r/cryptocurrency debates Crypto vs Stocks (and it doesn't go the way you might expect)

Today, r/CryptoCurrency debated a recent survey which suggest millenials are the most likely demographic to invest in crypto AND most worried of a stock market crash.


“thats because millienials are broke, they need to roll the dice on crypto making them rich, because $50 at 5% gains per year, won't be enough for retirement“


Prompted by the thread, the mentions of 'millenials' surged over the last 24 hours, sending the word to our Top Social Gainers list for April 21st:

The thread has already amassed over 350 comments so far, and has - perhaps unexpected for a crypto subreddit - split the crowd on the value and merit of traditional markets. In fact, there were many a defenders of the stock-and-bond alternative:


“If you’ve read any investment books, the statement that you can’t retire off just playing traditional investments is false. People just have limited investment knowledge, suck ass at saving money, or are greedy and want to be rich sooner rather than later.”


The big part of the debate centered on which of the two financial markets present a more sound retirement plan:


“You can retire off playing traditional markets, but you need a lot more initial capital to do so. With $50, after 2 years, you'll have $80 in traditional markets with crypto $50 could be life changing...if you bought $50 worth of ETH on January 1st, 2016, you paid 95 cents per coin. So you had 52 ETH. Two years later that was worth $75K.“


“You can’t rely on traditional investing if you have hardly any principle to invest. Crypto has proven there’s a chance that $1000 can turn into $1,000,000.”


Others, however, pointed exactly to crypto’s unparalleled volatility as a dealbreaker, and praised the prudency of the traditional markets:


“$50/month for 30 years with 6% annual growth gives you $48K. You get same $48K if you invest $300/month for 10 years. Buy low cost index funds. Easy and safe if your investment period is more than 20 years. As you can see time is the key. It is lot easier to save $50/month than $300/month but the end result is the same.“

“Honestly, that’s just pure greed to try and get rich quick. Speculators like those are the same that whine when the market nose dives. This is a purely speculative market. There is no such a thing as “investing” in crypto[...] People just don’t want to get wealthy slow which is what the stock market and other securities afford you.”


And while it may sound intuitive that crypto's more volatile, there were those that even claimed the opposite:

Eventually, while many tentatively conceded that stocks are a sounder strategy, they claim the initial capital investment makes it a gated community, available to the wealthy few:


“Investment advice is useful for people making $50,000 a year. It is not terribly useful for the majority of people making $30,000 because no matter how much they save it will not be enough once social security blows up.”


"The less you have, the less you can make with investments. Compound interest is a thing. It's fundamentally unfair. The problem is that the elite have a monopoly on good investments. “


“Step 1) Have a bunch of money to invest

Step 2) Invest it.

I think your average millenial is having trouble with step 1.”


As usual, there were also those that strayed away from the main debate, and questioned the legitimacy of the source instead:


“The survey was of 1000 people from 'bankrate' whatever the f#@k that is. People who would respond to something like this survey and actually do it seem like they'd be biased against traditional stocks and contrarian. That said I agree with them.“


And then there were those that somehow managed to make this a...left vs right thing?

You can check out the full discussion in all its glory in the original thread.

Thanks for reading!

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