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What’s The Best Crypto to Buy Now? (Hint: There’s Not One)

What’s The Best Crypto to Buy Now? (Hint: There’s Not One) Here are three reasons why you shouldn't try to find the “best” cryptocurrency to buy now. (And what you can do instead.) If you decide to go on a Google search hunt for the best cryptocurrency to buy this year, you may find yourself down a rabbit hole in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable part of the internet. (Don’t worry, we’ve all been there at some point.) And if you don’t end up there, you may find yourself on one of the many generic investing websites, all offering you similar “top cryptocurrencies to buy in 2022” lists. You’ll find the usual suspects here, mostly based on market capitalization or even personal preference of the writer. It’s common for these lists to include Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Cardano, Binance Coin, Polkadot, and Avalanche. All fair examples but no need to do a Google search at this point. Instead of attempting to discover the next best cryptocurrency or token, we favor a different mental model. Ask yourself this question: What’s the best area of crypto to invest in, not now, but over the next three years? (Or whatever time horizon you are investing within.) You’ll see that trying to find the needle in the haystack—and it’s an incredibly large haystack—is probably not the best route to take. Rather, we recommend a more long-term, wide-reaching approach to selecting your investments. Three Reasons Not to Find the "Best" Crypto To sum it up, here are three reasons why you shouldn't try to find the “best” cryptocurrency to buy now. (And what you can do instead.) 1. You’re probably not a professional crypto investor. (And that’s perfectly OK.) If you are like nearly everyone, you’re not a professional crypto investor. Absolutely fine. Similar to any other asset class, non-professional crypto investors are at a disadvantage when it comes to technical resources, market data, and general industry knowledge. For example, at Makara, we have people whose job it is to research individual crypto assets and analyze the pros and cons of including them on our platform. So instead of pretending to be a crypto day trader in search of a new token that’ll take you to the moon, we recommend staying on planet earth. One way to do this is to learn about broad sectors in crypto and decide for yourself which areas you think may have the most growth potential. Among other things, we’re talking about the metaverse, decentralized finance, and Web 3.0. You could take it a step further and read up on NFTs but you may just be tempted to right-click-save on a picture of an ape that for some strange reason you can’t stop staring at—avoid the temptation, for now. Read up on crypto sectors, and if you’re feeling up to it, try explaining them to your friends or family to see if you grasp the important notes. This approach will give you a wider understanding of the crypto industry and pairs well with our next two recommendations. 2. You don’t have enough time. (Join the club!) Making wise investment decisions takes time. One of the best investors to ever live, Warren Buffet, reads 80% of his day. We’re going to guess you can’t spend 80% of your day reading about crypto. So how do you make up for this? As we said, educate yourself about crypto industry sectors instead of searching for individual assets. But don’t stop once you can explain what the metaverse is and why it could change the future. Yes, you are short on time, but if you have done the work to understand sectors in crypto and are interested in investing, you have two very important questions to ask yourself: How much do I want to allocate into crypto? And what is my time horizon? These are very personal questions. And with the little time you do have, ones worth thinking about. Knowing the amount you are comfortable investing and when you need to withdraw the funds will help you better understand the risks and make a decision that lets you sleep at night. We like sleep. 3. You’re increasing your risk. (Not a good thing.) Investing in one cryptocurrency is not quite comparable to putting all of your eggs in one basket. It’s more like having one egg. One cryptocurrency, like one egg, can be fragile, or in financial language, volatile and prone to losses. It lacks any diversification within the crypto asset class. Diversification is a complex subject, but generally speaking, the goal of diversification is to invest in uncorrelated assets to reduce the risk of losses in a portfolio while enhancing its expected return. Moral of the story: we recommend diversification. Consider how your crypto investments fit into your larger diversified portfolio of uncorrelated assets. Within crypto, you can consider spreading your investments across multiple assets and even multiple sectors within crypto. One way of thinking about it is since predicting the future is near impossible, diversification sets you up for various outcomes. We built crypto baskets at Makara to give you the choice to invest across the crypto asset class in the metaverse, Web 3.0, or decentralized finance. We even have a basket encompassing all assets on the platform called the Universe Basket. Your To-Do List for Finding the Best Crypto Assets Step 1: Read up on broad crypto sectors. Step 2: Know how much you want to invest and for how long. Step 3: Select diversified investments. Rinse and repeat.

