Crypto: Owning Your Financial Future to Prepare for What’s Next
Making the case for why crypto belongs in a future-proof portfolio.
How I got here
In 2021, I did what many people seem to do with crypto the first time around: I noticed the noise, didn’t really understand what was going on, but bought a little anyway. Mostly out of FOMO. The whole thing felt vaguely absurd but in the end I made a small bet.
Then, for a while, I lost interest. The market crashed, prices fell, and apart from purchasing a little here and there to average out prices, I wasn’t really engaged. But at the end of 2023, that changed. When news broke that a “Bitcoin ETF” might finally get approved, my curiosity kicked in. I had just quit my job and was thinking hard about how to finance my next chapter, so I started listening to podcasts, reading books and whitepapers. It felt like I’d opened a door to a parallel universe.
What I found was more of a movement that questioned who holds power in society, how trust is built, and how we might rewire the systems that shape our day-to-day lives. Crypto, which is so often written off as a scam or a get-rich-quick scheme, started to look like it could actually help regular people take control of their money and their future.
What I was really discovering was blockchain, it’s underlying technology, and what feels like the next evolution of how we coordinate as humans. I could talk for days about its potential (and I will, in future essays) but today I want to focus on the financial side and explore how it can help you take ownership of your financial future and prepare for what’s ahead.
What’s broken today
The financial system Millennials and Gen Z inherit is outdated. Even for them, the digital natives still nominally “inside the system”, it no longer works. Homeownership is out of reach. Wages have stagnated while the cost of living climbs. Savings lose value over time due to inflation. And the best investment opportunities often go to the wealthy first. The system itself is fragile, extractive and centralized, dominated by entrenched intermediaries who profit while offering little innovation or inclusion.
At the same time, 1.4 billion people globally still entirely live outside this system, unbanked and unable to access even basic financial services. And even I briefly joined their ranks: last year my German bank suddenly shut down my account overnight without explanation (turns out it was simply because I changed my residency to Portugal), and I struggled to open a new account over here because I had just quit my job. I was amazed how clearly the system is designed for people sticking to the default path.
The deck is stacked on all fronts: today’s financial infrastructure was built for an analog, permissioned, institution-driven world that serves asset owners and entrenched power, not the emerging generations, the excluded billions or those simply trying to do things differently. For Millennials, Gen Z, and the unbanked alike, there’s not really a credible path to wealth-building or financial empowerment within this system. So they need to look elsewhere.
A fast-changing world
At the same time, we are entering a period of exponential technological acceleration that will fundamentally reshape the economy. Raoul Pal, economist and investment expert, calls this the coming “economic singularity”: AI, automation, and robotics are driving down the cost of knowledge and labor toward zero, displacing millions of jobs and disrupting industries. These technologies promise abundance but also bring challenges such as deflation, unemployment, and the breakdown of economic models we’ve relied on for decades. In this near future the existing financial and economic structures will simply no longer fit the realities of the digital age.
In my previous articles, I’ve written that we should treat this moment as a time to prototype new ways of living and working. I’d add investing to that list. We need a financial system that fits this new era. And the funny thing is, that system has already been under construction for more than a decade, only slowly beginning to gain more traction, still largely unnoticed by the mainstream.
Where crypto is today
While still not fully mainstream, crypto has come a long way from its early, chaotic days. As Jordi Visser put it in his recent article, it’s no longer a passing trend but a digital-native asset class that’s becoming foundational to the financial infrastructure of the future.
Rick Edelman takes this further, arguing that crypto is now a necessary part of any portfolio built to last deep into the 21st century. As he put it:
“You weren’t wrong not to buy Bitcoin in 2012. It was early, unregulated, and uncertain. But today is completely different; institutional, political, and technological acceptance has arrived.”
In my view, crypto has evolved into a tool for financial empowerment, a hedge against an outdated financial system, and a way to invest directly in the infrastructure of a rapidly changing world.
Owning your financial future to prepare for what’s next
So why do I think crypto is worth exploring? For me, it comes down to three things:
It empowers individuals by shifting financial power from institutions to people.
It’s a bet on the infrastructure of the future economy.
And it offers a new path to wealth-building as one of the best-performing asset classes in history.
These aren’t abstract ideas but they’re why crypto has moved, for me, from curiosity to conviction. Let’s break them down.
1) Crypto empowers individuals
Decentralization: Crypto removes intermediaries, so no banks, brokers, or third parties stand between you and your money. It allows direct ownership and peer-to-peer transactions. In a world where accounts can be frozen or seized, that’s not a small thing.
Inclusion: Crypto gives access to billions who’ve been excluded from the financial system entirely. 1.4 billion people globally remain unbanked, shut out by geography, poverty, or politics. All you need is a phone and internet connection to hold and send crypto while no bank account is required.
Democratization of opportunity: In traditional finance, ordinary people often miss out on the best opportunities - think venture capital and pre-IPO stocks, which are mostly for wealthy insiders. Crypto flips that script: anyone, anywhere can invest early, before Wall Street dominates. Taking it further, tokenization allows for fractional ownership and borderless access to assets like real estate or art which are markets that were once reserved for the wealthy or institutions.
2) Crypto as an investment into the future
A hedge against inflation and debasement: Traditional financial systems rely on devaluing currency to manage ever-rising levels of debt. Fiat currencies steadily lose value each year due to inflation and money printing and the global economy is trapped in this cycle. It can’t continue indefinitely. Crypto offers not just protection against this ongoing debasement but also a kind of escape hatch if the system itself begins to falter.
