Weekend Reading: Is Buying Cryptocurrency Investing or Gambling? Here's How to Tell the Difference

This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.
Weekend reading cryptocurrency investing gambling thumbnail Weekend reading cryptocurrency investing gambling thumbnail
Weekend Reading

A gray area exists between gambling and investing, and quite often, that is where cryptocurrency can be found. Read the article from USA Today below.

READ THE ARTICLE

Investing vs. Gambling: The author here makes the point that with the right strategy, investing doesn’t have to feel like gambling. It all boils down to mitigating risk through asset diversification and creating a spread of various investment vehicles. With gambling, you’re more so putting all eggs in one basket, and in the case of cryptocurrency, even holding on to multiple types means you’re still in one asset class.
While investors create specific financial strategies around their goals, a gambler’s focus is simply on winning the bet, with no structural elements or constraints. The blurred line here is that any asset can be considered a gamble or an investment. Clarity comes when you decide whether or not to gamble that investment by putting a strategy behind it. Gambling might be exciting, but as the author states, “Investing, when done well, is really boring.”

Stay focused: Don’t get distracted by the guy at the golf course bragging about his latest investment. It’s most likely not changing his life, and there were inevitably some other bad investments made along the way. While it’s okay to make some high-risk investments, just take care of your foundation first. That’s what will truly change your life.