I came across an article in the Australian news talking about the top financial worries of people, with *groceries, petrol and rent being major factors. However, another interesting thing was that out of the 2000 people surveyed, the average indebted Australian has around 46,000 dollars in debt not including their mortgage.
While I haven't lived or worked in Australia for a long time, that is 10,000 more than my salary eighteen years ago. Yes, the salaries have gone up a lot since I was there, but if the average salary in Australia is currently around 70,000, that means that those with debt obligations have two-thirds of their salary in debt. That is quite extreme in my opinion and much of this debt is on credit cards and in BNPL services.
Another interesting metric extracted was that the average amount people had in savings had dropped from 15,000 to 5,000 over the last year - which is a 66% reduction. Again, quite extreme, but this was taken not including investments, so it is possible that people have awoken to the ridiculousness of savings accounts and are starting to learn how to make their money work for them a bit harder.
But, what has been interesting to note over the last few months is that while there are still plenty of FUD articles, pretty much every article looking at personal finance is at least mentioning the rising popularity of crypto investment as an option. It normally comes with a caveat of risk and volatility, but it keeps entering the mainstream.
“Digital currencies will continue to be a reckoning force in the year ahead, despite their volatility,”
Not just the year ahead I suspect, as even going into a bear market, the potential of the bull will likely see the more savvy people entering in during the FUD, instead of the hype. I think that many are (slowly) learning that buying the peaks is not a great strategy and with more turning to actually research a little, they will make their larger forays into crypto when prices are receding. Combined with the crypto regulars moving their wealth into yield earners for the bears, this can mean that there are markedly less sellers, keeping prices more buoyant and the floor higher than many may expect.
I think a lot of people are waiting for the 3.5K Bitcoin again and I think that while it will fall a lot after the blow-off top, it isn't going to drop that far back and it might settle more at the 12-20 mark. But, that is some time off yet unless something cataclysmic happens, as currently there is plenty of support between here and there.
And this is going to set up for an interesting decade ahead, as in another article I was reading, the Boomer generation is getting to the end of their shelf life and will now start shifting around 230 billion dollars a year to the generations below them until 2050 - which is currently about 20% of the entire Australian GDP. This money was largely made when times were far better to generate wealth and then used to invest and essentially squeeze the younger generations out of the housing market almost completely. Now with this transfer starting to gain traction as time wears on, the recipients are very likely to use this money to both increase consumer spending and also invest.
I see this as a very bullish sign for cryptocurrencies that offer returns on investment and especially those that people feel add value to their lives. I don't just mean financial value, it will also be personal value where people feel the yare getting benefits of using what they are buying. This is just normal consumer behavior where we think that something is worth buying for a reason, but when what is worth buying has that reason plus it is able to provide a very real ROI, it supercharges its attraction.
As I have said many times, I am bullish on Hive and Web 3.0 in general as it will increasingly capture not only the wealth of users, but their attention and efforts, installing the digital economies into our daily lives with increasing ease. I think for many people on Hive, this is already quite apparent where much of the activity we are performing online, is Hive or crypto related already, including much of what we consume. Being able to plug into the economy here in some way is a big part of the attraction and makes Hive very sticky, with even the people who complain about it incessantly, unable to leave.
While there is definitely a knowledge gap forming, I do think more people are moving into crypto and once they do, there really is no turning back. So far, I have never met someone who gave it a go and then, left for good, even though they might not have had a great experience originally. Eventually, all come back.
But it isn't only that, what I have observed time and time again is that the people who start investing into crypto, are suddenly spending much of their time diving into crypto content of some kind, even if only a fraction of their wealth is tied up in it. There are several reasons for this including the crypto fraction likely outperforming the rest of what they invest, but one reason is that it is far more interesting on so many levels than what people are accustomed to with finance. As people onboard into the idea of the social layers applied atop the frameworks, they will find it quite addictive and ironically, one of the most educational experiences they will have in regards to their own financial wellbeing now and in the future.
We are moving rapidly into a confluence of conditions that are going to be near prime for crypto to take hold in the public narrative and become normalized through daily interaction. The investment flood might not be immediate, but as that Boomer money starts leaking into the crypto industries, there will be rises across the board on anything that is able to capture the attention and activity of consumers.
As far as I see forward, while it might be hard to predict which tokens will thrive and which will fail, the development and maturing success of he crypto industry as a whole, is inevitable. The more people fall into the traditional economy debt traps, the more certain I become.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]