Bitcoin and crypto continue to grow in popularity
TurboTax, Mastercard, Schwab, and Wells Fargo join the club
Ric Edelman: We're going to start off with tax season. Are you expecting a refund? Well, check this out. TurboTax is now offering tax refunds in Bitcoin and Ethereum. And you thought that crypto wasn't mainstream. How about a Bitcoin-backed Visa card? Consumers charged two and a half billion dollars to visa cards that give Bitcoin back instead of cash just in the first three months of the year. That's twice as much as last year, suggesting an exponential increase in usage. Mastercard isn't being left behind. They're now offering consulting services to big business for digital assets.
So is crypto here to stay? Well, Walt Bettinger thinks so. Who's he? He's the CEO of Schwab. And Walt says that crypto is fairly significant and "hard to ignore". Schwab already offers lots of ways for investors to invest in crypto. If you'd like to learn more about that, all you got to do is contact your local Schwab office or go to Schwab.com. It’s easy for you to incorporate crypto in your portfolio with Schwab. And that's not all. Wells Fargo just issued a report saying it's not too late to buy crypto. Their report says, "We believe that digital assets are viable investments today, even though they remain in the early stages of their investment evolution". The report says crypto is still a relatively young investment space, which represents a different kind of investment. You know, it's not terribly common that Wells Fargo and I are in agreement, but they're right on the money on this one.
You know, I find the whole conversation rather fascinating about crypto because it has such a divisive camp, people who love it and people who hate it. And to me, I don't know why it has to be such a divisive conversation. I'm not arguing whether we should be investing half of our life savings into Bitcoin. It's not a question of jump all in full throttle versus absolutely nothing, stay away. My normal recommendation for folks who are just getting started with this conversation, 1%. That's it. You want to go whole hog? Knock yourself out. 2%, maybe 3%. By the way, I'm not the only one who says that. Pretty much every study I've ever seen anywhere reaches the same conclusion. Yale did a study in 2018, and that's what they said. Even if you think Bitcoin will radically outperform the rest of your portfolio, like by 200% per year, they said all you need is a 6% allocation. But they basically suggested a 1% or 2% or 3% allocation is plenty. I'm in full agreement. So rather than saying absolutely not ever at all, why don't you just consider a baby step of 1% and talk with your financial advisor about how to implement that? And if you want to get the education you need to get started, order my new book, The Truth About Crypto, comes out in May. You can order it right now from Amazon, Barnes Noble or your favorite bookseller.