- Dogecoin creator Billy Markus poked fun at millennials, who studies have shown want to retire by age 59, and that they require $1.65 million to retire comfortably.
- Experts have revealed that millennials’ retirement prospects are significantly worse than baby boomers, and with inflation spiking globally, their fate seems sealed.
Can millennials retire comfortably at their preferred age of 59? This has been an oft-debated question for years now, and the latest to weigh in is Dogecoin creator Billy Markus who poked fun at the great contrast between this generation’s savings and retirement ambitions.
Markus joined hands with Jackson Palmer in 2013 to develop Dogecoin, which launched in December of that year. It has become the largest meme coin in the market, with a current market cap of $17.6 billion, the ninth-highest of any crypto today. It has expanded beyond being just a fun-themed coin to use cases such as remittances, as we reported recently.
Markus infamously sold all his DOGE in 2015 after he got laid off, missing out on the massive explosion of the meme coin, which has surged over 200x since launch. Since then, he has been an outspoken thought leader in the crypto industry, and his latest musings on Twitter were on millennials’ retirement.
Markus, known in social media circles as Shibetoshi Nakamoto, noted that millennials believe they need $1.65 million to retire comfortably. a figure fronted by a Northwestern Mutual report that millennials say is the optimum figure they require to retire comfortably. However, the same report found that on average, this generation has saved $62,600 in retirement savings.
This means that there is a gap of around $1.5 million that some millennials have 16 years minimum and 31 years at most to plug. This is because millennials are the generation born between 1981 and 1996, aged between 28 and 43.
millennials believe they will need ~$1.65 million to retire comfortably
millennials have saved ~$62,600
millennials expect to retire by age 59
😬
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) July 17, 2024
While $1.65 seems like a figure that’s too ambitious (at least according to the study), many of the replies to the Dogecoin founder indicate that many millennials believe that this might not even be enough. Others poked fun at the projected average savings, claiming that millennials are unlikely to have saved that much. By coincidence, the average savings for millennials coincided with Bitcoin’s average price when Markus posted on X.
Crypto as a Retirement Plan?
Markus’ sentiments point to the obvious question—is crypto a viable retirement plan? Thoughts vary on this. Some point out that crypto has been the best-performing asset class for over a decade now, outperforming stocks and gold. This view is further supported by success stories, such as one former warehouse manager who retired on Shiba Inu earnings.
Take Dogecoin for instance; ten years ago in July, it was trading at 0.0002452. Today, it trades at $0.1201, a 48,880% rise in that time. $1000 invested in DOGE a decade ago would be worth $48.8 million, more than enough to retire on.
In comparison, $1,000 invested in the S&P index (which tracks the 500 largest companies in the US stock market), would have yielded $180,000. A similar investment in gold wouldn’t even have doubled today.
The real outlook is much more nuanced, however, as volatility comes into it. It’s also worth noting that some cryptocurrencies that were big in 2014 have since collapsed, but gold and stocks have been a much more guaranteed investment.
Investing all the retirement savings in crypto may not be the wisest idea. However, allocating a portion of this fund could yield great dividends, which is what most wealth advisers recommend. Studies show that the number of people taking this route is rising steadily.
“When making this decision, investors should consider their crypto allocation in the context of their broader investment portfolio, risk appetite, and income needs,” advises Grayscale’s Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary.
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