Survey: How Much Crypto Are Investors Buying In Their Retirement Accounts?

Bitcoin BTC/USD prices just hit $60,000 again for the first time in six months as investors anticipate the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will finally allow the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund to list on a major U.S. exchange next week. A new survey by FinanceBuzz suggests a growing number of Americans are adding crypto to their retirement portfolios.

Investing In Crypto: In its annual retirement investing survey, FinanceBuzz found 44% of U.S. adults have invested part of their retirement savings in crypto and 22% of Americans say cryptocurrencies account for a “big” part of their retirement funds. In addition, another 14% of retirement savers said they would like to add cryptocurrency to their retirement funds.

Despite the growing popularity of crypto as a retirement investment, 35% of respondents said they still believe cryptocurrency is too risky of an investment to include in their retirement portfolios. That same percentage of Americans said they do not see crypto as a good long-term investment.

Related Link: Has Bitcoin Improved As A Flight To Safety Investment?

Other Notable Trends: Outside of crypto, FinanceBuzz found some other notable trends in American retirement investing. Perhaps most concerning, 21% of American adults said they have not yet started saving for retirement. In addition, the percentage of Americans in their 20s that said they have begun saving for retirement was just 25%, down from around 38% just two years ago.

One of the problems Americans are having when it comes to retirement is a lack of a clear plan. In fact, 30% of survey respondents said they do not have a strong understanding of how much money they will need to save to retire at their target age.

Among respondents that are already preparing for retirement, 45.9% said they commit between 6% and 15% of their monthly income to retirement savings. Another 26.1% said they save less than 6% of their income, while 28% save more.

Finally, FinanceBuzz found that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the retirement contributions of more than half of Americans. In fact, 28.4% of respondents said they have increased their retirement savings due to the pandemic, while 24.1% said they have reduced or stopped their retirement savings due to COVID-19.

Benzinga’s Take: It remains to be seen whether or not adding cryptocurrency to a retirement portfolio is a gamble that will pay off for Americans in the long term. However, Americans in their 20s who have not yet started to save for retirement are potentially missing out on a critical decade of compounding investment returns that could make a huge difference to their net worths 30 or 40 years down the road.