What are the Options?

There are a few options to consider when it comes to building your personal wealth. All have pros and cons and before you start you need to consider your personal goals for wealth – how much do you want, when and most of all why?

Money by itself is worthless – it’s what you do with it which is important.

The next thing to consider is your ‘risk profile’. Are you ‘risk averse’ – don’t like ‘taking risks’, or are you happy with a medium or higher level of risk because whenever you invest your wealth with the intention of building or growing it, there is always a ‘risk’ that things may not go according to plan?

But then absolutely everything we do carries some level of risk. Nothing is ever ‘risk free’.

Next is your strategy. Do you plan to invest one big lump sum, a series of large amounts, or make smaller regular payments? In other words, one big 5 or 6 figure sum, a four or five figure sum every year or regular monthly payments of a few hundred or a thousand or so. It’s up to you and your cash flow.

Now please be aware that this is not ‘financial advice’ rather the benefit of practical experience over several decades and several ups and downs in the economy. Before you ‘start’ you need to gain some knowledge and the trouble with so called ‘financial advisors’ is they are usually only trained in one aspect of wealth building; property, stocks and shares, precious metals, pensions and sometimes fine art and antiques. They all promote their area as expertise as the ‘best’ and very few indeed know anything about digital assets.

You’ll need to talk to several people and please don’t rely on the ubiquitous Google or anything you find on ‘social media’. What you find there is written by people who are not accountable to anyone or regulated in any way.

There are effectively five options to build wealth and of course you can always employ more than one; what you must decide is the proportion of your existing assets you will allocate to each.

A test you can use to evaluate this is “Howe long will it take to double the value of my portfolio?” 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, more?

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each main asset class. The average value of all assets goes up and down over time, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but there is always a general trend of growth which usually relates to time.

Property

Positive: Stable but slow growth in value over the very long term, Potential rental income, The ‘stability’ of ‘bricks and mortar’ giving a feeling of confidence.

Negatives: Generally high entry threshold (5 figures usually), Ongoing maintenance costs, Generally low liquidity – difficult to recover as cash, Massive regulatory overheads if you’re a landlord, Risk of damage.

Precious Metals

Positives: The ‘fallback’ in an unstable global economy, Mature market, Known as a ‘safe’ asset, Generally good liquidity – easy to turn into cash.

Negatives: Uncertain trend, goes up and down for lengthy periods, Slow growth potential, Infinite resources – there’s always more under the ground, Storage and security costs to alleviate risk of theft, Low usability other than store of value.

Fine Art, Antiques, Memorabilia etc.

Very similar to precious metals

Pension Plans and Managed Funds

Positives: Long term positive trend, No experience or involvement required, Easy to enter market. Low entry and contribution levels.

Negatives: Very slow growth, may remain flat for some time, Management fees can be quite high, No real control over funds chosen, Access to funds limited by regulations and terms.

Stocks and Shares

Positives: Short term positive trend, Mature market, Leverage trading

Negatives: Prone to manipulation, Unstable global economy, Company failures, Requires close involvement, Requires significant knowledge.

Digital Assets – Crypto

Positives: Start of long term growth cycle, Long term positive trend, Global trading, High usability, Easy, fast, cheap transfers, Mass adoption starting, The only really finite asset. Available 24/7, Mutual fund adoption, Payment provider (Visa etc.) adoption, Mass adoption starting, Decentralised finance and money

Negatives: High volatility – changes happen rapidly, Tightening regulatory policies, Prone to manipulation, Low investor confidence – contributes to volatility

If you’d like to hear the text as an audio listen here

What is Crypto?

Crypto – encrypted currency – is simply a different kind of money. It’s not owned by the government but by you.

The money we use now is issued and controlled by our governments and held in a bank who we pay in one way or another for the privilege.

In contrast we buy crypto coins or tokens from someone else on an ‘exchange’ and hold them in our own personal ‘wallet’.

We use crypto just like we use money – to pay for things, to get paid for things, to ‘invest’ or save and so on. Crypto also has many other uses but more about that later.

