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I would like to know more about these students interest for crypto. Previously, most teens and young adults didn't care about the stock market and trading. It

I would like to know more about these students interest for crypto. Previously, most teens and young adults didn't care about the stock market and trading. It wasn't considered cool. Now we have a generation that is hooked. They follow their investment on their cellphone, they take positions on a whim, and yet still to be reacting more logically than older investors [1]. I want to know what they are interested in, to sell them products they will like. 1: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/08/younger-investors-are-remain.. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/08/younger-investors-are-remain....

tzahola 9y ago
More logically?? Putting your money in shitcoins or outright pyramid schemes without SEC guarantees is being logical?
- devereaux 9y ago
  Yes, it is very logical: anyone can buy a lottery ticket, but only accredited investors can invest in legitimate companies. Looks like there's a lot of room in the middle for people who are not stupid and don't want to be left out.
nrhk 9y ago
The younger generations loves this because where else are you going to get 10x your money in a year. We weren't so fascinated with it pre 2013. I think my generation being intrinsically digital find the idea of digital money and smart contracts to make hell of a lot more sense than older folks who've been working and realize the immense challenges of implementing these currencies. Naturally they find the challenges to be worth more than what Crypto can provide because they lack the need to a digitally connected physical world younger folks desire.
- devereaux 9y ago
  Maybe I'm off, but I feel that as a desire to refuse to play a rigged game. I am "intrinsically digital" too, but just off by a few years so nobody talked about crypto at school even a year ago. Still, it makes a hell of a lot more sense! I don't know about you, but I've noticed quite a few rigged games, and I took action on that. For example, after my work tried one last shenanigan on me last year, I quit. I did not bother applying to another corporate job. I know I'd be paid 70 cents on the dollar and thrown a bone every now and then, so instead I just started my company. Come what may! I don't even bother with pension stuff, because of the system dynamic. I see it as very unfair, and I would be happy to vote to bring it down -- even if it meant I would be 100% sure I would not see anything in return of the money I am forced to pay. But at least, I would not contribute an unfair situation and burden the next generations. I wonder if the generation that daytrade crypto on their cellphone feel the same about money and banking? Maybe they believe that even if it is very far from ideal, crypto is preferable to the status quo?
justinhj 9y ago
Maybe desperation? Previous generations could, depending on how far back you go, rely on a job for life, an affordable house and a pension from their employer. Take literally all of that away and add a huge student loan and maybe volatile investments start to look like the only way to get ahead. At the very least I can image they trust older people much less then we did when I was younger. (Gen X)
- gnarcoregrizz 9y ago
  you don't have to look far on reddit or 4chan to find "boomer hate" threads, with comments about how they sold out younger generations. stocks and 5% gains are definitely not considered cool either. interestingly, i think this crypto stuff is bringing a lot of financial literacy to people.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  Wave any new fangled investment vehicle in front of people with insane returns and people young and old will buy in. The current generation is no different than previous generations that got swindled on whatever the bubble du jour was.
  - justinhj 9y ago
    My generation was working for a few years when the dotcom bubble happened. Even though I was working for a tech company, most of my peers were not that interested in investing in tech startups. What they were largely interested in was buying property and traditional mutual funds.
sanderjd 9y ago
Ok but what I don't get: where do they get money to speculate on financial instruments? I didn't care about the stock market when I was in high school and college not because it wasn't cool, but because I had no discretionary cash.
- lowdest 9y ago
  A brilliant thing about the current state of cryptocurrency markets is that you can buy $10 at a time and the fees are a fixed small percent rather than e.g. a flat $5. GDAX has 0.25% market orders and 0% on limit orders. Trading small amounts on the traditional stock market is between impossible and pointless.
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    I don't remember transaction fees being the issue...
ixacto 9y ago
They are interested in it due to the pretty charts and slick interface of coinbase and robinhood. Many of the young adults and teens do not understand the concept of compound interest at all. They think stock picking and market timing can actually work for them. All they see is $300 -> $10000 or something. Making 8%/yr is not nearly as interesting. IMO Fidelity/Vanguard need to figure out a better marketing campaign. Right now it is targeted to east-coast retiring boomers.
- ixacto 9y ago
  I have also seen that Acorns and the roboadvisors seem to be popular with the younger demographic.
- sidko 9y ago