What Are The Most Common Asset Classes For Investors?

What Are The Most Common Asset Classes For Investors? Every type of asset gains or loses value differently, so it helps to know what those types are and how they work. In 1 minute Asset classes are investments that share the same risk factors, influences, and regulations. The most common asset classes are stocks, bonds, and cash. Stocks: Stocks are shares of a company, and they gain or lose value based on the company’s performance and potential. Bonds: Bonds are like loans—usually loans to a company or government—which accrue interest over time. Cash: Think bank accounts. Cash investments are usually short-term loans with low risk and low returns. They’re also federally insured. Betterment helps you automatically select the mix of assets that can help you meet your goals, and bundles them into funds. Tell us about your financial goals, and we’ll show you a roadmap for how to reach them. Got more time? Keep learning about asset classes below. In 5 minutes In this guide, we’ll: Explain what an asset class is Explore the most common asset classes Look at mutual funds and ETFs What is an asset class? An asset class is a name for a group of assets that share common qualities and behave similarly in the market. They’re governed by the same rules and regulations, and gain or lose value based on the same factors and circumstances. Different asset classes have relatively little in common, and tend to have fluctuations in value that are imperfectly correlated. There are eight main asset classes: Equities (stocks) Fixed income (bonds) Cash Real Estate Commodities Cryptocurrencies Alternative investments Financial Derivatives Within these groups, there are several assets people commonly invest in. The most common types of assets for investors. The three financial assets you may hear about the most are stocks, bonds, and cash. A strong investment portfolio likely often includes a balance of these assets, or combines them with others. Let’s take a closer look at each of these. Stocks A stock is a type of equity. It’s basically a tiny piece of a company. When you invest in stocks, you become a partial “owner” of the companies that issued those stocks. You don’t own the building, and you can’t go bossing around the employees, but you’re a shareholder. Your stock’s value is directly tied to the company’s profits, assets, and liabilities. And that means you have a stake in the company’s success or failure. Stocks are volatile assets—their value changes often—but over time they tend to perform better than other assets (such as bonds and cash). Choosing stocks from a wide range of companies in different industries is one of the smartest ways to diversify your portfolio. Bonds A bond represents a share of a loan. Its value comes from the interest on the loan. Bonds are typically more stable than stocks. Lower risk, lower reward. Bonds belong to the “fixed income” asset class, and tend to depend on different risk variables than stocks. If a company has a bad quarter, that’s probably not going to affect the value of your bond. Unless they have a really bad quarter, and default on their loan. When stock markets have a bad month, investors tend to flock to safer asset classes and bonds therefore will likely outperform. Other than that, the main things to consider with bonds are interest rates and inflation. When interest rates increase or decrease, it directly affects how much interest you accrue. And since bonds generate lower returns than stocks, they leave you more vulnerable to inflation, too. Cash With cash investments, you’re basically loaning cash (often to a bank) in exchange for interest. This is usually a short-term investment, but some cash investments like certificates of deposit (CDs) can last for a few years. These investments are pretty low-risk because you can be confident they will generate a return, and they’re actually insured by the FDIC. Cash investments offer higher liquidity meaning you can more quickly sell these assets when you need the money. As such, the return you get is typically lower than what you’d achieve with other asset classes. Investors therefore tend to park the money they need to spend in the near-term in cash investments. Other common assets Those are the big three. But investors also invest in real estate, commodities, alternative asset classes, financial derivatives, and cryptocurrencies. Each of these asset classes come with their own set of risk factors and potential advantages. What about investment funds? An investment fund is a basket of assets that can include stocks, bonds, and other investments. The most common kinds of funds you can invest in are mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Mutual funds and ETFs are similar, but there’s a reason ETFs are gaining popularity: they’re usually cheaper. ETFs tend to be less expensive to manage and therefore typically have lower expense ratios. Additionally, mutual