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Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z think they’ll become crypto millionaires
- focusgroup0 5y agoassuming we keep getting stimmy checks, it's likely we'll all soon be millionaires
- mgh2 5y agono paywall archive please?
- sergiomattei 5y agoAnecdotal evidence, but most Gen Z folks I know (I'm Gen Z) either don't know how to use crypto or think it's a scam similar to Forex. I'm wondering about the audience they surveyed.
- thebean11 5y agoConfused by your forex comment..do gen z folks know what that is? It’s not a scam..
- hardlianotion 5y agoAs practiced by the majority of established banks in the UK, it is.
- sergiomattei 5y agoThere's a whole scam artist community around it.
- didon15 5y agoJust as there is with the us stock market and penny stocks.
- bradleyjg 5y agoWithin a rounding error, retail forex trading is a scam.
- rsynnott 5y agoForex _trading_, as promoted to normal people, is often very, very scammy. Obviously foreign exchange, in itself, isn't.
- nradov 5y agoWell they might eventually be right! If the US dollar collapses in a couple decades due to continued irresponsible levels of fiscal stimulus then everyone will be a millionaire. Of course at that point it will take a million dollars to buy a loaf of bread.
- llimos 5y agoThis is an absolutely brilliant comment and one I am definitely keeping in my back pocket for future debates on the subject!
- sschueller 5y agoThis is the same gen-z that follow those youtubers and tiktok stars pumping and dumping crypto coins? It's appalling what is going on with these blatantly illegal pump and dumps as well as rug pulls right in front on the FTC.
- seibelj 5y agoIf you could earn anything with a simple savings account, or safe assets like bonds, then the obsession with finding the Next Big Thing in finance wouldn't be anywhere near as popular. But there are no options - it's finding something to gamble on, or lose your wealth to inflation. No one wants to have their life savings inflated away.
- UncleMeat 5y agoBut there are different kinds of gambling. VTI will almost certainly crush inflation over a period of decades. The weird token that my brother-in-law is buying doesn't have the same risk profile as that.
- gkuan 5y agoUS I-series savings bonds are yielding 7.1% (and is tax advantaged) which seems to be better than the staking yields of the more reputable PoS coins.
- notcoolbezos 5y agohell no, i think i'll be a crypto billionaire edit: added crypto
- rchaud 5y agoSome probably also thought they'd be Youtube stars or Spotify gods. But they won't. And they're slowly learning that. Investing of any kind is a winner-take-all game. Crypto especially so. Those who already had money to come in early will make the bulk of the future gains. All that the young people they really have is the community around crypto, and perhaps the ability to mutually lament their lot in life.
- jackhalford 5y ago> Some probably also thought they'd be Youtube stars or Spotify gods. But they won't. And they're slowly learning that. Isn’t this a line out of Fight Club? edit: found it [1], I like this quote. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/33533-we-ve-all-been-raised-on-television-to-believe-that-one https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/33533-we-ve-all-been-raised...
- rchaud 5y agoIndeed it is. Plus ca change...
- tlear 5y agoWith how the inflation is going they might be right
- jrm4 5y agoNo, seriously, this. I'll say this, I don't know what's going to happen. No clue at all. But it feels like NOT putting SOMETHING in, at least enough to stave off future ROMO would be stupid.
- bhouston 5y agoIf you hold assets of most type you are protected against inflation, it doesn't have to be crypto. But avoid long-term bonds and cash -- those get destroy in times of inflation.
- hereme888 5y agoSad to see your comment greyed out. What you said makes sense. All major banks and lots of hedge funds are investing in it for a reason. Softbank invested $92MM in a crypto video game (The Sand).... These people aren't stupid investors.
- jakemauer 5y agoAre we talking about the same smart investors at Softbank that invested heavily in WeWork?
- jrm4 5y agoHonestly, it's just a good reminder of -- hmm, how to not be rude here: So the people here are generally smart, but sometimes otherwise smart people get these mental blocks about things, and clearly don't understand "positive risk." So again, free advice. Put some money in crypto. Think about the largest amount that wouldn't hurt at all if you lost it and put that in. Otherwise, you're really really not being smart about this.
- epolanski 5y agoThat's how self-fulfilling prophecies work. When and who's going to cash out all of these people putting SOMETHING. More than 50M people globally invested in cryptos, this means there's around 7B fools around who can still buy from them, where does it ends?
- wesleywt 5y agoExactly the type of nonsense HN loves to read.
- taurath 5y agoAt any given social gathering among even non tech people I know, there’s always a side conversation happening about crypto. It’s the same people who go spend too much at casinos, or are only talking about the next business venture. It’s a bit of an obsession. Another extremely frequent conversation is over the impossibility of owning a home on not-tech salaries. I think they’re related. People don’t think they can really reach goals related to life stability unless they win some sort of lottery. To me this is really worrying, not because it’s wrong but because for many it’s right. A slightly higher than median salary used to mean one is in the middle class. A whole generation doesn’t believe they have any opportunities.
