DMD 003: Talking Crypto as an Investment
An interview with 25 year old crypto enthusiast Adam Clark
DO MONEY DIFFERENTLY - Issue #3
In 2017 a friend of mine named Laurie said I needed to buy some Bitcoin. Like many people back then I was like “thanks but no thanks”. She went on to say, “you’ve helped me with investing in stocks and how to manage my money so I want to return the favor to you.” So, I reluctantly bought $500 worth of Bitcoin when it was trading around 4,000. I thought it was like Vegas money and I’d never see it again.
Well, I’ve never sold and I continued to buy small increments of Bitcoin in 2017 and 2018 between 3,500 -10,000 per coin. In 2023, I started to nibble again by automatically investing a small amount weekly in my Coinbase account.
Needless to say it’s been one of my best performing investments.
After taking the time to listen to smart peeps like Michael Saylor and critically think about Bitcoin and its scarcity of only 21 million Bitcoins in circulation, I have joined the camp of people who believe it’s digital gold.
If you want to begin learning more about crypto as an investment and get familiar with some basics about blockchain technology (which enables secure transactions of cryptos like Bitcoin and tracks ownership of other assets) take a listen to my interview below.
25 year old Adam Clark joined me for a podcast style interview on all things crypto. At an early age, he dug deep to learn about blockchain and so much more including crypto projects that have real sustainable value to our world. And he even gives his top 5 cryptos he likes and why. I continue to learn from Adam and I think you will too.
Market Watch - Stocks and Crypto
Last Monday Jan. 27, 2025 the technology sector of the market got spooked for a day when China released DeepSeek - an AI competitor that is cheaper than OpenAI and may be more intuitive.
Yesterday (Feb 3, 2025) crypto had a big 12 hour sell off along with stocks due to impending tariffs that the U.S. was going to start putting on Mexico, Canada and China. But not so fast - crypto and stocks bounced back hours later after our gov’t said “we are delaying these tariffs for 30 days”. The power of words and how they can move any market.
Strong quarterly earnings results from a few of the “Magnificent 7” stocks including Microsoft, Meta and Apple.
Bitcoin trades around 100,000 as of Feb. 3, 2025 and is about 10% away from its all time high of 109,000.
Crypto enthusiasts appear to be waiting for the Trump administration to give specific updates on crypto regulation and the possibility of a Bitcoin strategic reserve - meaning our government may decide to hold Bitcoin as an asset like gold.
Remember, as we teach inside of Do Money Differently (DMD), when you automatically invest weekly or monthly into solid growth stock ETF’s and mutual funds you don’t have to worry about the ups and downs of the market. Time, based on history, will do the heavy lifting of wealth creation for you.
Crypto is volatile and I share more about that below.
My company Young Money University and Acorns have an exciting partnership that gives anyone a $40 bonus just for opening up their first Acorns investment account as long as you set up at least a $5 weekly or monthly recurring investment (which is a foundation to what I teach). I have an Acorns account and I’m a big fan.
Here’s the link to get started - $40 Acorns Bonus
MY INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO (Stocks & Crypto)
Below, I share my personal investment accounts of stocks and crypto and any sales or buys I make each week (if any) with you, and my reasons for those decisions. As I teach all of you, I also automatically invest weekly or monthly into my Roth IRA and SEP-IRA and one of my personal investment accounts.
STOCK PORTFOLIO
ROTH IRA (held with T. Rowe Price)
Science & Technology mutual fund (PRSCX)
Growth Stock ETF (TGRW)
Alibaba stock (BABA)
Money Market (cash)
SEP-IRA (held with the Acorns saving and investing app) - this my “401(k)” because I’m self-employed
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO)
iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF (IJH)
iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF (IJR)
iShares Core Total International Stock ETF (IXUS)
iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)
Personal investment accounts (Acorns, Robinhood & E*Trade)
Moderately aggressive portfolio (mix of stock and bond ETFs)
Individual stocks include: Tesla, Nvidia, Stryker, Adobe, Visa, MARA Holdings, VXX and Money Market (cash)
I sold my IONQ stock. I bought this quantum computing stock at $11.50 per share in November of 2022 and sold the stock for $38.50 per share right before the New Year.
