Crypto

What should millennials invest in — stocks or cryptocurrency?

Published

3 years ago

May 17, 2022

What should millennials invest in — stocks or cryptocurrency?

What ought to millennials put money into — shares or cryptocurrency? (PHOTO: Getty Industrial)

SINGAPORE — Shares will be the most well-known and easiest sort of funding, however cryptocurrency appears to be the subsequent huge factor lately too. What then, ought to millennials select to put money into — shares or cryptocurrency? And is there a greater possibility?

That is a part of a sequence the place Yahoo Finance Singapore will deal with completely different elements of millennials and their funds. On this first half, we uncover whether or not it’s higher for millennials to put money into shares or cryptocurrency.

Diversification because the baseline

First issues first, you will need to know what you’re dabbling in. Investing in shares can embrace quite a lot of funding devices similar to exchange-traded funds, index funds, authorities bonds, futures, warrants, and commodities buying and selling. They’re often completed by investing a small sum of cash each month.

In the meantime, cryptocurrencies are digital property that individuals can use as investments or for on-line purchases. The way it works is principally exchanging actual forex to purchase “cash” or “tokens” of a sure sort of cryptocurrency.

Therefore, the brief reply as to if shares or cryptocurrency is a greater funding is that it relies on what your monetary wants and needs are. In actual fact, the monetary specialists that Yahoo Finance Singapore spoke to suggested that millennials ought to really put money into each shares and cryptocurrency.

“In the end, your monetary portfolio ought to be diversified and you may all the time select to put money into each of shares and crypto as a result of they serve completely different features,” stated Catherine Seah, 22, a pupil monetary advisor.

Echoing an identical tune, Asheesh Chanda, CEO of Kristal.AI, a digital-first personal wealth platform in Singapore, stated: “Investing ought to be seen as being quite a lot of modes of transport for individuals to succeed in their objectives. Every mode presents sure advantages and incurs sure prices.”

For instance, if you happen to can solely afford to speculate a small sum each month, then investing in shares is the way in which to go as it’s low-cost and an efficient manner of accessing markets. In any other case, in case you are extra risk-taking, then cryptocurrency could be a greater possibility for long-term acquire.

Shares because the safer possibility?

But, evidently most millennials are nonetheless leaning in direction of investing in shares given with out dabbling a lot in cryptocurrency.

In response to brokerage agency Tiger Brokers, 45% of their Gen Z buyers choose long-term shares like Apple, Boeing, and Carnival. Different information from an OCBC Monetary Wellness Survey additionally discover that about each 4 in 10 millennials who make investments admitted that they speculated excessively within the hope of creating a fast buck.

As an example, advertising specialist Gideon Lai, 28, has been investing in shares over the past two years, after considering of find out how to acquire additional money and profit from his buck.

Nonetheless, he additionally cautions: “It’s one factor to see your returns develop, however one other to be grasping. I feel you will need to draw a steadiness particularly if you happen to don’t actually have stable monetary data.”

Equally, 22-year-old Colette Low, a personal college undergraduate, determined to dabble in shares funding as a result of she sees it as a “good long-term funding”. Low, who has been investing round S$5000 a yr since she was 19, added that she makes most of her monetary selections after studying up about them on-line through social media.

“I feel shares are already thought-about a much less dangerous possibility since they don’t require a lot monetary dedication. It additionally helps that it’s simple to purchase and we will benefit from the scenario each time the financial system grows,” stated Low.

As a suggestion, specialists don’t advocate younger buyers to stake their necessary life objectives on investments solely and to maintain it inside 5% of their monetary portfolio.

“No less than a part of the potential return from shares is speculative, and at a minimal, there may be simply an excessive amount of uncertainty. I like to recommend specializing in extra necessary monetary objectives like planning for a home as a result of that’s the dependable, tried-and-tested stuff,” stated Chuin Ting Weber, CEO of MoneyOwl, a bionic monetary advisor.

Cryptocurrency — the long run?

Regardless of that, evidently cryptocurrency can also be making waves globally as a doable funding possibility for teens. In response to a Bankrate survey in June 2021, millennials (aged 25-40) expressed essentially the most consolation of all age teams with cryptocurrency, with 49% of them being considerably comfy with investing in crypto property similar to Bitcoin.

In actual fact, different survey information from monetary web site Capitalize revealed that 54% of millennials say that they’re intending to incorporate cryptocurrency as a part of their retirement technique.

Recent graduate Reuben Tay, 25, is a kind of as he believes that cryptocurrency is the way in which of the long run given how the cryptocurrency expertise is constructed on safety that may enable customers and house owners to stay personal and nameless throughout transactions.

“I really feel that cryptocurrency permits for extra digital entry and possession. Even individuals who don’t have any entry to conventional banks can enter the monetary system with the assistance of cryptocurrency,” Tay stated.

And whereas it’s a excessive danger gamble the place there’s a sturdy probability you possibly can lose all of your cash, Tay believes that the payoff could be value it so long as you realize what you’re doing.

“It will be important earlier than investing in bitcoin or different cryptocurrencies to go in along with your eyes open and all the time double verify to just be sure you’re not falling for a rip-off or pretend guarantees of excessive returns,” shared Tay.