In a way we’re going back in time, to before governments and banks got involved and took control. Back to a time when towns and organisations issued their own money for their citizens or members. ‘Finance’ was ‘decentralised’.

Money in the form of crypto is also ‘decentralised’ instead of being under the control of governments and their central banks.

‘Crypto’ is simply an alternative to having our wealth – or money – under control of a central organisation and taking control of it ourselves.

Is Crypto a ‘Scam’?

The simple answer is crypto itself is not a scam, but like any other form of money it can be used in one. A scam is just another word for fraud which has been going on long before crypto came on the scene.

There are lots of stories about crypto scams.

The most frequent is when someone suggests you open an account where they will buy crypto for you and trade with it to make you a (huge) profit – but there are also people who do that with stocks and shares and other things. Most of the time you will never get back the money you put in although sometimes you’ll get part of the trading profit along with requests for more money or that you plough the profits back in. It’s extremely difficult to get out of these schemes.

Another fraud is the ‘pump and dump’ scam where you are induced by seductive marketing to buy something which has ‘huge potential’ and then once the value has reached its target the perpetrators simply take the money and run, stop promoting the ‘opportunity’ and disappear. The value crashes and you lose. Again, this doesn’t only happen with crypto.

Without someone you trust to guide you it’s essential to research any ‘money making’ opportunity or ‘get rich overnight’ scheme before you commit any funds.

“I Lost all my Crypto”

There are other ways people have ‘lost’ crypto and it’s to do with how it’s stored – the wallets. Originally your crypto records were stored in a physical ‘offline’ wallet in the form of a small USB drive for which you’d have an extremely complex ‘key’ or password to get into it. Only you had the key and the physical wallet. Obviously if you lost either of them, as many people did, you lost your money and there was no way of retrieving it!

Now we have new ways to store crypto online in individual ‘soft’ wallets to prevent these types of loss, and although we call them ‘online’ they’re not directly connected to the internet so can’t be hacked. It’s much safer and more secure.

Using Crypto

We access crypto via an ‘exchange’ where it can be bought, sold, and stored. We have a personal wallet for each type of coin and can transfer money, as coins, to someone else’s wallet direct or move it out into ‘fiat’ or government money in our bank account. Sometimes, but not always there are fees for doing these things but compared with the fees we pay banks and credit cards they are extremely small.

We will soon be able to use our crypto funds to buy almost anything through direct transfer or via places like PayPal, Amazon, Visa and Mastercard who are all introducing facilities for payment using crypto.

Using an Exchange

If you look at the market leading exchanges like Coinbase or Binance you’ll find them very complex and not at all user friendly. Most exchanges are designed not for the retail market (people like us) but for traders who want to buy and sell several times a day to make a profit. Generally, they ‘know what they are doing’ so there is little or no customer support.

Now, there is a ‘new breed’ of exchange who focus on ‘wealth building’ by retail customers and these are led by one called Dacxi, more of which later.

What’s in it for you?

Why should you move into crypto? There are several reasons.

You’ve seen how crypto performs better than other asset classes and you’ve read how you can regain control of your financial assets.

At the moment (but maybe not for long) crypto is not seen by the authorities as ‘money’ itself but as an asset like a work of art or property on which tax can only be levied when it is bought or sold and there is no VAT (sales and purchase tax) payable when we buy or sell crypto.

Crypto gives us the opportunity to easily create a portfolio of assets (different types of crypto) without the need for a fund manager as we might have with stocks and shares and alongside this various companies are developing different types of pension plan based on crypto instead of cash or the stock market.

Crypto is the ‘money of the future’ and the not too distant future at that.

Key Things You Need to Know

• What is the internet security rating of the exchange you are dealing with?
• Does the exchange have a licence to trade issued by the appropriate authority?
• Does the exchange have sufficient and appropriate insurance cover?
• What are the credentials of the people who operate the exchange?
• What level of customer support and service can you expect?
• Can you easily withdraw your funds?
• How easy is the exchange to use?
• What information does the exchange provide?

