For this way of thinking to work, both sides need to use the same money. As long as one side is in fiat, conversion is inevitable.
In my case, my basic reference point is 1 million satoshis. This is the unit of value I use to orient myself when deciding how much I want someone to pay me for a particular job.
Why 1M sats?
Because that’s the amount I’ve set for myself as the threshold when transferring funds from my hot wallet to hardware. I know how much time, discipline, and budgeting it takes for me to accumulate that amount without additional freelance income. That threshold serves as a clear measure of invested work, time, and energy.
I determine the price of my work based on that. Depending on the complexity of the task and the time required to complete it, I estimate how many satoshis I want to earn from a specific job.
For example, when I work on sound for an episode, even though I know the payment will be in fiat, I first have a target in sats in my mind. I know the market value of the task, I estimate the time I’ll spend, and the energy I’ll invest—less free time, less sleep. Based on that, I look for a compromise between my goal, the client’s realistic budget, and market conditions.
Fiat, in this process, only serves as a temporary accounting currency. I don’t think in amounts, but in periods. How much additional work can I handle alongside my main job and fixed salary, and whether this job will bring the equivalent of one or two more months of earnings.
In this way, I value my work through time and energy, and measure the results in satoshis.
I like this approach. It ensures that your services hold value over time. If you think (and are paid) in dollars, you constantly have to increase your rate/salary to keep up. But if you are paid in sats, you could actually lower your rate as bitcoin becomes more valuable.
I am also paid in BTC. Practically living on BTC standard from many years now,
My calculation is quite simple when is about to charge a service I do.
And that is the "price" I charge directly in sats without giving a shit of the BTC price in fiat. I don't care about fees, I don't care about the price. I will always earn more than I spend.
Stacking sats means primarily to earn more sats then you spend in a specific period of time.
Thanks, one is DarthCoin. Very useful advice.
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Most of people get confused when I say that I live on BTC and don't care about price.
But their confusion come from their own mind because they are still valuing their work effort in fiat hours and sometimes even worse, they accept whatever price for their work, without knowing how much is their spending budget. That's why so many people enter in DEBT.
The most important thing for a bitcoin life is NEVER ENTER IN DEBT.
If you cannot afford something, then just delay its acquiring or forget it at all until you have enough sats to buy it.
And...
1m sats is a nice target for this epoch. Not sure how long that will last as it becomes more difficult to attain.
I think pretty simply about this. Spend less than you earn and save the rest in sats.
Unfortunately (fortunately really) sats go up in value over time, so you will have to re-evaluate your sats target periodically to keep the value it represents stable.
Absolutely, that’s exactly how I do it. 1M sats is currently just a reference value for calculation, but in terms of Bitcoin’s long-term value, it’s not critical.
This is not just about bitcoin it is about establishing a personal metric that reflects your time discipline and long term financial vision.
The 1 million satoshi threshold becomes a very tangible measure of commitment because it is linked to the actual effort required to reach it from your own income flows. In doing that you create a clear bridge between the energy you put in and the reward you expect. Even when clients pay in fiat you are mentally recalibrating it against your sat target and that keeps your decision making grounded in your own terms rather than someone else’s price list.
It is also significant that you think in terms of periods rather than nominal sums. That perspective forces you to measure opportunity cost and life balance which are often ignored in freelancing. How many months of effort in exchange for this project How much sleep am I trading off How much creative energy am I spending These are far more relevant than simply stating a rate per hour in fiat because they align the work with the lifestyle you want to protect.
The broader application of this approach is that anyone can adopt a reference currency or unit of value they believe in whether that is bitcoin gold or even a basket of assets and use it to anchor pricing strategy. Over time it builds consistency and clarity in negotiations because you are pricing based on what matters to you not just what the market will bear on a given day.
Exactly, the goal is to create a personal compass for decisions how much time, energy, and creativity I put into something, while staying within my satoshi budget. Glad to see this resonates with you. 🙌
1M sats isn’t just a number, it’s a practical exercise in financial discipline and life balance, and it’s great to hear someone else sees the logic in it.