I’m not sponsored by Betterment, but it is one of my favorite brokerages for passive investment. Betterment is a Smart Money Manager, meaning just about everything is automated. They are one of the early adopters of robo-advising and robo-investing. I have had my Roth IRA with Betterment for over 6 years and it has performed well. I also use Betterment for my HSA (Health Savings Account) investing and I use Betterment’s Cash Reserve high interest account to hold my emergency funds. Now that they intend to offer crypto portfolio’s, I am excited to try out their new offerings.
Crypto Adoption
When you think about Betterment, you don’t think about risk or crypto. For most, crypto is a scary and risky investment. Many people don’t understand how crypto works. They don’t understand NFT’s, mining, proof of work, and proof of stake. Betterment is known as a safe long term investment-focused brokerage. For some time, Betterment has been working on finding a way to integrate crypto without worrying their clients.
Crypto Acquisition
Betterment has signed an agreement to acquire Makara, an innovative crypto portfolio manager who is registered with the SEC. This acquisition will bring Betterment clients optional crypto portfolio’s built and managed by long term investing experts. Read their Press Release here.
What Crypto Will Look Like With Betterment
Betterment will aim to make Crypto easy and automated. They plan to share insights, advice, and crypto content to help you navigate your crypto investments. Their diversified managed crypto portfolio will invest in many different crypto assets. These crypto portfolios will NOT be incorporated with your existing IRA or individual portfolio’s. Instead, the crypto portfolio will be a separate offering that will not affect your other investments. With the addition of crypto, Betterment and Makara do not intend on changing their prices. Everything should be the same. With Betterment, you will get an actual managed crypto portfolio with automated investing tools. This is huge news in the crypto space. Competitors only offer crypto futures ETFs or the ability to purchase individual coins.
Betterment will allow you to invest in many of the popular crypto currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Litecoin among others. Similar to how you would setup an IRA, Betterment will ask you a few simple questions.
- Have you invested in Crypto before?
- Are you worried about Inflation?
- Do you consider yourself to be a long term or short term investor?
Once these questions are answered, Betterment will give you the option to choose from three baskets or investment categories. They may expand this in the future, but for now you have the choice between the following baskets.
- The Blue Chip Basket (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, and Filecoin),
- The Universe Basket (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Litecoin)
- The Ethereum Basket (Ethereum)
The crypto in these baskets will be rebalanced automatically based on your answers to the initial questions, market conditions and other factors.
The Future of Crypto
“Crypto is here to stay and Betterment wants to live our promise of long-term diversification and to provide our customers with the best variety of assets in the marketplace,” said Betterment’s CEO, Sarah Levy. As someone who has used Betterment for just over 6 years, I am excited for the opportunity to invest with Makara and Betterment. At this moment, I personally invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano, but Ethereum has treated me the best. I plan to invest in upcoming Betterment Ethereum Basket along side my Betterment Roth IRA. Sign up with Betterment and join their waiting list for managed crypto portfolios.
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