Millennials don’t trust finance and invest directly in cryptocurrencies

In an interview with the Financial Times a few days ago, ECB board member Fabio Panetta compared the digital euro, or the electronic version of money issued by the central bank, with unstable coins such as Diem, the digital currency planned by Facebook. which would allow users to send money as easily as text messages: “If people want to pay digitally and we don’t offer them a digital means of payment, someone else will sooner or later.” Nothing more true given that the new generations of investors travel fast on digital products rather than on traditional investments. Generation Z and, more generally, young millennials, from teenagers to twenties, are very favorable to cryptocurrencies and the technologies that surround them. Like digital currencies and blockchain, like bitcoin and ethereum, like dogecoin, NFT and the whole DeFi sector, or decentralized finance. According to a CNBC survey, nearly half of millennial millionaires have at least 25% of their wealth invested in cryptocurrencies, and about half own NFTs. One of the reasons why young people have turned to alternative investments such as cryptocurrencies is easy to say: they do not trust traditional investment institutions and prefer to rely on their own research rather than rely on the financial advisors of companies connected to the traditional system. But it is not just the distrust in the classic that pushes young people to invest in cryptocurrencies but rather a positive awareness of blockchain technology: they want, that is, to invest in something to which they are connected on a generational level and in everyday use, therefore coins or digital assets. And it is, in most cases, long-term investments because these technologies are considered the future in the short and long term. Another aspect of great positivity for young people is represented by the possibilities that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer to guarantee access to the economic system for people who do not have a bank account, just as happened a few years ago in Venezuela and as it is trying to experiment now El Salvador after making bitcoin legal in the country.Although many financial experts advise against investing in cryptocurrencies as they are considered a speculative, volatile and risky investment, all this does not discourage young investors because they tend to put only small investors at risk. starting capital and openly trust that these technologies have the potential to revolutionize monetary regimes around the world. The younger generation is also worried about their retirement: they do not intend to rely on the same provision systems as their parents, which are deemed inefficient and unfair, and they promote diversified long-term solutions. This, also due to the fears felt around the increase in inflation which is definitely causing a certain interest in cryptocurrencies among young people. Without forgetting another reason, which is that the barrier to entry for these investments is generally very low.