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As workers, we give many agents to our superannuation fund to invest for us, to get a nice sized nest egg that can be used to live happily in our old age, to earn hard for us, to earn a great sized nest egg that we can use to live happily in our old age. Usually, we don’t blink when they plow money into international stocks or bet on London’s hot new startups, airports, supermarkets, affordable housing.
But there is one investment that many of us, of course, are a bit unsettling towards our supermarket. It’s cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency may not seem like a secure, super investment, but it is becoming more popular.credit: Michael Howard
Bitcoin and its likeness are not the kind of assets you choose as a “safe bet” in your retirement fund. They are extremely unstable, barely regulated, lacking most real-world use cases, making them extremely difficult for most people to understand.
Unfortunately, they are also very profitable, with Bitcoin prices almost doubled over the past year to $171,000.
What’s the problem?
Certainly, the funds are gradually beginning to see Crypto as a viable asset for investments, and AMP became the first major superfund to invest in Bitcoin late last year, but that’s all they’re now happy to take the plunge.
But among those managing their own supermarkets, Crypto is gradually becoming a more popular option, with SMSF owning around $1.8 billion in digital currency as of this year. This is a wide-ranging small amount of $1 trillion invested in SMSFS, but it is a slow growing slice that can only become popular if Crypto’s value continues to increase.