- mschuster91 5y ago> A whole generation doesn’t believe they have any opportunities. Even those in tech believe we don't have any meaningful opportunities. Real talk: most of what we do day in day out for our employers is shit built upon bullshit built upon a house of cards, and it will come crashing down sooner than later. The European Union is finally flexing its muscles, other countries are beginning to follow suit against the digital corporations, even the US Congress is asking questions from both parties now. And where will we all be when the venture capital dries up, when entire business models are outright banned or made virtually impossible because of privacy regulations? Or when those we work for (especially in the automotive or other carbon-sensitive industries) have to cut down costs or close shop? If you work at Facebook or Google (and to a lesser extent Microsoft and Apple), everything you do follows exactly one motive: make as much profit for the shareholders as possible by advertising people stuff they don't need. Most of what everyone else is doing is either directly related to advertising, to creating a new product that is only marginally better than the previous version or to extracting money out of someone else for services they don't need. Bullshit jobs? We are in a bullshit economy, and the circle of capitalism forces us to ever-increasing economic growth - it's obvious that the path we are on as a species is pointing straight to our downfall, be it by climate change, by a resource-resetting war or by exhaustion of vital natural resources. Disagree? Ask yourself when was the last time you created something at work that provides a net benefit to society's survival.
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- Hydraulix989 5y agoWhat kinds of returns and from what initial investment? If you got into crypto in the time leading up to 2013, 2017, and 2020, you could have 10x'd your bag easily. I suspect having a technical understanding helped appreciate the value of Ethereum, Filecoin, Avalanche, etc. before everyone else, while simultaneously knowing to avoid Tron, Litecoin, Cardano, etc. which lack technical merit. (Although even properly timing the latter would have generated lucrative returns...) And then having enough sophistication as an investor to liquidate your holdings at peak hysteria when the layperson was asking about crypto.
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoCan I replace "technical understanding" /"sophistication" with "luck" here? I'd ask why you think the "good" coins are good and the bad ones are bad, but I feel like that would just lead to cherry-picked data...
- Hydraulix989 5y agoEthereum was the first cryptocurrency that does decentralized general purpose computation aka smart contracts. Filecoin decentralizes storage. Avalanche has the first Byzantine consensus mechanism (within a reasonable bound, read the paper) that does not rely on proof of work aka energy wasting. If these neither excite you nor stand out from forks of other coins (Litecoin is Bitcoin with a different hashing function, Tron is just marketing, Cardano is centralized), then yes, you are right, you are at a casino.
- throwaway1777 5y agoBut the best technology doesn’t always win.
- thoughtstheseus 5y agoAgreed. The crypto market will win eventually, the tech is better. Today though, there’re more bubbles in the crypto market than a roll of bubble wrap. I’m just hoping the government doesn’t bail out the losers.
- milliams 5y ago"will" != "can"
- jollybean 5y agoAbout 1/3 of them want to pursue careers in Social Media as 'influences' as well. Gen Z will be 'crypto millionaires' but those millions will be worthless. I think finally we can say 'The Kids Are Not Alright' without being entirely old cranks, or rather, there is a kind of a problem that didn't exist before now that we are in 'the age of surplus' at least for middle->upper tier kids. When I hear Crypto talk, all I hear are sad addicted gamblers talking about 'The Slot That's Tilted to Win' which is only marginally better than classical investors just speculating, but at the very least, investing and allocation of capital are materially important things. The saddest thing of all is that an entire generation thinks that wealth comes out of thin air, and that they somehow deserve to be rich because of some luck entirely disconnected with the collective participation, work and input of a lot of people. 'Inequality' is a problem no doubt, and a lot of the 'rich' didn't do much to earn it either, but that's a separate question.
- azmodeus 5y agoDon't write off gen z, write off their parents and educators who haven't shown them another way. We have created a harsh economic climate, surely we are more responsible than the next generation. Tech has built a brand of meteoric magic, it's not surprising snake oil can be sold in such an environment.
- withinboredom 5y agoTheir parents hit their early adulthood with the advent of the internet. I don’t think anyone knew wtf was going on.
- sergiomattei 5y ago> The saddest thing of all is that an entire generation thinks that wealth comes out of thin air Citation needed
- jollybean 5y agoThe citation is in the title: believing that people are going to get rich by holding/trading magic numbers, which is not a value creating activity, is believing that they're going to get rich by creating value out of thin air.
- poulsbohemian 5y agoThe other third thinks they will get rich as influencers… Seriously, it’s hard being a parent of this generation and trying to get them to understand how much of what they are consuming is an illusion.
- monocasa 5y agoI think a lot of gen z see the traditional route as just as much of an illusion, and at least crypto and influencers are exciting.
- Overtonwindow 5y agoDidn’t they say this about generation X and Amway?
- jeppesen-io 5y agoI don't know where they get this nonsense. Anyone who actually talks or works with gen z would know this. Not that it matters, but I'm in my late 30s. These type of articles about the dumb/bad/ignorant the next generation are growing very tiring
- BoiledCabbage 5y ago> I don't know where they get this nonsense. Anyone who actually talks or works with gen z would know this. Are you saying it's nonsense, or it's obvious?
- jeppesen-io 5y agoFair. I missspoke - I typed too quickly. I'd view this as nonsense.
- exolymph 5y agoTeenagers are dumb, news at 11.
- wcoenen 5y agoThe title seems to be a misquote, or at least a misleading interpretation from the survey results. Note how in the actual source[1] it's not specifically about Gen Z. It also says they believe they "could", not "will" become millionaires from crypto. It says nothing about the probability. "Could" I win the lottery tomorrow? Sure, yes. But I won't. > 31% of U.S. Adults believe they can become millionaires off crypto investments, driven heavily by young adults. 59% of Gen Z and 46% of Millennials believe they could become millionaires from crypto investments. [1] https://engine-insights.com/blog/the-pulse-of-the-american-consumer-2021-pt-42/ https://engine-insights.com/blog/the-pulse-of-the-american-c...
- naveen99 5y agoAverage wealth in the usa is already around half a million. Average wealth for 50 year olds is already around a million.