My Daughters and Their Crypto

It’s hard to imagine how proud I am to be able to be able to tell this story.

Just before the pandemic my eldest daughter, then 13, had $300.  We convinced her to get a bank account and there she deposited it.  My youngest had $200 at the time and she put hers in her own bank account.  There it sat for a few months earning a penny in interest each month.  They got the bank statements in the mail and never even opened them after the first month.

About mid year 2020 was when I started to enter into some of my long term positions. They kept asking me about what I was doing.  I explained how I was purchasing digital assets, holding them, and selling them later for more than I purchased them for.  They said they understood and asked really intelligent questions.

I have to say that I have had these same exact conversations with folks of all ages and from all walks of life throughout the past 4 years and up to that point I hadn’t ever had such an easy time explaining things.  My children are bright no doubt, but more than that, their interaction with life is tangential to the crypto experience.

They see the world through a digital lens, not knowing what physical is.  They have iDevices; listen to any song without a physical CD, watch any movie without a physical DVD, watch any TV show anytime without even understanding there is a channel that originally plays some of that content.  They live through their devices, connecting with friends, clicking on things, navigating with ease.

Growing up with me they learned a few things about security and maintenance to keep devices performing at their best, so they were familiar with the concept of the cloud, and most importantly the reach of their devices into the other devices and the cloud.  They watched me on my phone, tablet, and laptop doing, seeing, and pushing buttons that looked so similar, so to them it’s merely an extension of their digital being to be in crypto and they don’t even know it.

When I first introduced my eldest to the iPhone was when it first came out.  I had one of the first versions and needed a new one.  I redid my older one with some cool games and apps for my then 5 year old and a remarkable thing happened.  I remember one day just randomly giving her the iphone.  I purposely didn’t give her any direction to see what she would say / do.  Within 3 minutes she had poked into nearly every app (that I didn’t hide), scrolled through each screen and understood how to get in and out of anything she knew was on that iPhone.  It was amazing to watch as it was just like picking up chopsticks for the first time and wielding them like a seasoned food critic specializing in Asian cuisine.

As I compare the generations of crypto learners I have met I am able to say that (in general) the younger one was, the less explaining I needed to do.

One day I was explaining something to both of my kids and they just stopped me in the middle and begged me to put their bank money into crypto.  To me it was a surprise but in hindsight I understand why they had a very short distance to go from knowing nothing to knowing enough about the crypto world.  Since they didn’t live through the experiences that older people did, they didn’t have any of the fiat bagage everyone else carries.  They were free to make new associations and learn by themselves with a fresh brain.

I told them it WILL go down, probably far – but eventually go up.  I informed them that less than 2% of the world had invested in crypto at that time and of that investment (at the time) only a small fraction of it was put into non-bitcoin.  Their first response to me was that they didn’t want to buy any Bitcoin, only the ones that were smaller because they natively recognized that the growth potential in the smaller coins was far greater than in bitcoin.  I couldn’t have been more proud.

To my surprise and adulation they NEVER got hung up where most people get hung up.  They didn’t care what the value of anything was as they held it, only what it was worth when they bought and when they sold.

I didn’t see anything wrong with involving my children in the future economic sandstorm, so I helped them both get set up on Exodus.  As an interface it is super easy to use and the quantity of separate chain wallets it can protect is staggering.  She could hold (and swap) pretty much anything at the time and over the years that variety has only grown.

They both bought $300 and $200 in crypto assets and I gave them both $200 in assets from my stack at market prices and they were off.  I explained to them how there were network fees for some transactions and they needed to watch the cost.  This was back when ETH transactions were being settled for a few dollars and I warned them they needed to keep ETH in their wallet and make sure they don’t blow away their gains with the network fees on both sides of the trades.

I explained to them about stable coins and encouraged them to use USDC (as the backing assets are better in my opinion than USDT – which was the only other stable coin on exodus at the time.  Though in hindsight I should have encouraged them to use DAI… 

Their total investment was $500 and $400 and on this day my eldest has about $1200 and my youngest has just under $900 in their Exodus wallets respectively.

It was interesting to notice the difference between the two.  My youngest understood it and just left things untouched – though she’d check every once-in-a-while and be happy about progress.  Out of sight, out of mind…  She still goes by this approach – leave it alone for the future, a born HODLer like her Dad!

My oldest initially checked in frequently and she actually traded – amazingly enough she figured out if she sells when “things are high” and buys when “things are low” the dollar value goes up over time quicker.  She was getting into and out from large cap assets as easily as facetime with her friends.  On the same devices, with a very similar interface.

Being the “good Dad” I left the money in the bank accounts for comparison…  My eldest is saving up for a car and might actually be able to buy one with her crypto and a bit of finger poking.

This presents a unique macro-economic situation as I’m absolutely certain this isn’t an isolated incident.  I think many more younger folks have gotten into crypto and are probably doing well as their adaptations didn’t need to bend as far to accommodate the new ways of thinking.

Money isn’t USD, Money is a concept that sometimes is USD, but really is only USD when you need it to be.  Having access via an easy app to move around assets accordingly and as USD is needed for living expenses, selling and utilizing those proceeds is easy for those who are digitally inclined in the first place.

I believe there are large swaths of people getting involved in crypto and as these newer people are coming into the labor force might not need to “work” to “make a living.”  Think about it – if all you had to do was poke your phone a little bit over time and make enough money to live, why work for peanuts?

What’s going to happen in this world when the next generation graduates high school richer than their parents?  Will we then move in with them when we can’t afford paying our USD denominated debts down?

What I’m looking forward to the most is if/when crypto makes it’s massive move up, will our children be able to pay for college with their gains?

They certainly want to invest more rather than take out what is in there – even as the market slides down, way down – because as they properly tell me, it’s still not at the level where they bought in.