How Much Staking Passive Income Do You Need To Retire? The Number Will Surprise You

One of the most common questions when it comes to crypto staking passive income is whether its possible to make a full-time living just from your staking profits.

Most crypto stakers are interested in making some extra coins because they’re holding long-term anyway, or they are looking to build a nice side-income to their main job/business, both great goals.

But a curious little question still remains..

“Could I ever go full-time with this? How much would I need?”

The answer to that..

Yes, it’s possible to make a full-time living from crypto staking income only. However, your income will depend on factors such as initial investment, your portfolio compilation, and your cost of living. Also, there’s volatility to consider.

Obviously, the vast majority of us are not imagining living off of staking passive income somewhere in downtown Manhattan or in the heart of London.

Instead, it’s more along the lines of..

“What if I moved to a place with a cheaper cost of living? How much crypto would I need to stake to be able to afford a nice lifestyle?”

I have to be honest here, I’ve thought about this question many times myself.

Is it realistic? Does the math work out or would I need such an insane amount of money that it would never realistically happen?

Let’s look at the numbers and find out.

Retiring with Passive Income From Crypto

We’re going to explore 4 scenarios here.

In all of them, we’re going to be staking a combination of stablecoins and a blue-chip asset (think Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and similar “Top 10” type of projects).

Don’t get us wrong, there are a lot of amazing projects that we absolutely love that are not a “Top 10” asset, but when it comes to living off of your crypto staking passive income, the name of the game is stability. There’s enough risks in crypto staking as it is.

In addition, we will attribute a small fraction of our portfolio for some yield farming, to boost overall returns with minimal risk to our stake.

You can of course choose to create your own composition and give more weight to a certain part of the portfolio, or you can eliminate a part of it entirely (for example, go more conservative and skip the yield farming).

It really depends on your risk tolerance.

And finally, we’re aware the the APY % numbers chosen could be higher in many situations, but we decided to go with a more conservative “lower end” approach. If you can get more – fantastic!

Example Portfolio For Crypto Staking Passive Income

50% Stablecoin + 40% Blue Chip Staking Asset + 10% High Yield Riskier Asset

The goal is to create a portfolio compilation that is on the safer side, because we want to try and live off of staking passive income. That means as stable as possible in an already super-volatile sphere.

The stablecoin will give us 8-12% passive income from staking.

The blue chip asset will give us 4%-8%.

The yield farming will give us 20%-30%.

Of course, we can’t really give exact predictions for APY, so we will have to use realistic ranges.

This is not taking into account the potential increase in the value of your blue-chip crypto nor your yield farming tokens appreciating. For example, if 40% of your portfolio is ETH, and the price went from $2,000 to $4,000 per coin during the year, your profits in USD are higher.

The opposite can also happen, and the value may decrease (a crypto bear market is always a possibility). This is even more true for yield farming tokens, which are usually much more volatile (and hence why we only gave them 10% of our portfolio).

And with that out of the way, let’s start looking at some numbers.

50% Stablecoin: $75,000 USD

Yearly Income: 8%–12% ($6,000 – $9,000)

40% Blue-Chip Crypto: $60,000 USD

Yearly Income: 4% – 8% ($2,400 – $4,800)

10% Yield Farming: $15,000 USD

Yearly Income: 20% – 30% ($3,000 – $4,500)

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Total Yearly Income: $11,400 USD – $18,300 USD

Total Yearly APY Average: 7.6% – 12.2%

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With a yearly income of $11k to $18k, you can expect to be able to live off of about $950 USD to $1,525 USD per month from your staking passive income.

Based on our calculations, an investment portfolio of $150,000 is the minimum you’d need in order to live off of crypto staking passive income. Anything less than that, and you’d be struggling.

That’s not to say that living off of this amount is going to be easy…

But even in the United States, there are cities where you can get by on $1,500/month or less.

However, since we’re talking about “living comfortably”, which is one of our goals in this article, we’ll look elsewhere in the world.

Places where you can live comfortably for under $1,500 / month:

There’s a lot of interesting places that digital nomads can live for this kind of budget, these are our favorites, and the ones who seem to be getting the best feedback online. Of course, you’d have to research them based on your needs and what you’re after. Living in Thailand and in Ukraine can be a very different experience.