I bought more NVDA stock on 1/27/25 after its stock fell 18% after reports of China AI rival DeepSeek sets to challenge ChatGPT. Feels like a high quality stock on sale to me and that was my reason for the buy.
I bought Palantir (PLTR) and Robinhood (HOOD) stock in my Robinhood short term trading account. I will share more about my trading account and I why I think HOOD or other stocks/crypto may be a good buy in future issues and/or special updates of DMD.
Crypto Portfolio
I sold my Uniswap (UNI) and The Graph (GRT) and bought more Ondo Finance (ONDO) because they continue to partner with major financial institutions to bring tokenization to securities and other real world assets (RWA). Tokenization appears to be coming one way or another and ONDO is helping that process happen.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Chainlink (LINK)
Ripple (XRP)
Ondo Finance (ONDO)
Internet Computer Protocol (ICP)
Immutable (IMX)
Render (RNDR)
Parsiq (PRQ)
My view of crypto as part of your overall investment portfolio to reach life goals, dreams and long term financial stability for you, your current or future family is simple.
Crypto is asymmetric investing for me which means you can risk a small amount of money ($500 - $1000) for the potential of higher outpaced gains than traditional investing in stocks. Which means, you can find new technologies that are using blockchain or tokenization and perhaps have legit long term use cases and thus value. Crypto is just this for me. Yet, you can also lose your investment too and that is why you start with little capital or money you can afford to lose. However, I believe crypto’s risk/reward sets up well.
I will be drilling down more on asymmetric investing in future issues and special updates for DMD subscribers as investing content, as a whole continues, to be the #1 interest among many of you.
Did I say I’m a fan of Bitcoin? I did and remain bullish for the long haul!
POPULAR Q&A
Question: “Investing in stocks and crypto can make me nervous at times as I don’t want to lose my money. Am I the only one who feels this way?
Answer: First off, you are not alone when you feel nervous about investing. But let’s start with investing in stocks first. What we teach throughout Young Money University and DMD is to take advantage of the historical long term performance of the U.S. stock market - which has given investors an annual rate of return of nearly 10% over a 125 year period. Over the last 50 years, it’s closer to an 11.5% return per year. This is significant as the power of compound interest (year over year growth) accelerates your investment returns and has delivered real wealth for millions of Americans for several decades now.
While there is no guarantee that history will prove out in the future, I and millions of Americans are literally banking on it. So should you.
And when you invest, as we teach, automatically per week or month you are taking part in what’s called dollar cost averaging (DCA). As the market moves up and down you will buy stocks at low prices and high prices along the way which reduces some of your risk. DCA’ing has been the recipe for success for decades to take the nerves out investing in stocks.
As for investing in crypto - this is not your foundational investment path to long term wealth. This is what I called asymmetric investing above in this issue. Crypto is a possible accelerator that is volatile and comes with much risk. So if you don’t have a desire to lose even a little bit of money than don’t invest in crypto and increase your investments in stocks and stock funds.
KEY LESSON and ACTION STEP
Investing over the long haul has been the recipe for success for millions of Americans since the turn of the 20th century. You and I, by owning stock of companies that we do business with every day (ie…Microsoft, Apple, Procter & Gamble, Netflix, Nike, etc), are participating in company ownership. You can partake in the profits of hundreds of publicly traded companies each and every year.
If you’re new to investing begin small with investing platforms like Acorns. Here’s the link to get started and a $40 Acorns Bonus. Only takes minutes to open your account and they choose the stock funds for you based on your date of birth. How cool is that with stress free investing.
Start with at least $5 per week or month and continue to add to your automatic investments over time as your income grows. If you can start investing more than do more. I walk the talk and do this too.
Stay on the look out for the next weekly issue and special updates from DMD on all things money, investing, side hustle and personal development to help you achieve a life you desire and so much more!
Keep DOING YOUR MONEY DIFFERENTLY!
Todd