More than half of millennials and nearly three-quarters of Generation Z are considering including NFTs into their investment portfolios, reveals a new survey.
The findings from a global poll carried out by deVere Group show that 52% of those born between 1980 and 1996, and 74% of those born between 1997 and 2012, would welcome the inclusion of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) into their portfolio mix.
More than 600 of the organisation’s clients under the age of 42 were surveyed across Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Latin America.
An NFT is a digital asset, such as an image, audio clip or GIF, whose ownership is recorded on a tamper-proof digital ledger known as a blockchain.
This emerging asset class took off in a considerable way last year with a digital-only piece of art selling for $69-million. Since then, an increasing number of celebrities and artists, as well as fashion, music, tech and sports brands have been creating, buying and selling NFTs.
According to deVere CEO and founder Nigel Green: “The findings of this poll underscore that digital natives – those who have grown-up immersed in a fully accessible digital life – understand that unique, highly portable and transferable digital assets have an intrinsic value and that this is a trend that will inevitably grow moving forward.
“They know that how we live, study, work, interact and enjoy downtime is increasingly digitally-orientated. As such, it’s natural to want to take digital representations of fashion brands, music, sport and art into the digital space – and now we can with NFTs.
“Clearly, this groundswell of digital engagement is creating new business models across many sectors,” he says. “Sensibly, younger generations – who instinctively better understand it – appreciate that, therefore, it’s going to shape the future of investing.
“They’re keen to have a stakeholding in this new financial ecosystem by including NFTs in their portfolios.
“We expect this could be a sound strategy. Not only because NFTs are likely to be an intrinsic component of the global digital architecture of the future, but also because this hot new asset class can act as a major diversifier in investment portfolios.”
This last point, says Green, is arguably the most important for the majority of investors.
“Proper diversification of a portfolio across asset class, sector, region, and currency is the best way an investor can best position themselves to mitigate risks and to seize opportunities when they are presented,” he says. “NFTs have a very low correlation to other assets, such as stocks and bonds, and can, therefore, lower your portfolio’s overall risk and volatility levels.”