Our Top Picks

South America: Panama, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico

Asia: Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand

Europe: Portugal, Greece, Ukraine

For more: Top 5 Places To Live For Under $1,500/Month

50% Stablecoin: $150,000 USD

Yearly Income: 8%–12% ($12,000 – $18,000)

40% Blue-Chip Crypto: $120,000 USD

Yearly Income: 4% – 8% ($4,800 – $9,600)

10% Yield Farming: $30,000 USD

Yearly Income: 20% – 30% ($6,000 – $9,000)

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Total Yearly Income: $22,800 USD – $36,600 USD

Total Yearly APY Average: 7.6% – 12.2%

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With a yearly income of $22.8k to $36.6k, you can expect to be able to live off of about $1,900 USD to $3,050 USD per month from your staking passive income.

We’re actually getting into a range in which a great number of American households are located. That doesn’t mean that they have an easy way of it, but it means that you can “get by” almost anywhere in the United States and Canada with this kind of income.

Places where you can live comfortably for ~ $1,500-$3,000 / month:

If you look outside of the U.S, you are pretty much free to go to the same countries as in the previous case study, but to upgrade your lifestyle. There are some more interesting options in Europe now.

Our Top Picks

Europe: Italy, France, Spain, Malta, Czech Republic

For more: Top Places Around The World To Retire On $2,500 / Month Or Less

50% Stablecoin: $250,000 USD

Yearly Income: 8%–12% ($20,000 – $30,000)

40% Blue-Chip Crypto: $200,000 USD

Yearly Income: 4% – 8% ($8,000 – $16,000)

10% Yield Farming: $50,000 USD

Yearly Income: 20% – 30% ($10,000 – $15,000)

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Total Yearly Income: $38,000 USD – $61,000 USD

Total Yearly APY Average: 7.6% – 12.2%

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With a yearly income of $38k to $61k, you can expect to be able to live off of about $3,166 USD to $5,083 USD per month from your staking passive income.

Places where you can live comfortably for ~ $3,000-$5,000 / month:

At this point, if you can bring in a stable $5k/month from crypto staking, you can expect to be able to live in all but the most expensive places in the world. Heck, you could probably even scrap by in one of those Manhattan micro-homes.

With this kind of income from staking crypto, we would probably consider not selling all profits every month, but instead, choose one of the cheaper options that we previously discussed in portfolios 1 and 2, and keep the rest to keep growing your net income.

This kind of setup is the best of both worlds, and if you can manage it, you’ll be able to live off of crypto staking passive income and grow your portfolio at the same time. Not a bad deal.

Our Top Picks

North America: Los Angeles, New York

Europe: The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium

For more: Living On $50,000 / Year In Manhattan

50% Stablecoin: $500,000 USD

Yearly Income: 8%–12% ($40,000 – $61,000)

40% Blue-Chip Crypto: $400,000 USD

Yearly Income: 4% – 8% ($16,000 – $32,000)

10% Yield Farming: $100,000 USD

Yearly Income: 20% – 30% ($20,000 – $30,000)

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Total Yearly Income: $76,000 USD – $122,000 USD

Total Yearly APY Average: 7.6% – 12.2%

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With a yearly income of $76k to $122k, you can expect to be able to live off of about $6,333 USD to $10,166 USD per month from your staking passive income.

First of all, this is fun.

A million dollars all invested in crypto. Wohoo!

Could you imagine playing around with a cool $100k in yield farming like its nobody’s business?

When you’re pocketing $10k a month from your crypto, you’ve essentially won the game.

Places where you can live comfortably for ~ $6,000-$10,000 / month:

You can either live in Dubai, downtown Toronto, or Monaco. New York works too.

You won’t be filthy rich nor living in the most luxurious mansions in any of those places, but you’d be pretty comfortable.

And if you go to any of the places mentioned in Portfolio 1, you would get your mansion, and then some.

Our Top Picks

The World Is Your Oyster!

Final Thoughts On Retiring With Staking Passive Income

As you can see, using your passive income from crypto staking, using a smart combination of stablecoins, blue chip assets and yield farming, makes retiring and living off of interest rates a real possibility.

But should you do it?

The real problem that someone who tries to live off of their staking income would be two-fold.

The first one would be the volatility. If the value of your assets decreases, you could end up in a real pickle. You could expect to make $3,000 from selling in a certain month, but in that month specifically, your assets could only be worth $1,800. Would you be able to hold out? What if we go into a bear market and a prolonged crypto winter?

That’s the first problem.

The second problem in retiring on staking passive income is more of a philosophical one.

Do you really want to be selling all of your crypto profits every month, and not grow your stack? Is that the best investment strategy if you believe in crypto as the future of money?

Since these things are never just black and white, and it’s possible to sell only part of your profits and to also have an ’emergency’ fund in place, when the crypto market is riding high and there are no bears in sight – you could live off crypto staking passive income, in the same way that one could live off of stock market dividends, if you have the necessary capital to invest.