Australians are picking up cryptocurrencies quickly and betting on them for retirement as figures from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) show the percentage of self-managed super funds with crypto has doubled between 2019 and 2020.
The statistical overview released by the ATO reveals 0.6% have a self managed super fund with crypto as of 30th June 2020, doubling the 0.34% from 30th June the year prior.
There are some die hard crypto holders out there with around 1,800 SMSF owners having 80% or more of their retirement money invested in crypto, around 600 of those are all in, allocating 100% of their super fund to digital currencies.
The most popular option cited, was 50% or less of the total fund allocation toward cryptocurrencies, of all 598,000 SMSFs, almost 3,600 in total have some sort of exposure to cryptocurrencies.
People are investing big too, the mean investment size for a SMSF into crypto is $67,726, roughly 1.4 Bitcoin or 19.3 Ethereum, a decent chunk when considering the average amount in an SMSF is around $1.3 million.
Whilst the adoption is growing it’s still a little off from being the most popular held asset, SMSF’s collectively hold $822 billion, 25% of the $3.3 trillion dollars in assets all super firms have under management. In total, crypto in self-managed funds makes up just $218 million of that figure, and the most popular investment being cash term deposits.
Young people are investing their SMSF into crypto at a high rate, with reports that Generation Z, those born around 1997 onwards, are more likely than Millennials to hold crypto.
A survey of 1,000 Australian’s under 35 asking about super funds found 47% had a SMSF, with 64% of “Gen Z” respondents holding crypto, compared to 43% of Millennials, the most popular asset to hold was stocks at 72% for Gen Z and 60% for Millennials.
Of those surveyed, 3/4 said they could manage to get a better average return overseeing their own super when compared to a traditional super fund.
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Of those who didn’t have a self-managed super fund, the biggest barrier for setting one up was the perception that it was difficult, they didn’t know where to begin, or they just preferred someone else to worry about investing their money.
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