A popular Australian investment app, Raiz Invest, has announced the launch of a portfolio with a 5% allocation to bitcoin, increasing demand for the cryptocurrency.
According to a blog post the firm published, its new Sapphire portfolio was under development over the last 18 months, and includes a 5% allocation to the flagship cryptocurrency. The remaining 95% of the portfolio, the seventh in Raiz Invest’s offering, will be allocated to “US, Australian, European, and Asian large-cap stocks, as well as the Australian corporate debt and money markets, all via exchange-traded funds (ETFs).”
The firm’s CEO George Lucas commented on the offering, saying:
Although this latest portfolio offering from Raiz is very high risk, feedback from many customers has clearly shown that they have an appetite for an investment strategy that has an exposure to cryptocurrencies, and the Sapphire portfolio has been designed with this in mind.
Lucas added that the objective of the Sapphire portfolio is to provide investors with exposure to bitcoin “in a managed, risk-adjusted way.” The minimum suggested investment timeframe for it is of over five years.
Raiz Invest cited a study from U.S. stockbroker Charles Schwab that revealed that millennials prefer to invest in bitcoin than in popular blue-chip stocks, such as that of Netflix, Microsoft, or Alibaba. Their Gen X and Baby Boomer counterparts, on the other hand, prefer blue-chip stocks over cryptocurrencies.
While the 5% allocation to Bitcoin is rather small, it’s in line with the recommendations of several high-profile investors, including Paul Tudor Jones and Chamath Palihapitiya, who recommend investors allocate a small percentage of their portfolio to the cryptocurrency, as a hedge against monetary inflation.
Raiz Invest was founded in 2016 and services over 215,000 monthly users. It has over $375 million worth of assets under management. The Bitcoin in its Sapphire portfolio will be custody by crypto exchange Gemini, which Raiz touts is “one of the safest cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians in the world.”
Featured image via Unsplash.