Money for a digital, AI-powered world: AI agents and robots can’t use traditional banks and they won’t be queuing for debit cards. Crypto might become the default payment rail for autonomous machines, smart contracts, and AI agents transacting value 24/7. As AI reshapes the economy, crypto will power the commerce layer that traditional finance simply isn’t built for.
A way to build wealth when jobs disappear: In a future where automation and AI decimate traditional jobs, income from labor will shrink and that means ownership matters more than ever. Crypto allows individuals to own pieces of networks, infrastructure, and tokenized assets directly. It’s a pathway to broaden wealth and prosperity in an economy where dividends and property replace wages.
3) Crypto is a powerful investment opportunity
Best performing asset in history: Crypto has outpaced every other major asset class over the last decade by a wide margin. Bitcoin alone has outperformed stocks, gold, and real estate, and is in the top ten largest asset globally by market cap, right after giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. It’s no longer niche.
Exposure to exponential growth trends: Crypto sits at the intersection of the two fastest-growing megatrends: technology and digital assets. Adoption curves for crypto and blockchain still look like early internet charts. For long-term investors, this is where growth is happening.
Global, open, 24/7 markets: Listening to a Bankless podcast recently, I realised that traditional financial markets are closed about 80% of the time. In contrast, crypto markets run 24/7, accessible from anywhere in the world. This constant liquidity and openness make crypto a uniquely dynamic market where anyone can participate.
How I’m thinking about crypto now
So here’s where I’ve landed on my crypto journey over the years. For some, crypto is just a get-rich-quick scheme. For me, it’s become a way to opt out and to stop waiting around for a financial system that was never really built for everyone. It is recognizing that the world is changing fast and preparing for it.
Because let’s be honest: the old system is not working anymore and AI, automation, and digitization are rewriting the rules of work, value, and ownership faster than institutions can keep up.
So the way I see it, exploring crypto as part of your investments is about preparing for what’s next. It’s about supporting a system where individuals are in control, where ownership is direct, and where trust is built into code, not institutions. It’s about taking your financial future into your own hands.
And no, this doesn’t mean betting the house. You can start with a small allocation. Even a tiny position gives you exposure, optionality, and a stake in a system that’s being built for the digital economy we’re all about to live in - whether we like it or not.
So if you’re wondering whether crypto is “too risky”, I’d flip the question: isn’t it riskier not to have any exposure at all?
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice. Please do your own research.
What shaped my thinking.
I want to highlight the sources that I have built my thinking on in this article, and that I highly recommend if you're looking to dive deeper into these topics.
Diary of a CEO: The Investing & Crypto Expert: We only have 6 years until everything changes.
Raoul Pal: Prepare for 2030. You have 5 years to unf*ck your future.
Bankless Podcast with Felipe Montealegre: From TradFi to Internet Finance: A New Era of Global Capital.
Raoul Pal: The 2025 Macro Playbook: Central Banks, Crypto & Chaos.
Jordi Visser: Digital Assets and the Death of Retirement: Preparing for a Longer, Smarter Life.
The Compound & Friends: Next Next Circle IPO, Ric Edelman on Crypto Allocations, Novo Nordisk vs Hims, Dumbflation.
Token Economy. How the Web3 reinvents the internet. Shermin Voshmgir
Read, Write, Own. Building the next era of the internet. Chris Dixon
This was helpful. I've been curious about the space since 2021. I watched the MIT course and realised how complex crypto and blockchain is because of the intersection of economics, comp sci and government.
Personally, while I love reading, I think some technical projects would help really understand what's going on as a first step
I just don’t know Iwana. The whole area is awash with political agendas. Hard to know the signal from the propaganda noise. I’m with you on the blockchain ideas. Even if it only ends up being an inspiration for what comes next - it’s a powerful one. I just have more scepticism about the cryptoverse. Like you I think we ought to start exploring beyond nation states and many of our current systems as a ‘just in case’. But there’s a dark side to the crypto story too (tbf you did hint at) which is not flattering and it shows up in the ‘good luck being poor’ comments and the arrogance of people like Srinivasan who lose million dollar bets that the dollar will hyper inflate immediately. Crypto is the house cat of nation states currently and its value collapses if they stop creating deficits (especially US ones). These people don’t understand how fiat operates in a nation state at a fiscal level - let alone how a state even functions - and they would be the ones with enormous power and influence if a world of crypto dominance came in the current form.
We may need a form of new currency (or currencies) for sure but I notice in the urgency to unfuck your finance by 2030 from the likes of Roaul Pal and others, a pretty standard marketing technique - ‘here’s this massive problem and here’s the solution in the form of my investment / consultancy. I think they believe it but it comes from a false mythology that could end badly.
Wrapped up in its mythology is a very old form of goldbug obsession that currency should hold its value against gold forever. That’s not its purpose as having too many people in any economy holding onto the national currency and not spending it, is exactly what creates recessions and low demand. Investing in (hopefully) productive assets or even just artisanal wine or art what people have historically done to protect long term wealth - also the category of crypto and where it should stay imo.
Until and unless there is a genuine economic revolution to one that is decentralised and that actually can create a functioning internal market in its own currency - it’s nothing more than a ‘number go up’ ledger.
Sorry - don’t mean to sound negative. I think the subject is just a lot less certain