Millennials Prefer Stocks To Bitcoin

While many believe that millennials are shifting their focus away from stocks to bitcoin and other investments, the co-founder of popular stock trading app Robinhood isn’t as convinced.

“I wouldn’t say that we’re anticipating a massive shift from stocks to cryptocurrencies,” Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev told CNBC. “We don’t see the equities market going away anytime soon.”

With 78 percent of Robinhood’s more than 2 million customers falling into the millennial category, Tenev’s belief that more conventional investments and technologies will come out on top in the near term is important.

And while digital currencies have hit all-time highs this year, even Coinbase, a digital asset exchange company, warned that investors should still proceed with caution.

“Everyone should have a bit of exposure to digital currencies because [it] looks like [the] future,” said Adam White, head of Coinbase’s GDAX exchange. But there’s “still a very real chance” some of the digital currencies fall “all the way to zero.” He added that people should never invest in what they don’t understand.

In addition, Robert Prechter, who writes about the Elliott Wave Theory that is widely followed by traders, said in July that bitcoin appears to be nearing the fifth and final wave.

Bitcoin has more than quadrupled in value this year and was trading near $4,718 on Monday, according to CoinDesk. Another digital currency, Ethereum, soared more than 3,000 percent to around $300.

Still, the young investors on Robinhood’s platform are leaning toward technology stocks – Apple, AMD and FitBit were the three top-traded stocks on the app in September.

And Tenev noted that Robinhood’s future plan is to expand its stock trading business and, in five years, offer the same kinds of banking products offered by JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America.