In actual fact, with the cryptocurrency trade booming, evidently firms are leaping on the bandwagon to permit for individuals to be extra accustomed to cryptocurrency funds.

As an example, native ride-hailing firm Ryde can be accepting crypto funds by Bitcoin from the third quarter of 2022. Ryde customers could have the pliability to select from a rising checklist of over 70 currencies and 10 blockchain networks to pay.

“We wish to deploy non-fungible tokens in a manner that generates extra actual world worth, particularly for the quickly rising market phase of Singaporeans who maintain crypto”, says Terence Zou, founder & CEO of Ryde.

Crypto

The Company Behind the World's Third-Largest Cryptocurrency Just Invested $775 Million in This Little Company Taking on YouTube and AWS | The Motley Fool

Published

6 hours ago

December 28, 2024

Press Room

The Company Behind the World's Third-Largest Cryptocurrency Just Invested 5 Million in This Little Company Taking on YouTube and AWS | The Motley Fool

Shares of technology company Rumble (RUM -6.39%) are at 52-week highs as of this writing, having jumped roughly 300% in value since lows set back in January. And much of its leap is thanks to a massive $775 million investment from the investment arm of Tether Limited, the company behind the cryptocurrency stablecoin Tether (USDT -0.04%).

Tether is the third-largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalization. As of this writing, the market cap is almost $140 billion, which trails only Bitcoin and Ethereum. But Tether isn’t like these other two cryptocurrencies; it’s a stablecoin.

A stablecoin intends to have a 1-to-1 price correlation with something else. For example, a U.S. dollar stablecoin should always be worth $1. It’s for people who want to explore the world of cryptocurrency without the volatility. Simply explained, they deposit $1 and Tether issues one new stablecoin worth $1.

According to Tether, it had about $125 billion in reserves as of Sept. 30 (its market cap was $119 billion at the time). Most of these reserves are in U.S. Treasury bills. It needs to hold these reserves in case people want to redeem their stablecoins for dollars. But Tether is able to make money for itself with these massive reserves in the meantime.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino recently said it’s on pace to earn $10 billion in net profit in 2024, which is an astounding amount for any company, let alone a cryptocurrency company. And the company doesn’t simply rake in these profits, but rather it invests its money from time to time, which is what it’s doing with Rumble.

Why the market is excited about Tether’s investment in Rumble

Rumble turned heads when it went public in 2022 because this little company has big ambitions. The company intends to build internet infrastructure that’s free from censorship and it hopes to compete with Alphabet‘s video streaming platform, YouTube; Amazon‘s cloud computing service, AWS; social media platforms; and more.

The problem is that Rumble can’t simply wish all of this into existence — it takes money. And when ambitions are this high, it costs a lot of money to build. Unsurprisingly, the company had a net loss of $116 million in 2023 and has already lost another $102 million in the first three quarters of 2024.

But give Rumble some credit. The chart below shows its outstanding share count with the orange line. Ignore the brief spike shortly after it went public (the accounting of these things can get temporarily distorted upon going public). The chart shows that, to date, management hasn’t been raising money by diluting shareholders with stock offerings. It also hasn’t been taking on debt.

RUM Total Long Term Debt (Quarterly) data by YCharts

To the contrary, Rumble has been funding its growth with cash on hand. And I believe that’s the right move. After all, the company got its cash from its shareholders in the first place. These shareholders expect it to achieve its long-term vision by actually using this cash.

However, Rumble is still burning cash at a fast pace and investors were getting worried about liquidity. The stock consequently skyrocketed when Tether announced its massive investment because the fears regarding liquidity were alleviated.

There are reasons for optimism with Rumble. In the third quarter of 2024, the company had 67 million monthly active users — that’s nothing to sneeze at. Granted, that’s down from its user base of 71 million in the third quarter of 2022. But it’s a large, engaged user base nonetheless.

The challenge has been growing revenue by getting advertisers to buy into Rumble’s potential. As CEO Chris Pavlovski lamented on the Q3 earnings call, “How much longer can brand advertisers ignore more than half the country?”

Rumble does have a premium subscription service that makes up for lack of interest from advertisers. But ad revenue is still important to the company and Pavlovski’s question is an admission that this is an ongoing headwind for the business. And, unfortunately, it’s impossible to know how much longer it will be before advertising demand picks up.

The good news for Rumble’s shareholders is that however long it is, it now has a longer runway than it had before thanks to the infusion of cash from Tether. While there are still a lot of moving pieces here and more details with the transaction that are worth knowing, the main takeaway is that Rumble has more time than it had before. And when it comes to investing, more time is almost always a good thing.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Jon Quast has positions in Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Crypto

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will face fraud charges in the US | TechCrunch

Published

15 hours ago

December 27, 2024

Press Room

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will face fraud charges in the US | TechCrunch

Do Kwon, the co-founder of collapsed cryptocurrency startup Terraform Labs, will be extradited from Montenegro to the U.S. to face federal fraud charges, as first reported by Bloomberg.

