Everyone's an investor

It’s pretty surreal to see the investing activity happening right now. Modern technology has made everyone an investor.

Apps like Robinhood made it so easy that teenagers can become public market investors and get access to complicated financial instruments in a matter of hours.

Platforms like AngelList has created a medium for accredited investors to become angel investors. Taking it one step further, there are crowdfunding platforms that allow you to circumvent accreditation and still get equity in a company.

There’s more money than ever before in the United States and people are heavily investing it. That’s the great side of this. Financial education is important and something that is not taught in our school system. The fact that people are investing their money instead of spending it is a step in the right direction.

Of course, there’s two sides of the coin and we’re seeing a lot of dangerous and reckless behavior. While I believe accredited investor rules are antiquated, they are there to protect the public.

I’m very interested to see how investing rules evolve over the next couple of years now that anyone can become an “investor”.

My take is that there needs to be access to all but with proper education and stops in place. How this education gets distributed will be the interesting part of this investor evolution. I hate barriers to entry as much as anyone, but perhaps a small barrier is required here to protect the public.

Right now, I’m not sure what the best method is. There could be mandatory classes or certifications required to gain access to certain instruments. Maybe there needs to be some innovation involved in this space.

What I do know is that we don’t need is arbitrary income thresholds and more antiquated rules.