Disillusioned by fiat, young people are finding new hope in crypto

Two “countries” exist in our current monetary paradigm, Jordi Visser says: fiat and crypto.

The president and chief investment officer of Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers explains that people around the world are escaping the fiat system and settling in the crypto world for better opportunities.

Visser spoke to Blockworks on a recent episode of On the Margin (Spotify/Apple) about the global phenomenon.

While the trend might not be as apparent in the western world, “70% of [crypto] users are in Asia,” he says. “I don’t think people fully grasp the importance of that.” 

With the highest population of any continent on the planet, many of Asia’s inhabitants are realizing that they don’t have to “move to the United States, go to the best colleges here, get a job.”

The need to move elsewhere for a better education is diminishing, thanks in large part to the internet, which grants the ability to be educated anywhere in the world, he says.

Not only is education far more accessible, setting up a new business is also much easier than it used to be, he says. “If you move to the US and then you gotta go through the [venture capital] world, you gotta go raise money.” 

“You’ve taken that whole process and you’ve changed it.” 

The fiat world is “dominated by people above the age of 60 that control most of that net worth,” he says. “You have this other world which is dominated by Asia and young people, and so what’s gonna keep attracting people there?”

Younger people don’t want to be forced to work with big companies, Visser says, instead choosing other options available to them in a new economy.

The growing trend to work from home “is a lot more powerful than people realize,” Visser says. Running a business with 110 employees, Visser says “it’s really hard to force people to go back to work five days a week.”

“And I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to incentivize the younger people to come in and to brainstorm and collaborate and be an important part of growing the business.”

“That’s what attracts people, especially on the younger side, to crypto.”

Not winning in the fiat system

Young people are attracted to the energy of incorporating new technologies and not being subjected to restrictions imposed by bigger organizations, he says.

“The freedom that you get from the crypto world will continue to attract the people that are not benefiting that much from the fiat system.” 

Few young people are “winning in the fiat system,” Visser adds. “99% of the wealth is in the hands of very few people.” The growing lack of trust in institutions is also pushing people toward crypto, he says.

“The crypto world offers another alternative, and I think it’s gonna continue to attract talent.”

And there’s plenty of room for growth. “The fiat system has $500 trillion in net worth. The crypto world is still a $1 trillion country.”

“What’s going on in Web3,” Visser says, looks a lot like what “originally was supposed to be happening” with the internet. “Early innovators didn’t envision having the mega-cap tech companies come out of this and control everything.”

They envisioned a world of decentralization, Visser says, “so I think it will always attract people who are looking for less of a centralized world.”

“When people came to America a long time ago, I think they came for freedom,” Visser says. “They came for having the ability of doing well, of living a happier life.”

“If you go back and read everything from the Declaration of Independence on, a lot of the things that people go to the crypto world for are very similar.”

“It’s hard to find that in the current fiat system, the way we are.”

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