Kwon faces charges in both the U.S. and South Korea; Terraform Labs’ TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies crashed in 2022, causing investors to lose over $40 billion.

Terraform and Kwon were found personally liable for fraud following a civil trial on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations in April. Terraform agreed to pay $4.5 billion to settle the case with the SEC.

Kwon was arrested in March 2023 at the airport in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, while preparing to board a flight to Dubai. It’s unclear when Montenegro plans on releasing Kwon to the U.S. and whether the government’s latest decision supersedes its order in August to extradite Kwon to South Korea.

Crypto

Here's a heartwarming holiday crypto story (no, seriously)

Published

1 day ago

December 27, 2024

Press Room

Here's a heartwarming holiday crypto story (no, seriously)

In a true Christmas miracle, a viral crypto stunt actually seems to be doing some good in the world.

Siqi Chen, an investor and startup founder, took to X on Christmas Eve to share a GoFundMe campaign he created to fund research into a rare brain tumor afflicting his 5-year-old daughter. His daughter, Mira, was diagnosed in September with adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma — a benign tumor that is usually not fatal but causes severe side effects.

Chen said the family is working with Dr. Todd Hankinson at the University of Colorado on treatments to slow the tumor’s growth. Because this cancer is so rare, he said, research is sparse and funding is lacking. “this christmas, i am humbly asking for your help to support dr. hankinson’s research,” he tweeted.

His online fundraiser raised more than $233,000 of its $300,000 goal in two days. But the most heartwarming part had nothing to do with GoFundMe.

Late in the evening on Christmas Day, Chen took to X again — this time in surprise.

“uh so some random guy 20 minutes [ago] made a SOL memecoin called $MIRA to help with research fundraising and sent me half the entire supply and it’s now worth like $400K and i literally don’t know what to do,” he wrote.

The memecoin — internet parlance for a cryptocurrency created on a lark, often based on a joke — skyrocketed in value as crypto enthusiasts traded it among themselves. Chen started selling off small portions of his holding Wednesday evening, promising to donate 100% of the proceeds to Hankinson’s laboratory. “CAN SOME PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS MAGIC INTERNET MONEY WORKS I AM LOSING MY MIND,” he wrote less than half an hour after his initial tweet, when the value of his holdings soared to nearly $6 million.

Chen continued tweeting his disbelief as the value soared to $11 million, then $14.7 million, then $18.8 million. By Thursday morning, he had sold enough of the token to send at least $1 million to Hankinson’s lab, he said. “yi, mira and i are so unbelievably grateful to you all — each and every one of you,” he wrote. “christmas magic was made real this year thanks to all of you. forever grateful.”

Perhaps no one was more surprised than Hankinson, who learned of the memecoin Thursday morning via excited texts from friends and coworkers. “This entire area of the world — Bitcoin and NFTs and stuff — I do not know a single thing about it,” he told The Standard. “So when all this stuff started going on, I was like, ‘What?’”

Hankinson said he has studied adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma for more than 15 years, and his lab is the only one in North America dedicated to its treatment. He said funding is hard to come by both because the condition is rare — fewer than two in a million people are diagnosed with AC every year — and because it does not grow as aggressively as some other tumors. Still, he said, the side effects can be devastating: stunted growth; vision impairment; and difficulty regulating hunger, thirst, and temperature.

If the Chen family did contribute $1 million, he said, it would be by far the largest donation the lab has ever received.

“Even if it ends up being a small fraction of what people have talked about, it would still be a complete game changer for the scale on which we can do things and the sophistication with which we do things,” he said. “This would be the most insane Christmas gift our research has ever gotten.”

Hankinson and Chen weren’t the only ones surprised by the use of a memecoin to fund medical research. These trend-based tokens are primarily known as risky, volatile investments — more of a gag than a serious asset. (The creators of a memecoin tied to Hailey Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah” Girl, are being sued by investors after its value dropped 95% in a single day.) They are sometimes used in crypto scams known as “rug pulls,” in which founders create a token, convince people to invest in it, then rapidly sell all their holdings.

Chen said repeatedly on Twitter that he was trying to avoid a “rug pull” situation by selling off his holdings in the “MIRA” coin slowly. He said Thursday that he would sell $1,000 worth of the token every 10 minutes until it runs out. Still, the value of the coin has dropped significantly from its overnight high.

That crash — coupled with the fact that early sellers of the coin likely made a tidy profit — made some observers uneasy. But Chen said he didn’t mind.

“if you made a lot of money, i’m genuinely happy for you — but please consider donating some of your profits to hankinson lab,” he tweeted. “if you lost a lot of money, i’m very sorry — but magic internet money is magic internet money.”

Chen is a well-regarded figure in Silicon Valley who founded and sold two startups and worked at several others before his current venture, a finance software company called Runway. Among those responding to his tweets were Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

In a Twitter Space on Wednesday night, Chen explained that his daughter initially presented with a headache, which he and his wife thought little about until they brought her to a pediatrician who suggested an MRI. Doctors have since placed Mira on an arthritis medication that could slow the growth of the tumor, and they are weighing the benefits of surgery. “Our strategy right now is just to try everything we can to buy as much time as possible,” he said.