I agree, only the selected few should be allowed to participate in financial schemas, that may yield very high rewards. For middle and lower class, let's leave gambling and lottery. Wealth has to come from generations. /s
In all seriousness, this is gate keeping, wrapped into "think about the kids" gift paper.
At large, US tax payers don't have access to state funded pension. Not all have access to 401k and like. Those that do, often aren't provided with great or flexible options or charged high fees. Plans are tied to controlled by employers. One of the ways to build wealth is to invest it into real estate. But it is hard, to acquire a primary residence hour US families have to compete with foreign investors, local private investors, big institutional investors with exclusive membership, like the one you mentioned, now even municipal pension funds.
Not only fewer investment options are available to them, also fewer options to hedge against economic downturn. Tax system favors the rich.
Now God forbid the mass gains access to something new, that might actually double or triple their money. Gotta keep them in check.
Crypto is a huge gamble, but, at the same time, it is one of those opportunities that can shoot up. I know people whose 401k only recently recovered from 2008 crash and it's unclear how long it will take to recover after then next one.
Although, I agree that crypto is not for everyone, but I would rather see it challenge from marketing and advertisement perspective. Make them watch very carefully every word they put in any marketing material. Introduce various cool down periods, that can be a function of your net worth. Come down hard on anyone who touts it as a sure win strategy, but let people take the risk, if they want to.
I'm just a stupid engineer; Robinhood got me into trading stocks and crypto. I did a ton of research and started being really successful. Then, I was labelled a 'day trader', and was super pissed. It made no sense to me why I could gamble all my money in the casino, but do it in the stock market and then all of a sudden big daddy needs to come protect me? Screw that. I quit Robinhood and now only trade crypto.
If they don't want to restrict themselves to accredited investors, they could alternatively adhere to SEC guidelines for selling financial instruments to the public. Clear auditing, GAAP, prospectus including a frank discussion of risks, etc. It's really not that high a bar, considering the $ involved.
You can't ask for no accountability, these rules are written in blood (or red, I guess).
> they could alternatively adhere to SEC guidelines for selling financial instruments to the public. Clear auditing, GAAP, prospectus including a frank discussion of risks, etc.
Imo it would make it worse. Most of widely available standard financial instruments are based on some sort of contractual obligations of responsible parties, assets, operations. Risk analysis has been developing for decades for these instruments, and then enter Gamestop and AMC…
What would you put in prospectus for bitcoin, ethereum, level 2 cryptos or colored bitcoin? Or something like dash or monero? How do you estimate risk and impact of the upcoming ethereum fork?
Using the same guidelines for crypto as for standard financial instruments, will
make it look like one of the known investment interests, while in fact, it is fundamentally different. I would say anyone, who tries to sell you a bitcoin under disguise of investment with some known risk properties is misleading.
You might need to be accredited to invest in a bank that operates on bitcoin, or have all your money parked on an exchange that operates in bitcoin, unless they're willing to do the paperwork. These are things that can and should be audited regularly if they're going to hold a lot of people's money.
In all seriousness, this is gate keeping, wrapped into "think about the kids" gift paper.
At large, US tax payers don't have access to state funded pension. Not all have access to 401k and like. Those that do, often aren't provided with great or flexible options or charged high fees. Plans are tied to controlled by employers. One of the ways to build wealth is to invest it into real estate. But it is hard, to acquire a primary residence hour US families have to compete with foreign investors, local private investors, big institutional investors with exclusive membership, like the one you mentioned, now even municipal pension funds. Not only fewer investment options are available to them, also fewer options to hedge against economic downturn. Tax system favors the rich.
Now God forbid the mass gains access to something new, that might actually double or triple their money. Gotta keep them in check.
Crypto is a huge gamble, but, at the same time, it is one of those opportunities that can shoot up. I know people whose 401k only recently recovered from 2008 crash and it's unclear how long it will take to recover after then next one.
Although, I agree that crypto is not for everyone, but I would rather see it challenge from marketing and advertisement perspective. Make them watch very carefully every word they put in any marketing material. Introduce various cool down periods, that can be a function of your net worth. Come down hard on anyone who touts it as a sure win strategy, but let people take the risk, if they want to.