Connor Mack is only 29, but the electrician from New Hampshire invests with the goal of establishing financial freedom for himself and his future family. And for Mack, cryptocurrencies are a key part of his financial strategy.
“It’s important for young people to reach for whatever opportunity there is,” Mack says. “When the boomers saw that houses were cheap and available, they bought them. Crypto feels like this opportunity for future generations.”
For Gen Z and other young investors, crypto is here to stay — a practical tool that still has strong ideological draws. Cryptocurrencies are a way for young people to build wealth, make transactions across the globe, protect against inflation, and address inequities in financial systems, according to three young crypto investors who spoke with Business Insider. They don’t view crypto as a get-rich-quick investment, but as an established part of the financial ecosystem.
For those reasons, owning cryptocurrencies “just makes sense,” Mack says.
Driven by FOMO, but staying long-term
Mack started investing in bitcoin five years ago, drawn by his fear of missing out on big returns that were making headlines at the time. As he learned more about crypto and investing, he felt that any well-diversified portfolio should include crypto. Today, he has about 10% of his six-figure investment portfolio in bitcoin, and another 20% invested in crypto-backed assets (not coins themselves).
For Mack, crypto’s high risk — and thus the potential for high reward — is part of the draw.
“I’m young enough that I have a very long investment horizon, so the extreme volatility that crypto experiences doesn’t affect me materially, because I won’t need that money now,” he says, adding that he doesn’t have children or other significant family obligations.
Mack’s plan for managing his crypto investments is “just don’t sell it, ever.” In large part, that’s because he sees crypto not only as an investment, but as a tool to protect his portfolio from inflation.
“We can treat it like digital capital preservation,” he says. “That’s what it was designed for.”
Crypto principles still loom large
Amrita Bhasin, 25, is drawn to crypto “almost entirely” for its unique ideological principles. The Bay Area entrepreneur studied sociology in college, and sees crypto as a tool to address inequities in the financial system, including difficulties for women accessing capital.
She says to have its full social impact, crypto needs to be used for daily transactions — treated like a currency, not an investment. She has purchased hotel stays and flights using ethereum, but would like to see it become easier to use crypto for day-to-day expenses. For example, she’s interested in paying rent in crypto, but can’t.
Bhasin is intrigued by new developments that make crypto more practical, like a crypto-backed mortgage.
Sofia Bobrik, 29, uses crypto because she finds it’s often “faster and safer” for making international transactions. Bobrik, who lives in Portugal, recently used bitcoin to send money to her friend in Turkey. The friend doesn’t have residency or a bank card in Turkey, so crypto was the most practical way to send money.
Bobrik — who works in public relations, including with crypto clients — sometimes gets paid in crypto, and uses it to pay her contractors. Many people she works with prefer to get paid in crypto, she says, but she echoes Bhasin’s frustrations that it’s still not easy to use crypto for expenses like coffee or groceries.
As for security concerns, Bobrik says crypto doesn’t feel more or less secure than fiat currencies. Her husband has had his bank account hacked, and he’s also been the target of crypto phishing scams. The couple uses caution for all financial transactions, whether they’re cash, fiat, or crypto.
“It’s not safe anywhere,” Bobrik says.
Developing utility, not memecoins
Mack’s crypto is almost all bitcoin, while Bobrik uses bitcoin and ethereum. Bhasin owns some USD coin (a cryptocurrency that is tied directly to the US dollar), but feels ethereum has the most appeal to younger investors.
“The vibes of it feel more Gen Z-coded,” she says.
None of the three own memecoins, highly volatile cryptocurrencies that are inspired by internet culture. Those, Mack says, “are fundamentally different things.” To Bhasin, purchasing memecoins is “almost like gambling,” and she only hears about that from friends who aren’t well-versed in crypto.
She hopes that in the future, there will be more attention paid to proven crypto, rather than memecoins that are largely speculative. Improving the day-to-day utility, she says, is what the crypto movement is all about.
“We need to figure out a way that the community can capture people long term,” she says. “And to do that, people need to have real utility and real value behind it.”
