Millennials will boost Bitcoin adoption for years to come: BlockFi CEO

Millennials, a generation beleaguered by student debt, low pay and a lack of savings, can rewrite their financial narratives using Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency according to a panel discussion at this year's BlockShow summit in Singapore.

That was the key takeaway from the “Millennial investment trends — new wave of personal finance” panel featuring Aya Kantorovich of FalconX, Zac Prince of BlockFi and Grayscale’s Michael Sonnenshein. The panel delved into Millennials’ impact on the future of digital assets.

During the discussion, Prince identified three major Bitcoin adoption trends that are inextricably linked to Millennials and younger investors: The ongoing wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to the young via inheritances, the growth of alternative assets and shifting preference for everything digital. 

Alternative assets under management topped $10 trillion globally in June, up more than 55% from 2013, according to data provider Preqin. Although much of that shift has occurred at the institutional level, Millennials will play an increasingly vital role in this market.

Prince said he expects crypto to “grow as a share of that alternatives bucket.”

“Crypto-invested Millennials is an insanely valuable group [...] These are people who were ahead of this trend.”

In Prince’s view, it’s only a matter of time before more financial institutions create onramps to serve these demographics.

“It’s really a question of accessibility,” Aya Kantorovich, head of institutional coverage at FalconX, added. While less bullish on current Millennial trends, Kantorovich said that her firm has seen a large influx of retail-facing aggregators and payment providers that “need good liquidity,” which is a clear indicator of growing adoption at the consumer level.

Michael Sonnenshein, Grayscale’s managing director, also identified an important shift in how people, especially younger generations, view crypto diversification.

Although many believe that diversifying into crypto is an important decision, diversification within crypto is also growing in importance, he said. Investors are starting to look beyond Bitcoin and into other assets with “staying power,” such as Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC).

Sonnenshein talked about the growth of “Ethereum first, or in some instances, Ethereum only investors,” an insight he also shared with Bloomberg last week.