I Asked ChatGPT When I’d Be Able To Retire If I Bought Bitcoin in 2020 — Here’s What It Said

There are many stories of people who invested early in phenomenally successful companies and made fortunes. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are still in the early days, but it’s likely there will be some stories of those who got in on the ground floor and retired early because of it.

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To learn how likely it is that a small early investment in bitcoin could fund a comfortable retirement, we asked ChatGPT. Below is what we learned.

Also here’s how ChatGPT broke down bitcoin in simple terms.

The question posed to ChatGPT was: “If I bought $100 worth of bitcoin in 2020, how many years would it be before I could retire?”

Clearly, there is some information missing here that would be needed to provide an accurate answer and ChatGPT called this out right at the beginning.

The artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot said this depends entirely on these three big unknowns.

1. What price you bought at in 2020 (bitcoin was anywhere between about $7,000 and $29,000 that year depending on the month).

2. Bitcoin’s future performance (which is unpredictable — it could skyrocket, crash or stay flat).

3. How much you need to retire (which varies wildly — $500,000 might be enough for some, $5 million for others).”

It then provided a hypothetical example. It assumed that bitcoin was purchased in January 2020, when the price was about $8,900. It then calculated that, since bitcoin is trading at about $59,000 as of Aug. 15, 2025, it would have generated a return of 6.62 times (662%) over the last five and a half years.

Using the past performance of bitcoin as the benchmark, ChatGPT inferred that an investment of $100 in 2020 would provide a nest egg of $1.26 million by 2047 or in about 27 years.

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Let’s look at the assumptions behind this calculation.

Purchase price: The price of bitcoin varied widely in 2020. You could have invested your $100 when it was trading at $7,000 or when it was trading at $29,000. The actual price you bought it for makes a big difference.

Future performance: According to Yahoo Finance, bitcoin’s performance has been erratic, to say the least. In 2021, it peaked at $66,900. In 2022, it dropped as low as $15,600. While the overall trajectory has been up, the peaks and valleys have been enough to make even the savviest investor question their choices. For most kinds of investments, a return of 660% in five years is simply unsustainable. It remains to be seen if this holds true for bitcoin, but there’s little evidence that it will be any different from any other investment.

Your requirements: The amount of money you will need to retire depends on a lot of factors, including how much you spend, at what age you will retire and how long you will live. The bot provided a calculation for a retirement nest egg of $1.26 million, which might be enough if you’re 65 now and planning to retire tomorrow. If you retire 27 years from now, as the model suggested, that amount would likely not be enough, particularly if you’re under 40 now.

While there’s not much downside to making a small investment in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, depending on it to fund your retirement is risky. It’s certainly possible that it could continue its high level of appreciation for decades, but it’s also possible its price could fall as quickly as it has risen.

The best retirement strategy is one that includes a diversified portfolio that balances risk and reward, coupled with regular adjustments that take into account your declining propensity for risk as you age.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: I Asked ChatGPT When I’d Be Able To Retire If I Bought Bitcoin in 2020 — Here’s What It Said