Smooth curves are a lie

Most lifestyle calculators set a CAGR value — typically 20% for BTC — then run constant growth through the horizon. That produces a pretty line and a pretty endpoint. It also produces a strategy that would have wrecked itself somewhere in actual BTC history.

Bitcoin hasn't had a single year without a >40% drawdown since 2010. Some years had 70%+. The real sat journey for your three strategies (Humble V0, Tiger V1, Dragon V2) looked nothing like any CAGR table claims. We let you replay it now.

How Historical Replay works

You pick a start year from the dropdown — earliest 2010 (where our daily BTC closes start), latest last year. You keep all your inputs (BTC holdings, living costs, inflation, leverage, LTV limits). The calculator pulls real BTC daily closes from our database — continuous, from your start day to the end.

What you see is the normal single-path result page from Phase 1: outcome matrix, four detail charts (BTC holdings, BTC net, debt, LTV) plus the Wuguan Wisdom box. But instead of hypothetical 20% growth, the three strategies run through real Mt.Gox aftermath, real March 2020 crash, real 2021 ATH, real FTX collapse.

Plus two extras:

• Watermark banner at the top with "Historical 2018–2034", to keep clear that this is one specific history, not "the plan".
• Insight box with story anchors for famous start points (2018 = top of last cycle, 2021 = ATH, 2022 = FTX crash etc.) plus concrete outcome ("V2 hit margin call in year 4 — Dragon was liquidated").
• Optional comparison toggle "vs CAGR assumption from Phase 1" — the table shows side by side what your smooth assumption would have produced and what reality delivered.

Mixed path on horizon overrun

If your horizon runs past today's data (e.g. start 2020 + 16y = 2036), we combine: real BTC data through today, Power Law Fair extrapolation for the rest. The watermark then reads "Real data through 2026, then Power Law Fair", making the transition transparent. No cherry-picking, no hidden assumptions.

Concrete pain: Sebastian starts in 2018

Take the spec example: 2 BTC starting holdings, €30,000 annual costs, 16-year horizon, V2 leverage 3×.

In a theoretical world with 20% CAGR, V2 (Dragon) ends up looking absurdly good. Multiplied BTC wealth, low LTV, maybe a margin warning but no liquidation.

In the real world with start 2018-12 (BTC bottom): V2 borrows over the first 12 months, buys more BTC, enters the 2020 COVID crash with ~15 BTC position and 50%+ LTV. In March 2020 BTC drops 50% in a day. LTV explodes. The Dragon was liquidated.

V1 (Tiger) by contrast — borrow without reinvesting — survives the 2020 crash because his LTV starts structurally lower. He ends up with markedly more BTC than V0 (Humble), who's been selling the whole time.

But: if start is 2021-11 (ATH), everything changes. V1 walks straight into the 2022 bear, debt grows while BTC falls — liquidation in 2022 is plausible. V0 is ironically the only winner here, because he got the high selling prices of 2021-22.

Same setup, different start year, completely different story. That was the blind spot in every lifestyle calculator until now.

What you learn

If you push the same input parameters through five different start years and V2 liquidates in four of five — then V2 isn't "a good idea with some cycle bad luck", it's "a systematically too-aggressive leverage choice". You don't see that in a CAGR calculator. You only see it when you replay actual paths.

Recommended workflow:

1. Take your setup. Run it through start 2014, 2018, 2021, 2022, and a recent date.
2. Look at the outcome matrix at each start. How often does which variant liquidate?
3. Toggle the "vs CAGR" comparison. Where does reality diverge significantly from theory?
4. If your preferred strategy falls in more than one of five start points, it's not robust. Change setup.

This is the stress test with real data. No models. No smoothing. No assumptions. Just what actually happened.

Takeaways

• CAGR assumptions hide drawdowns. Bitcoin has had at least a 40%+ drawdown every year since 2010.
• Historical Replay runs your strategy through real BTC data — Mt.Gox, COVID, FTX, ATH, all of it.
• Two extras: watermark for path transparency, insight box with story anchor per start year, optional vs CAGR comparison.
• Mixed path when horizon runs past today — real data + Power Law Fair extrapolation, clearly marked.
• Recommended workflow: same setup through 5 different start years. If your preferred strategy falls in 4 of 5 — plan not robust.

Pro+ feature, now live in the Bitcoin Lifestyle Calculator.

Direct link to Historical Replay →