funds charge a fee to cover their marketing expenses. ETFs don’t. Mutual funds are also more likely to be actively managed, so they can have more administrative costs. Most ETFs are funds that simply track the performance of a specific benchmark index (e.g., the S&P 500), so there’s less overhead to manage ETFs. ETFs have another advantage: you can buy and sell them on the stock exchange, just like stocks. You can only sell a mutual fund once per day, at the end of the day. That’s not always the best time. Being able to sell at other times opens the door to other investment strategies, like tax-loss harvesting. Want to learn more about investment strategies? Check out the ones we use at Betterment. [Button] Go How to choose the right assets When you start investing, it’s hard to know what assets belong in your investment portfolio. And it’s easy to make costly mistakes. But if you start with a goal, choosing the right assets is actually pretty easy. Say you want $100,000 to make a down payment on a house in 10 years. You have a target amount and a deadline. Now all you have to do is decide how much risk you’re willing to take on and choose assets that fit that risk level. For most investors, it’s simply a matter of balancing the ratio of stocks and bonds in your portfolio.

How Much Could You Be Losing To Fees?

How Much Could You Be Losing To Fees? Unexpected or hidden fees can damage your long-term investment returns. Sync your outside accounts with Betterment now and see how much you’re being charged by other investment providers. When you invest in valuable items, it’s easy to overlook the hidden fees. Buying a house certainly requires property tax and insurance payments, but you may quickly discover hidden fees in your investment—such as home repair and maintenance costs—of which you were never aware nor did you expect. Purchasing a car results in a similar scenario, in that taxes and insurance are rarely the only expenses. Repair, cleaning, maintenance, and miscellaneous fees can catch you off guard. You’ll soon realize that it’s more expensive than you ever thought to manage these assets. The same is true with investment accounts. At Betterment, we think all investment accounts should be clearly and transparently priced, without any hidden fees. Now, we can help you discover if you’re paying high advisory or hidden fund fees across all of your investments. Here’s a deeper dive into the types of fees you may encounter in your investments with outside fund providers. Understanding Fund Fees Expense Ratios When investing in any mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF), the investor pays fees that cover the management, administration, and operations of the fund. These fees are summarized in the expense ratio. This fee may also include marketing costs which go to the salesperson, known as 12b-1 fees. The expense ratio is visible in the fund’s prospectus, but in general people rarely read that long document. It often goes unnoticed because the fee is not explicitly charged from the balance, but is instead built into the fund’s daily pricing. Contrary to general assumptions, paying higher expense ratios does not guarantee higher returns in an investment portfolio. Since paying higher fees does not necessarily equal high returns, choosing funds with a lower expense ratio is a simple yet generally sound investment strategy. Advisory Fees If you hire an advisor to choose and manage your investments, including one such as Betterment, you’ll most likely pay for the service received. This is known as an “advisory fee.” If you pay advisory fees with an outside investment provider, you can include the fees after you sync your outside accounts with Betterment. We then summarize how much you are paying in fees per year, and also take that number into account when providing retirement advice. Some advisors do not charge fees in an overly transparent manner but earn revenues in other ways. This can include the 12b-1 fees mentioned above, which are built into the expense ratio of the fund, or through load charges, explained below. Lesser-Known Fees Aside from expense ratios and advisory fees, some investment funds have even less transparent costs. One reason Betterment chooses ETFs for our portfolios is because they do not contain the fees mentioned below1, and they are often tax-efficient. On the other hand, mutual funds can have additional fees and revenue-sharing relationships, due to the level of trading and activity involved with the fund’s management. When investing in mutual funds, they typically have the following costs which are borne of the investor, but not included in the expense ratio. These include: Sales load fee: A sales charge imposed by “Class A” or “Class B” mutual funds when you purchase shares. “Class C” shares can have a load fee when you withdraw your money from the fund. These loads are commissions that pay the professional adviser or broker who sold you the fund. Trading fee: Trading fees when you buy or sell stocks in a brokerage account, or when the manager of a mutual fund pays to make trades within the fund. These expenses are taken out of the daily pricing of the fund, but not included in the expense ratio. These fees are hard to estimate, but in general a fund that has a high turnover, like an actively managed fund, will have higher trading fees. Redemption fee: Also referred to as a “market-timing fee,” or “short-term trading fee,” mutual funds charge this fee to discourage investors from making short-term “round trip” transactions (i.e., a purchase, typically a transfer, followed by a sale within a short period of time). 