{"id":27740,"date":"2022-09-08T09:56:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T13:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/?p=265363"},"modified":"2022-09-08T09:56:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T13:56:48","slug":"should-you-invest-in-crypto-if-youre-close-to-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/columns\/ask-a-crypto-expert\/should-you-invest-in-crypto-if-youre-close-to-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Should you invest in crypto if you\u2019re close to retirement?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Is crypto a safe investment for retirement savings?&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<p>This is a tricky question, Alex, because only a qualified financial advisor who has a holistic view of your financial situation can tell you whether crypto is a suitable investment. And ultimately, what you invest in should be based on your own research, and any risks you take will be yours alone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Cryptocurrencies can be extremely volatile, and their prices are affected by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/columns\/ask-a-crypto-expert\/what-affects-the-price-of-bitcoin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wide range of factors<\/a>. And typically, as investors approach retirement, they move away from riskier assets and towards safer ones, including fixed income investments such as bonds and guaranteed investment certificates (GICs).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, there are some prominent supporters for crypto in a retirement portfolio. Firstly, U.S. senator Cynthia Lummis\u2014a crypto owner herself\u2014believes that investors can use bitcoin (BTC) to <a href=\"https:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/news\/3711103-us-senator-encourages-people-to-buy-bitcoin-for-retirement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">diversify pension funds<\/a> and as a store of value. Secondly, Fidelity Investments, the largest provider of 401(k) retirement plans in the United States, has noted that it will start <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2022\/04\/26\/fidelity-bitcoin-retirement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">including BTC<\/a> in its plans. As per Dave Gray, Fidelity\u2019s head of workplace retirement offerings and platforms, crypto will pave the way for future generations \u201cin the near term and long term.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Millennials are definitely looking to crypto for financial support in their golden years. Earlier this year, <a href=\"https:\/\/money.yahoo.com\/millennials-crypto-retirement-153231709.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Yahoo Finance surveyed<\/a> 4,000 investors and found that 28% of millennials expect crypto to help fund their retirement (and 38% already own some).<\/p>\n<h2>Is crypto right for your risk tolerance?<\/h2>\n<p>The answer comes down to your time horizon. Are you willing to hold cryptos for a long time period instead of panic selling when the price drops? It\u2019s one thing for millennials to invest in crypto\u2014they have the luxury of time\u2014and another thing for people who are nearing retirement or already retired. The longer your time horizon, the more safely you can build a portfolio with aggressive assets.<\/p>\n<p>Cryptocurrencies can be a powerful asset for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/glossary\/what-is-diversification\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">diversification<\/a>. Crypto is mostly uncorrelated to the general markets. As such, it can act as a hedge against general market <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/glossary\/what-is-inflation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">inflation<\/a>, which we saw during the pandemic when crypto handily outperformed every other asset class significantly. Note that I said <em>mostly <\/em>uncorrelated\u2014currently, the correlation between crypto and stock indexes, such as the NASDAQ 100, is pretty high. Again, this uncertainty may be too much if you\u2019re looking to build stable retirement savings and begin withdrawing funds soon.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, which coins should you consider when building a crypto-inclusive retirement portfolio? Obviously, you want something that grows in valuation, so stablecoins like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/save\/investing\/crypto\/how-to-buy-usdc-in-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">USD coin<\/a> (USDC) and Dai (DAI), whose values are tethered to the U.S. dollar, are out of the question. I think it could be better to go with \u201cblue chips\u201d like bitcoin and ethereum\u2014but even then, limit them to a very small portion of your portfolio. But again, you should research crypto for yourself, and invest only if you\u2019re confident that it\u2019s a good decision for you.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo of crypto expert Jeremy Koven\" width=\"224\" height=\"224\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" class=\"wp-image-266164 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/CoinSmart-Jeremy-Koven-768x768.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/CoinSmart-Jeremy-Koven-768x768.jpeg\" alt=\"Photo of crypto expert Jeremy Koven\" class=\"wp-image-266164\" width=\"224\" height=\"224\"><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><em><em>Jeremy Koven is the Chief Operating Officer and a co-founder of CoinSmart, a Canadian cryptocurrency trading platform.<\/em>&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/imp.i246982.net\/c\/2740856\/794942\/11346?trafsrc=Impact&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coinsmart.com%2Fmoneysense-money30%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow\">Sign up for an account<\/a>* with the code&nbsp;<strong>money30<\/strong>&nbsp;and receive CAD$30&nbsp;in bitcoin when you deposit a minimum of CAD$100.&nbsp;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Read more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/save\/investing\/crypto\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">crypto<\/a>:<\/h3>\n<div class=\"affiliated-links-notice\">\n<div>\n<h4>What does the * mean?<\/h4>\n<p> If a link has an asterisk (*) at the end of it, that means it&#8217;s an affiliate link and can sometimes result in a payment to MoneySense (owned by Ratehub Inc.) which helps our website stay free to our users. It&#8217;s important to note that our editorial content will never be impacted by these links. We are committed to looking at all available products in the market, and where a product ranks in our article or whether or not it&#8217;s included in the first place is never driven by compensation. For more details read our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/moneysense-monetization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MoneySense Monetization policy<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> <!-- share post section --> <!-- Before including this template, set the following vars: $title_for_share\n$current_url\n--> <!-- comments --> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/columns\/ask-a-crypto-expert\/should-you-invest-in-crypto-if-youre-close-to-retirement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is crypto a safe investment for retirement savings?&nbsp; This is a tricky question, Alex, because only a qualified financial advisor who has a holistic view of your financial situation can tell you whether crypto&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,10,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}