If you’d like to hear the text as an audio listen here

Who are ‘Dacxi’?

Dacxi is the ‘Digital Asset Community Exchange International’. Headquartered in New Zealand and Singapore with offices in Brazil, UK, Estonia and Australia they currently operate decentralised exchanges in Australia and the UK (also covering the EU).

A further 50 local exchanges are in the first stages of opening in countries all over the globe with a target of 220 exchanges in different jurisdictions by the end of 2022. There is a separate management structure for each exchange with the central strategy and branding being handled in New Zealand.

Dacxi is fully authorised, legalised and licensed in each area in which it operates. The exchanges all have A+ security rating (the highest possible) based on over 100 criteria independently set and analysed by Mozilla – see observatory.mozilla.org and search exchange.dacxi.com.

Dacxi has comprehensive insurance covering customer funds and 98% of all funds are held offline on secure servers, the remaining 2% create the route of access we need to our funds.

The management teams for each exchange are highly qualified people in the financial world and can be checked out via the usual channels such as Companies House in the UK.

Dacxi prides itself on being a ‘community exchange’ with massive levels of customer support carried out by real people rather than ‘bots’ as is the case with most other exchanges.

Most of all the exchange is really easy to use in all ways and provides a complete and detailed record of all transactions – more on ‘how it works’ next.

Dacxi is different from other exchanges in that they offer ‘bundles’ od selected coins making it easy for you to create the best portfolio for your needs. These bundles include their own DACXI coin which is a ‘new kid on the block’ they expect to increase by ten times its current value in the medium term (12-18 months).

Dacxi is not a ‘trading exchange’ and if that’s what you want it’s not really for you. Dacxi customers see it as a long term deal, similar to a bank deposit account or a short term pension plan for ten years or so, but unlike those, there’s no penalty if you have to take money out early.

You’ll see from the next section how different Dacxi is from other exchanges and how easy it is to use; and bear in mind as a Dacxi customer you’ll have an individual ‘human guide’ or mentor to help you at any time as well as comprehensive online support for any technical matters which may arise.

If you’d like to hear the text as an audio listen here

How Does it Work?

To engage with Dacxi the first thing you’ll need to do is go through the identity and security checks required by the applicable regulatory authority.

What you see here applies to the UK/EU and if you’re in Australia it’s slightly different (but easier!). Once you’ve done this and we’ll guide you through it, you can transfer funds to your wallet via the Dacxi bank account who (at the moment) charge a fee of £1. (Again UK only, no fees in Australia).

Once money is in your Dacxi wallet you can then purchase a Bundle and become a customer, after which, if you wish, you can buy or sell individual coins.

Watch the video of how to get started and then get back to the person who introduced you to answer any further questions and guide you through registration.

Note: DO NOT PLACE AN ORDER at this stage!

The Registration Process

To get through registration you’ll need to work on a PC or laptop. It is extremely difficult to do it just using a smartphone, although you will need to have your phone as part of the process.

First you phone number will be validated; you’ll receive a six figure code by email to put into your phone.

Second you need to upload an image of your passport photo page or photo driving licence which shows all four edges and the corners of the document as well as being clear and in focus.

Third you’ll need to take a ‘selfie’ using your phone – keep the phone stead while doing this as you’ll be required to move your head as you do it.

Fourth you’ll be asked for proof of address. This is an image of a financial document such as a utility bill, tax bill or bank statement showing the name of the organisation issuing it, your name and address and the date which must be within the last three months. You don’t need to show any of the figures on the bill and it doesn’t matter if it’s a joint account as long as it shows your name as one of the account holders. It must be a personal bill not addressed to a company even if it does show your name.

When all that’s done, you’ll see on screen and on an email, the details of the Dacxi bank account and a unique personal reference number. You will need to use this as the reference when you make transfers from your bank.

The person who introduced you will guide you through this process.

If you’d like to hear the text as an audio listen here