4 Steps to Minimize Investment Fees As a smart investor, there are four steps you can take to help minimize your investment fees. Know where you stand. Look up the expense ratios for all of your investments, or simply sync your outside accounts with Betterment to see a summary of the total advisory and fund expenses you are currently paying. Choose low cost funds. Typically, index ETFs are cheaper than mutual fund equivalents. They generally have no loads or marketing expenses. They also have lower turnover, which means lower internal trading costs and low taxes. Avoid trading costs. If you envision lots of trading activity across your investments, try choosing a platform that has no trading costs. Trading costs can be a constant drag on returns, especially when you use smart strategies like rebalancing and tax loss harvesting. Betterment includes both smart rebalancing and Tax Loss Harvesting+ (TLH+) benefits at no additional cost for customers. Select a low cost advisor. If you have investments with other providers, inquire regarding what fees outside of expense ratios are being charged. You can then enter these additional fees to appear on your synced non-Betterment accounts. Betterment is the largest independent online financial advisor, and we also deliver enhanced value with transparent pricing and lower fees than traditional financial services. When you sync your accounts, not only can you see all of your wealth in one place—we’ll also help you discover which outside investments are charging you high fees so that you can take action accordingly. Get started with opening a Betterment account today. For existing Betterment customers, get started syncing your accounts now. 1Some brokerages charge trading fees for ETFs. Trading fees are included in Betterment’s flat advisory fee.

How Much Crypto Should I Own?

How Much Crypto Should I Own? What’s the right amount to keep in a portfolio? If investors want to dip their toes into crypto, we recommend aiming for this allocation. Many of us have followed the dramatic rises and precipitous falls of bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, over the past few years. Some may have written them off entirely after 80% declines in 2018, only to see them roar back into investors’ collective consciousness in 2020. Certainly sentiment has shifted over a short two years—more institutional investors are taking a hard look at crypto and previous naysayers have softened their view. This all leads to one question: How much cryptocurrency should I own? Math to the rescue. It goes without saying that this is a hard question to answer. But, we can borrow a page from modern quantitative finance to help us arrive at a potential answer. For years, Wall Street “quants” have used a mathematical framework to manage their portfolios called the Black-Litterman model. Yes, the “Black” here is the same one from the famous Black-Scholes options pricing formula, Fischer Black. And “Litterman” is Robert Litterman, a long-time Goldman Sachs quant. Without getting into too much detail, the model starts with a neutral, “equilibrium” portfolio and provides a mathematical formula for increasing your holdings based on your view of the world. What’s amazing is that it incorporates not just your estimate about how an investment might grow, but also your confidence in that estimate, and translates those inputs into a specific portfolio allocation. Your starting point: 0.50% The Black-Litterman model uses the global market portfolio—all the asset holdings in the world—as its starting point for building a portfolio. This means that, if you don’t have any other views on what investments might perform better or worse, this is the portfolio you should consider holding. In early 2021, the global market for stocks totaled $95 trillion and the global bonds market reached $105 trillion. The cryptocurrency market as a whole was valued at roughly $1 trillion. This means that cryptocurrency represents 0.50% of the global market portfolio. The Global Market Portfolio In Early 2021 Source: Betterment sourced the above cryptocurrency data and stock and bond data from third parties to produce this visualization. Just as there are plenty of arguments to hold more cryptocurrency, there are also many arguments