  >They are interested in it due to the pretty charts and slick interface of coinbase and robinhood You got to be kidding if you think Coinbase has a slick interface/user experience. You would need to explain why in-spite of such a terrible interface, people are flocking to Coinbase to buy Bitcoin/Ethereum. In fact, so much so that Coinbase was the top app on the App Store for a day [1]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/coinbase-was-top-of-us-apple-app-store-after-bitcoin-price-surge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/coinbase-was-top-of-us-apple... >Many of the young adults and teens do not understand the concept of compound interest at all I'll need a source for that. It doesn't seem like humans in general are wired to really grasp the power of compound interest (or exponential functions for that matter), so if you're claiming that young adults today are less likely than average to grasp that concept, I'd need a source for that. I do not believe it to be true, but I am happy to be proven wrong.
- Nuzzerino 9y ago
  I got into crypto trading only because I saw these kids getting into it en masse, and realizing that my competition was no longer that same formidable institutional hive mind I would expect to find elsewhere.
- jondubois 9y ago
  I think that a lot of younger people feel that corporations are already too big and there isn't much growth left in them. There aren't many other decent investment opportunities either. In the current economic environment, saving doesn't make much sense. You have to work hard for 40 years just to buy a decent house. Corporations like Apple have a market cap approaching 1 trillion dollars. Existing shareholders are hoarding all the wealth and they get compound returns on it. The NASDAQ is a cesspool of well-to-dos who do nothing except collect dividends. At least the cryptocurrency crowd is young and they work hard. They have more time ahead of them to turn the ecosystem into something useful for society. It's definitely a very long term investment.
tzhenghao 9y ago
I think a lot has to do with FOMO and their egos. Kids these days are constantly chasing what's new and trendy. Everybody wants to cash in on the 10, 20, 30 or 50x return. They want to tell their friends how much they made, and how "well" they are actually doing in life (when all they have is tokens/coins that may be worth nothing). You see this in social media, and this isn't that different from it.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  FOMO is not exclusive to young adults or teenagers. I would wager FOMO is probably one of the most powerful basic human impulses. It's why people ran out and bought houses they couldn't afford in the housing bubble, it's why it's difficult for gamblers to walk away from the table when they're up, and it's also why people have a hard time withdrawing their money from the market when a correction is near. It's also behind every ponzi scheme. No one wants to give up those enticing gains that they see other people getting. Fear of missing out is at that powerful nexus of envy and greed that short circuits rational thought.
will_brown 9y ago
>and yet still to be reacting more logically than older investors Bitcoin to me is like a stock for a company that has zero revenue, no product, no service...really the only thing it has going for it is that the stock is easily transferable, but otherwise the stock seems to be hyped because it is limited (which is true of every every stock/corporate capitalization certainly that doesn’t make them The new gold). The mere fact it is coveted at all for being finite or “digital gold” is completely illogical.
- kneel 9y ago
  Cryptocurrencies are a new asset class, it doesn't really make sense to compare them to other assets. Right now it's mostly used for drugs and money laundering, things which most people aren't interested in. Eventually there will be a use case for bitcoin that will make a lot more sense than fiat, until then people will continue to be puzzled with cryptocurrencies.
  - will_brown 9y ago
    >Cryptocurrencies are a new asset class, it doesn't really make sense to compare them to other assets. Tell that to the IRS who treats them as property for purposes of taxation, that’s right all these college students will owe up to 40% on their trades and will owe regular income tax for coins earned mining. I wonder how many college kids know this, or will actually pay taxes...will bitcoin still be cool when the IRS audits them? Also the SEC has their own opinion of cryptocurrencies being securities.
    - kneel 9y ago
      You're acting as if it's trivial to track how this money is moving around. They're called cryptocurrencies for a reason.
      - will_brown 9y ago
        “Cryptocurrency” is a marketing term for what is really just a time stamp on a distributed ledger. Not only is it easy to track movement on these distributed ledgers, the vast majority of wallets are on exchanges like Coinbase that comply with KYC laws and directly hand over account information to the IRS.
roymurdock 9y ago
Studied and bought bitcoin as part of my senior college thesis in 2014/2015. It had some traction among Econ students, but almost none among biz students at the time. Now I’m talking to biz school friends who are finishing undergrad in 2018 who are thinking of setting up ant miner rigs on campus. It’s not about economic or financial theory anymore it’s about taking that $10k saved from birthdays and bar mitzvahs and trying to maximize return while having something fun to learn and talk about in the process. Its a more fun and younger version of the stock market that has less barriers to entry and higher potential upside.
- woah 9y ago
  Those are some pretty lucrative birthdays
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

tzahola 9y ago

More logically?? Putting your money in shitcoins or outright pyramid schemes without SEC guarantees is being logical?

