateral value. As BTC grows, you can borrow more. The difference between the new and old loan is your "new draw".
The new money goes into a reserve pot — a savings account that pre-funds your living expenses and loan interest.
The pot earns savings interest (taxed at your marginal rate), making your cash work harder while it sits there.
Annual interest on the full loan balance is deducted from the reserve pot.
Your inflation-linked annual income is taken from the reserve pot. If the pot stays positive, you're funded.
The left panel groups your inputs into four categories:
Monthly income needed, inflation rate, retirement years, and start year.
How much BTC you hold, starting price, default growth rate, and LTV target.
The annual interest rate on your Bitcoin-backed loan.
Savings interest rate on the reserve pot and your tax rate on that interest.
Below the inputs you'll find four buttons:
Use live BTC price — pulls today's live Bitcoin price into the starting price field.
Use my BTC holdings — pulls your total BTC from your recorded transactions.
Reset defaults — restores all inputs to their original values.
🎲 Randomise — generates a unique set of realistic growth rates for every year. See how this works →
For a deep dive into the maths, worked examples, and how to read the table, see the dedicated Loan Planner Guide.
↑ Back to topOne of the most powerful features in the Loan Planner. Each click generates a completely new set of yearly growth rates using a statistical model grounded in Bitcoin's real historical performance.
Bitcoin's early years saw explosive returns (+5,000%, +1,300%), but as any asset matures, growth compresses. The model starts with an average return of around 30% in the early years and gradually tapers to around 8% by year 30. This reflects the widely held view that Bitcoin's future gains will be meaningful but more modest than its past.
Bitcoin's supply is cut in half roughly every four years (2024, 2028, 2032…). Historically, the year after a halving is the biggest boom, followed by a sharp correction, then recovery. The model mirrors this cycle: post-halving years get a boost, the year after tends to be a bear market, and the remaining years are moderate.
Each year's return is drawn from a normal distribution, so you get genuine randomness. Early years can swing from -65% to +150%; later years tighten to roughly -20% to +40%. This mimics how volatility typically decreases as an asset class matures and liquidity deepens.
Hit it multiple times to stress-test your plan under wildly different scenarios. Some runs will be kind, others brutal. That's the point — if your plan survives the bad rolls, you're in good shape.
After randomising, you can still manually adjust individual years using the +/− buttons or by typing directly into any year's growth field. This lets you fine-tune specific scenarios — for example, "what if year 3 is a -40% crash but year 4 recovers to +80%?"
The year-by-year table uses three status indicators to show the health of your plan:
Funded — the reserve pot covers at least one full year of income. You're comfortable.
Tight — the reserve pot is positive but below one year's income. It works, but there's no buffer.
Shortfall — the reserve pot has gone negative. You'd need to reduce spending or sell some BTC.
When any year goes red or tight, two things happen automatically:
1. Income Adjustment Advisory — a panel appears above the charts identifying the problem. It tells you the first year that hits trouble, the worst bottleneck across your entire plan, and the maximum base monthly income that would keep every single year green. Each troubled year is listed with its individual fix amount.
2. Per-Year Fix Hints — in the Status column of the table, every red or tight year shows a "Reduce to £X,XXX/mo" hint directly underneath the status label. This is the maximum monthly income that specific year could support while staying funded.
The per-year fix amounts are calculated independently for each year based on the reserve pot state at that point. To fix the whole plan, look at the advisory panel's bottleneck figure — that's the single income level that would keep every year green. Alternatively, you might choose to reduce income only in specific difficult years rather than across the board.
Reducing income isn't your only option. You can also try:
Use the +/− buttons to bump up growth in specific years. More optimistic growth means bigger draws and a healthier reserve pot.
Increase your starting BTC collateral. More collateral means bigger loans at the same safe LTV, funding more income.
Counterintuitively, sometimes a higher LTV (e.g. 55%) can fund more income — but it increases liquidation risk.
A lower loan interest rate means less drain on the reserve pot each year. Shop around for the best rates.
The "Clear the Loan & Walk Away" panel lets you see what happens if you decide to exit the plan at any point. Use the year slider to pick a year, and the dashboard calculates:
How much of your Bitcoin stack you'd need to sell to pay off the outstanding loan balance at that year's price.
What's left of your stack after clearing the loan. This is what you keep — or leave to your family.
The pound value of your remaining Bitcoin at that year's projected price, before any tax.
This is framed as a legacy tool — slide through the years to see what you'd leave behind for your children at different points. The earlier you exit, the more BTC you retain (less compounding of the loan), but the less income you've drawn over the years.
The exit values shown are pre-tax. If you sell BTC to clear the loan, Capital Gains Tax may apply on the gain between your original purchase price and the sale price. Consult a tax professional for your specific circumstances.
The dashboard uses a sidebar menu on the left edge of the screen. It has four sections:
KPI cards and your transaction history table.
All performance visualisations — growth, yearly, monthly, best buy, and time machine.
The classic Buy·Borrow·Die retirement planner.
The income-first loan retirement planner with per-year growth editing.
Click any section to switch views. On desktop, hover over the sidebar to see the full section labels. On mobile, the sidebar is hidden and the full page scrolls naturally.
Throughout the dashboard you'll see small eye icons (👁) next to section headings. Click any of these to reveal a tooltip explaining what you're looking at. Click anywhere else to dismiss it.
↑ Back to topThe dashboard fetches live cryptocurrency prices from CoinGecko and Binance APIs every time you load the page. Exchange rates come from the Frankfurter API.
In the header you'll see live ticker prices for BTC, ETH, and SOL with 24-hour percentage changes. The green dot next to "live" confirms data is being fetched successfully.
Use the £ GBP / $ USD toggle in the header to switch your entire dashboard between British pounds and US dollars. All values — KPIs, charts, tables, and planners — update instantly.
Click the refresh button (the "live" pill) at any time to force a fresh data fetch without reloading the page.
Click the +Add Purchase button in the dashboard header to record a new crypto purchase. You'll be asked for:
Date — when you made the purchase.
Symbol — BTC, ETH, or SOL.
Amount — how many coins you bought.
Price paid — total amount you paid in GBP.
Location — where you bought (e.g. Coinbase, Kraken) — optional but useful for your records.
Transactions are saved in your browser's local storage. They'll persist between visits on the same browser and device, but won't sync across devices. The badge on the +Add Purchase button shows how many custom transactions you've added.
Clearing your browser data or using private/incognito mode will remove your saved transactions. Consider keeping a separate backup of your purchase records.
Don't just use the default 15% growth rate. Hit Randomise several times and see how your plan performs under bear markets and boom years. If it survives the bad scenarios, you're on solid ground.
Use the per-year growth editing to model specific fears: what if there's a 3-year bear market starting in 2030? Set years 2030–2032 to -30%, -20%, +5% and see what happens.
The Retire and Loan Planner sections approach the same problem differently. Try both to see which model fits your situation better.
As you adjust growth rates and income, keep an eye on the exit/legacy slider. It gives you a reality check on what you'd actually walk away with.
It's tempting to model 30%+ annual growth, but 10–15% is more realistic for a maturing asset. Plan for the base case, hope for the upside.
This site is an illustrative planning tool only. It does not constitute financial, tax, or investment advice. All projections are based on hypothetical growth assumptions and may not reflect future reality. Bitcoin is a volatile asset — its price can fall as well as rise, and past performance does not guarantee future results.
The retirement planners model a strategy that involves borrowing against cryptocurrency. This carries real risks including margin calls, liquidation, and total loss of collateral. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making decisions about your retirement or taking on debt secured against volatile assets.