Written In Partnership with Digital Nod
Every generation has different financial goals. They also have slightly different investment philosophies. While Baby Boomers tended to take risks and invest in stocks, Gen Xers were more likely to seek the help of financial advisors to attain their financial objectives. Then came the millennials with a focus on environmentally and socially-conscious investing. Recently, the Gen Zers have stepped up the game with a focus on digitally-savvy investments.
For the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Blue Castles Ventures, David Rojas, understanding the difference between the ways different generations invest has been crucial to business success. And even though Gen Zers may not yet have the investment power of, say, Gen Xers, they shouldn’t be passed over by financial institutions since they are the future trendsetters.
And Rojas certainly knows what he’s talking about. The Harvard Business School in Alternative Investments graduates produced $1.3 million in revenue in 2021 alone. Today, he offers innovative, sustainable, and safe alternative investment vehicles for different generation groups wishing to safeguard their futures.
The Power of Technology
The way we invest has changed over time. While the Baby Boomers had a great run when it came to investing in stocks, today, we have countless other ways we can access investment opportunities. And this is largely thanks to technological advances and regulatory changes. While in the past investing was considered to be complicated and best left to the professionals, today, anybody with a bank account can put their hard-earned assets to work.
With cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, taking the world by storm, today’s global investment landscape relies on connectivity and the internet. And while accessing the market has never been easier, Rojas says that we have been overloaded with information and noise. As such, making the right investment decisions has become more challenging than ever.
Don’t Fall for the Scams
The cryptocurrency crash earlier this year wiped out a great deal of wealth, leaving many home investors scrambling. “People were trying to make a buck by investing on online exchanges such as Robin Hood. And they thought that crypto would just keep going up. But the market only has a certain amount of traders and money so it can’t go up forever,” Rojas says. “If there is no education behind the investments, even making a great deal of money can end badly. This is why 80 percent of people who win the lottery end up being poor again. They don’t know what to do with their money.”
Rojas says that investments that seem too good to be true generally are. This is why you should only be investing in companies that have physical backing and traceability. “Blue Castle Ventures is very mindful of this. We offer layers of consumer protection, with Royal Bank of Canada, Interactive Brokers, and PayPal in the background,” Rojas says. “Your investments always should have a receipt, contract, or any piece of information that can be used as proof that you handed over your money.”
Why Trading Air is Risky
For Rojas, technology and traceability are not mutually exclusive. As such, he is adamant that even the new generation of investors should only finance ventures that offer tangible backing. “Investing in NFTs or other digital assets can be risky,” he says. “This is partly because when a digital asset, such as a picture, doesn’t have any real collateral behind it, it can’t be realistically valued.”
Investing in intangible assets is also risky since there are no regulations that can guarantee that a certain website or blockchain suddenly doesn’t go offline, never to be seen again. “Recently, we have even discovered that many of the NFTs being advertised are from bogus accounts, bots, and algos,” Rojas says, adding that bots can also be used to create fake offers to inflate the value of NFTs.
Physical Backing Matters
As a trading marketplace, Blue Castle Venture circumvents this problem by using an asset-backed stablecoin $BCVD to trade digital goods backed by quantifiable collateral. “We have developed our own blockchain to register real-life goods such as paintings and sculptures, and we are looking forward to using the same system to purchase and sell other goods such as music and real estate,” Rojas says. In addition, Blue Castle Venture offers crypto certificates as proof of ownership of the quantifiable assets on the blockchain.
While the Blue Castle NFT platform already has a vast client base, interest in the decentralized marketplace is growing by the minute. And it’s not just because the platform offers collateral backing and advanced security features. It’s also because it awards clients a percentage of each transaction they make in $BCVD tokens that can be used later to purchase other products.
Making Your Money Work for You
No matter your generational designation, the days of sending your money into the abyss and wishing for the best should be a thing of the past. As such, Rojas says that research is paramount when it comes to investing your hard-earned cash. “If an investment takes your sleep away, don’t do it,” he says. “It also pays to have clear goals in mind. I always tell my clients, ‘Investing is like a road. If you don’t know your destination, you will get nowhere.’”
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