to hold less. However, from the model’s standpoint, 0.50% should be your starting allocation. Now, add your views. This is where the mathematical magic comes into play. For any given growth rate in cryptocurrency (or any investment for that matter), the Black-Litterman model will return the amount you should hold in your portfolio. What’s more, you can specify your level of conviction in that assumed growth rate and the model will adjust accordingly. In the below chart are the portfolio allocations to bitcoin derived from the Black-Litterman model. This chart can serve as a useful, hypothetical guideline when thinking about how much cryptocurrency you might want to hold. How to use it: Select how much you think bitcoin will overperform stocks, from +5% to +40%. Each return expectation corresponds to a line on the chart. For example, if you think that bitcoin will outperform stocks by 20%, this corresponds to the purple line. Now, follow the line left or right based on how confident you are. If you’re at least 75% confident (a solid “probably”), the purple line lines up with a 4% allocation to bitcoin. Graph represents a hypothetical rendering of confidence of return value based on inputs to the Black-Litterman model. Image does not represent actual performance, either past or present. One of the most interesting things to note is how high your return estimate needs to be and how confident you need to be in order to take a sizable position in bitcoin. For example, for the model to tell you to hold a 10% allocation you need to be highly confident that bitcoin will outperform stocks by 40% each year. Also of note, it does not take much to drive the model’s allocation to 0% allocation, ie: no crypto holdings. If you don’t think that there’s a 50/50 chance that bitcoin will at least slightly outperform, the model says to avoid it entirely. How we got here. The inputs to the Black-Litterman model tell an interesting story in and of themselves. The main inputs into the model are global market caps, which we discussed earlier, asset volatility, and the correlation between assets. It goes without saying that cryptocurrencies are risky. Over the last five years, bitcoin’s volatility was six times that of stocks and 30 times that of bonds. At its worst, the digital coin saw an 80% drop in value, while stocks were down 20%. Other cryptocurrencies fared even worse. Source: Betterment sourced the above ACWI data and Cryptocurrency data from third party sources to create the above visualization. Visualization is meant for informational purposes only and is not reflective of any Betterment portfolio performance. Past performance is not indicative of future results. If an asset is volatile, and one is not able to diversify that volatility away, then investors will require a higher rate of return on that investment, otherwise they will choose not to invest. The fact that bitcoin is so volatile, but has such a small number of investors (relative to stocks or bonds) suggests that many investors still do not see the potential returns worth the risks. On the other hand, cryptocurrencies are at their core a new technology, and new technologies always have an adoption curve. The story here may be less about expected return versus risk and more about early adoption versus mass appeal. The final ingredient in the model is bitcoin’s correlation with stocks and bonds. Bitcoin has some correlation with both stocks and bonds, meaning that when stocks go up (or down), bitcoin may do so as well. The lower the correlation, the greater the diversification an asset provides to your portfolio. Bonds have a low correlation with stocks, which makes them a good ballast against turbulent markets. Bitcoin’s correlation is higher, meaning that it can provide some diversification benefit to a portfolio, but not to the same degree as bonds. Cryptocurrencies can be a component of your financial plan—but it shouldn’t be the only thing. While it can’t tell you if bitcoin will be the next digital gold, this mathematical model can help you think about what kind of allocation to crypto might be appropriate for you and what assumptions about risk and return might be underlying it. Even though Betterment currently doesn’t include cryptocurrency in our recommended investment portfolios, you can learn more about how to invest appropriately in it using our cryptocurrency guide. Since crypto should only comprise a small percentage of your overall portfolio, you should still have a diversified portfolio and long-term investment plan that will help you meet your financial goals. Betterment can help you plan for the short and long term, recommending the appropriate investment accounts that align with your financial goals and allowing you to select your preferred risk-levels. You can also align your investments with your values by using one of our three socially responsible investing portfolios.

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