devereaux 9y ago
Yes, it is very logical: anyone can buy a lottery ticket, but only accredited investors can invest in legitimate companies. Looks like there's a lot of room in the middle for people who are not stupid and don't want to be left out.

nrhk 9y ago

The younger generations loves this because where else are you going to get 10x your money in a year. We weren't so fascinated with it pre 2013. I think my generation being intrinsically digital find the idea of digital money and smart contracts to make hell of a lot more sense than older folks who've been working and realize the immense challenges of implementing these currencies. Naturally they find the challenges to be worth more than what Crypto can provide because they lack the need to a digitally connected physical world younger folks desire.

devereaux 9y ago
Maybe I'm off, but I feel that as a desire to refuse to play a rigged game. I am "intrinsically digital" too, but just off by a few years so nobody talked about crypto at school even a year ago. Still, it makes a hell of a lot more sense! I don't know about you, but I've noticed quite a few rigged games, and I took action on that. For example, after my work tried one last shenanigan on me last year, I quit. I did not bother applying to another corporate job. I know I'd be paid 70 cents on the dollar and thrown a bone every now and then, so instead I just started my company. Come what may! I don't even bother with pension stuff, because of the system dynamic. I see it as very unfair, and I would be happy to vote to bring it down -- even if it meant I would be 100% sure I would not see anything in return of the money I am forced to pay. But at least, I would not contribute an unfair situation and burden the next generations. I wonder if the generation that daytrade crypto on their cellphone feel the same about money and banking? Maybe they believe that even if it is very far from ideal, crypto is preferable to the status quo?

justinhj 9y ago

Maybe desperation? Previous generations could, depending on how far back you go, rely on a job for life, an affordable house and a pension from their employer. Take literally all of that away and add a huge student loan and maybe volatile investments start to look like the only way to get ahead. At the very least I can image they trust older people much less then we did when I was younger. (Gen X)

gnarcoregrizz 9y ago
you don't have to look far on reddit or 4chan to find "boomer hate" threads, with comments about how they sold out younger generations. stocks and 5% gains are definitely not considered cool either. interestingly, i think this crypto stuff is bringing a lot of financial literacy to people.
GVIrish 9y ago
Wave any new fangled investment vehicle in front of people with insane returns and people young and old will buy in. The current generation is no different than previous generations that got swindled on whatever the bubble du jour was.
- justinhj 9y ago
  My generation was working for a few years when the dotcom bubble happened. Even though I was working for a tech company, most of my peers were not that interested in investing in tech startups. What they were largely interested in was buying property and traditional mutual funds.

sanderjd 9y ago

Ok but what I don't get: where do they get money to speculate on financial instruments? I didn't care about the stock market when I was in high school and college not because it wasn't cool, but because I had no discretionary cash.

lowdest 9y ago
A brilliant thing about the current state of cryptocurrency markets is that you can buy $10 at a time and the fees are a fixed small percent rather than e.g. a flat $5. GDAX has 0.25% market orders and 0% on limit orders. Trading small amounts on the traditional stock market is between impossible and pointless.
- sanderjd 9y ago
  I don't remember transaction fees being the issue...

ixacto 9y ago

They are interested in it due to the pretty charts and slick interface of coinbase and robinhood. Many of the young adults and teens do not understand the concept of compound interest at all. They think stock picking and market timing can actually work for them. All they see is $300 -> $10000 or something. Making 8%/yr is not nearly as interesting. IMO Fidelity/Vanguard need to figure out a better marketing campaign. Right now it is targeted to east-coast retiring boomers.

