«Work. Save. Invest. And one day — American Dream».
So here’s the bad news.
This very ‘dream’ has officially turned into a mortgage nightmare with a calculator.
Investopedia carefully calculated the cost of the American Dream by 2025 — and it turned out to be more than $5 million over a lifetime.
Home, children, education, medicine, taxes… and, attention — retirement ≈ $1.6 million.
Not a yacht. Not an island. Just not to die with buckwheat and a TV.
And here let's take a pause.
$1.6 million is not "wealth".
This is the price of normal aging in the USA.
How it is assumed to save according to the "classics"
Let's imagine a typical disciplined person:
• 40 years of work
• pension funds, 401(k), ETF
• average return of 5–7% before inflation
• regular contributions
• belief that the rules of the game will not change
In the end — those very $1.6 million.
On paper, everything looks beautiful.
But there is a nuance (where would we be without it).
And now an alternative scenario
Imagination at the level of "what if", but with real numbers.
What if those same $1.6 million are not saved, but… invested in bitcoin using DCA starting from 2010?
The conditions are fair:
• not "everything in 2010"
• without insider information
• without leverage
• regular purchases
• at the average market price
• with complete disregard for news, bans, crashes, headlines "Bitcoin is dead"
The result of dry math:
• average purchase price over a long period —
in orders
below the current one
• even microscopic regular contributions in 2010–2013 made an disproportionately large contribution
• total amount
exceeds classic pension savings by tens of times
Not "a little more".
Not "twice as much".
And at a level where the word pension starts to look strange.
Why is this important, and not just a "crypto fairy tale"
Because the Investopedia article is not about bitcoin.
It's about something else.
About the fact that:
• the system has become
too expensive
• "risk-free retirement" is no longer a basic option
• traditional model
work–save–survive
is cracking at the seams
And bitcoin here is not a magic pill.
It is just a mirror in which you can see:
• what happens with money,
• what happens with trust,
• and who exactly pays for the inflation of "stability".
Morality (without calls and with a cool head)
This is not a call to urgently sell everything and rush into crypto.
This is a question that sooner or later everyone asks themselves:
👉 Am I really saving in that coordinate system?
👉 And will my "reliable plan" turn out to be the riskiest of all?
American Dream costs $5 million.
Pension — $1.6 million.
And the most expensive asset today is time, which you postpone making a decision.
As always — think for yourself.
I just brought the numbers.
