An outraged reader has hit out at the money author claiming that one financial tip is the worst he’s heard in his life.
The man behind the Barefoot Investor has been slammed by a reader for dishing out the “worst advice ever” when it comes to cryptocurrency.
Scott Pape had responded to a furious wife who had uncovered her husband of 12 years had lost $57,000 trading crypto coins, adding the discovery made her want to “kill him”.
While Pape advised the woman to “clean up the mess together”, it was his biggest tip that made a reader named Elliot furious.
“Don’t invest your short-term savings in the share market or a digital beanie baby – keep it in your savings account,” Pape said.
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Describing it as the “worst non-advice” he had heard in his life, Elliott went on to accuse the money author of dishing out guidance without any knowledge of what had actually gone down.
“You don’t even know what he was trading, for one. If he’s invested in blue chip top 10 cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, ethereum, solana) then, for the most part, it’s a long-term strategy like with any other stock,” Elliott raged.
“Giving non-advice like this is just making that woman panic and will probably result in her persuading her husband to sell at a huge loss. I call it non-advice because your advice, “invest your short-term savings in your bank account” – with 0.01 per cent interest per year! Seriously!?”
Cryptocurrency is risky business, according to regulators around the world, but this isn’t stopping one in four Aussies investing in the digital money.
That’s around five million Aussies with a financial interest in cryptocurrency, according to research from comparison website Finder.
It found 13 per cent of Australians now trade bitcoin, while 6 per cent hold ethereum assets, which is the second largest cryptocurrency.
But the Barefoot Investor stuck by his money advice. He said he had “no problem with people buying magical dog coins or anything else that tickles their greed gland”.
“But I wouldn’t be risking my house deposit on it. If you’re ‘banking’ on the money being there within a few years to buy a house, you really should protect that capital, even if it means you’re not earning interest,” he added.
“That’s just common sense.”
At the end of January, bitcoin briefly plunged below $US33,000 ($A46,000), signalling its lowest level since July last year and was a massive fall from grace considering its November highest of nearly $US69,000 ($A98,000), representing a drop of more than 50 per cent.
Amid its plummeting worth, experts feared the worst was yet to come for bitcoin, claiming there were “no signs BTC has bottomed”.
But after a horror start to the year, bitcoin jumped more than 10 per cent last week, taking the price of the popular cryptocurrency to more than $US41,000.
Ethereum and solana jumped as much as 12 per cent.