ixacto 9y ago
I have also seen that Acorns and the roboadvisors seem to be popular with the younger demographic.
sidko 9y ago
>They are interested in it due to the pretty charts and slick interface of coinbase and robinhood You got to be kidding if you think Coinbase has a slick interface/user experience. You would need to explain why in-spite of such a terrible interface, people are flocking to Coinbase to buy Bitcoin/Ethereum. In fact, so much so that Coinbase was the top app on the App Store for a day [1]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/coinbase-was-top-of-us-apple-app-store-after-bitcoin-price-surge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/coinbase-was-top-of-us-apple... >Many of the young adults and teens do not understand the concept of compound interest at all I'll need a source for that. It doesn't seem like humans in general are wired to really grasp the power of compound interest (or exponential functions for that matter), so if you're claiming that young adults today are less likely than average to grasp that concept, I'd need a source for that. I do not believe it to be true, but I am happy to be proven wrong.
Nuzzerino 9y ago
I got into crypto trading only because I saw these kids getting into it en masse, and realizing that my competition was no longer that same formidable institutional hive mind I would expect to find elsewhere.
jondubois 9y ago
I think that a lot of younger people feel that corporations are already too big and there isn't much growth left in them. There aren't many other decent investment opportunities either. In the current economic environment, saving doesn't make much sense. You have to work hard for 40 years just to buy a decent house. Corporations like Apple have a market cap approaching 1 trillion dollars. Existing shareholders are hoarding all the wealth and they get compound returns on it. The NASDAQ is a cesspool of well-to-dos who do nothing except collect dividends. At least the cryptocurrency crowd is young and they work hard. They have more time ahead of them to turn the ecosystem into something useful for society. It's definitely a very long term investment.

tzhenghao 9y ago

I think a lot has to do with FOMO and their egos. Kids these days are constantly chasing what's new and trendy. Everybody wants to cash in on the 10, 20, 30 or 50x return. They want to tell their friends how much they made, and how "well" they are actually doing in life (when all they have is tokens/coins that may be worth nothing). You see this in social media, and this isn't that different from it.

GVIrish 9y ago
FOMO is not exclusive to young adults or teenagers. I would wager FOMO is probably one of the most powerful basic human impulses. It's why people ran out and bought houses they couldn't afford in the housing bubble, it's why it's difficult for gamblers to walk away from the table when they're up, and it's also why people have a hard time withdrawing their money from the market when a correction is near. It's also behind every ponzi scheme. No one wants to give up those enticing gains that they see other people getting. Fear of missing out is at that powerful nexus of envy and greed that short circuits rational thought.

will_brown 9y ago

>and yet still to be reacting more logically than older investors Bitcoin to me is like a stock for a company that has zero revenue, no product, no service...really the only thing it has going for it is that the stock is easily transferable, but otherwise the stock seems to be hyped because it is limited (which is true of every every stock/corporate capitalization certainly that doesn’t make them The new gold). The mere fact it is coveted at all for being finite or “digital gold” is completely illogical.

kneel 9y ago
Cryptocurrencies are a new asset class, it doesn't really make sense to compare them to other assets. Right now it's mostly used for drugs and money laundering, things which most people aren't interested in. Eventually there will be a use case for bitcoin that will make a lot more sense than fiat, until then people will continue to be puzzled with cryptocurrencies.
- will_brown 9y ago
  >Cryptocurrencies are a new asset class, it doesn't really make sense to compare them to other assets. Tell that to the IRS who treats them as property for purposes of taxation, that’s right all these college students will owe up to 40% on their trades and will owe regular income tax for coins earned mining. I wonder how many college kids know this, or will actually pay taxes...will bitcoin still be cool when the IRS audits them? Also the SEC has their own opinion of cryptocurrencies being securities.
  - kneel 9y ago
    You're acting as if it's trivial to track how this money is moving around. They're called cryptocurrencies for a reason.
    - will_brown 9y ago
      “Cryptocurrency” is a marketing term for what is really just a time stamp on a distributed ledger. Not only is it easy to track movement on these distributed ledgers, the vast majority of wallets are on exchanges like Coinbase that comply with KYC laws and directly hand over account information to the IRS.

roymurdock 9y ago

Studied and bought bitcoin as part of my senior college thesis in 2014/2015. It had some traction among Econ students, but almost none among biz students at the time. Now I’m talking to biz school friends who are finishing undergrad in 2018 who are thinking of setting up ant miner rigs on campus. It’s not about economic or financial theory anymore it’s about taking that $10k saved from birthdays and bar mitzvahs and trying to maximize return while having something fun to learn and talk about in the process. Its a more fun and younger version of the stock market that has less barriers to entry and higher potential upside.

woah 9y ago
Those are some pretty lucrative birthdays

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]