A survey conducted by investment platform eToro has revealed a potential swathe of millennials are waiting to invest in cryptocurrencies. This is because they feel that crypto exchanges are “less likely to be a place where bad actors get rewarded with taxpayer money”, reflecting a broader change in attitude between the generations and the younger generation towards government and the elite.
93% of Millennial Traders Waiting to Invest in Crypto
The survey, which canvassed the thoughts of 1,000 online traders, found that 93% of those born between 1982-2000 (millennials) said they would invest more into cryptocurrency were it to be offered by a traditional institution, while 71% of those who didn’t currently trade crypto said they also would be willing to invest under those circumstances. Conversely, 77% of Generation X traders (born 1966-1981) said that they preferred the stock market.
These results are perhaps not surprising and reflect an already established trend. Those working in the crypto and blockchain industry and those who publicly support it, like Twitter supremo Jack Dorsey, tend to be in the younger, more tech-savvy camp with few ties to traditional finance. On the other hand, those who publicly criticize it tend to be of the older generation with links to banks or other realms of high-level finance. Guy Hirsch, Managing Director of eToro U.S., summed up the findings:
We’re seeing the beginning of a generational shift in trust from traditional stock exchanges to crypto exchanges. At the heart of this change are the asset classes themselves. Younger investors’ experience with the stock market has seen a great deal of loss of trust, with the fall of Lehman Brothers because of irresponsible practices followed by the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Millennials have always been anti-corporate and big business. Consensus at Davos is that millennials don’t trust them and want decision making power backhttps://t.co/13r6dIbzyW
— Tokenized (@Tokenized8) February 20, 2019
Solutions on the Way?
2018 saw the first tentative steps towards crypto being considered as a potential investment option by the kind of institutions millennials are looking towards, such as TD Ameritrade and Fidelity, and surveys such as this illustrate that the desire is certainly there for a new wave of investors to enter the markets, thanks to this new asset class. As such, the next eighteen months could see these desires come to fruition and begin the lengthy process of legitimizing the space in the eyes of the public.
