5 Top investment trends to watch out for in 2021

By Leandra Monteiro

After a turbulent 15 months for businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, Roger James Hamilton, Founder and CEO of Genius Group, has suggested 5 investment trends for 2021. With many new and emerging non-professionals taking up trading as proactive investors or as a hobby during the pandemic, these trends have been identified to help grow a healthy and diversified investment portfolio.

Founder and CEO of Genius Group, Roger James Hamilton shared, “At Genius Group we have a proven track record in trading and have seen 10x returns on our investments. I am sharing these trends so that other entrepreneurs can enjoy similar growth in what has been, and continues to be, a difficult business landscape.”

Here are the 5 trends put forth by Hamilton:

The risk of Dollar destruction & the Rise of Alternative Currencies: With 35% of all Dollars (US $) ever created being printed between February and December 2020, we are seeing the potential for an unprecedented dip in the currency’s purchasing power. It’s not just the United States who have been printing money, this has been a global trend throughout the pandemic. This coupled with the recent surge in spending on commodities, as economies have reopened, will lead to hyperinflation and money will eventually become worthless. Keeping money in cash is the worst thing to do in this scenario and with property prices surging we will see an exodus of cash into assets over the coming months. A weakness in currency combined with the threat of an inflationary spike have seen alternatives to traditional currencies and wallets such as Ethereum, Cardano and Tether continue to develop and gain attention in the global marketplace. Even with recent volatility, alternative currencies have become a sound investment prospect and are here to stay.

Age of Exponentials & Rise of Robots: Society 5.0 will be driven by digital transformation combined with the creativity of diversity. The innovation platforms that will transform the world as we know it, are DNA sequencing, blockchain, energy storage, robotics, and AI. These emerging sectors are seeing exponential growth and as a result interest from investors is high. These future thinking technologies will not only realign the world and the processes we use, but it will also touch every sector, from health to education, global warming, and innovation. Despite fears that automation will destroy jobs, this tech has the potential to empower human productivity and wage growth. 

The collapse of traditional banks?: Traditional banks are facing potentially sizable risks from digital wallets and digital lenders who are likely to take a share of business. Two of the biggest digital wallets, Square’s Cash App and PayPal’s Venmo, each amassed over 60 million active users organically in the last 7 and 10 years, respectively.  At the end of 2020, the number of J.P. Morgan Chase deposit account holders totalled approximately 60 million while Cash App’s and Venmo’s Annual Active Users scaled to 59 million and 69 million, respectively. This illustrates a growing trend away from the traditional banking relationship, and toward a very decentralised financial system. The evolution of blockchain has allowed this to flourish, especially with new currency alternatives such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EOS entering the landscape.

The Meme Generation & NFTs: There is currently a shift in the investment markets to not only crypto currencies but also the digitisation of assets. Generations who have grown up in the digital age utilising digital content, now recognise this content as investment assets and Non-fungible Tokens (NFT) were born. Coupled with Blockchain, that enables more granular detail than an IP address, NFTs enable digital artwork to be tokenised which creates recognised ownership that can be bought and sold.  This has impacted the investment markets hugely and offers a glimpse to the future where assets, rather than cash, is king.

Education Sector Growth – The Genius Generation: The education sector is seeing unprecedented growth, both because of changing policy and the growth of the Edtech market. Edtech companies with their own curriculum are growing quickly, particularly through acquisition, and creating an education system for the 21st century that delivers personalised, relevant, and lifelong learning pathways to everyone. From this transition we will see the leaders of tomorrow equipped with the skills they need to adapt, thrive, and implement strategies for a quickly evolving world.

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