Aussies lose $600M through ‘DIY’ crypto pension funds
More speculative calculations pretending to be facts.
Thousands of Australians have likely seen their pension funds decimated after their crypto investments shed an estimated $600 million AUD ($403 million) in value.
Spot the word "likely", which is not in the headline.
Affected are investors who decided to set up so-called DIY pension funds. These funds – also called self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) – differ from traditional pension pots in that their members are also the trustees, making them responsible for managing their savings themselves.
That is interesting, that Australians are allowed such self-management.
According to Reuters, these funds make up around a quarter of Australia’s overall pension pool and are worth around $880 billion AUD ($590 billion). As of 2021, around $1.4 billion AUD ($940 million) was made up of crypto assets but, as Reuters notes, this has likely grown.
So, crypto made up about 0.16% of all SMSFs.
Assuming an average 40% decline in bitcoin’s value since its 2021 peak would point to a near-$600 million AUD plummet in the value of SMSF crypto investments.
In the same period, the NASDAQ has lost about 20%, the Dow is down about 10%. The Australian stockmarket has had dips, but since the Bitcoin 2021 peak, it is now flat to about 5% down. So, with about 50% allocated to various managed funds and equities, a modest 10% drop would mean a likely loss of about $44 billion AUD.
See how easy it is? Compare that with the "likely" losses of $600 million AUD from crypto. FUDtastic news!
Worth reading the Reuters original article. Understand how the propaganda is written, mixing some data with personal stories - mainly stories about the foolish and gullible, in this case.
Also worth reading the Vanguard SMSF Report.
The kicker at the end of the articles above is:
"Our general position [of Australia's SMSF association] is if it's legal to invest in speculative assets, then no further restrictions should apply to SMSF investments."
Why is that attitude not used with cryptos outside of Australia?
Interesting, but few people seem to enjoy the freedom to fuck up, coz then they run to govscum for protection.
Still interesting that such freedoms exist in Oz.
They could easily be reversed if laws are passed to make crypto illegal, or requiring some middleman custodian.