Want to benefit from the rise of Bitcoin, without actually creating a Digital Wallet or setting up an account with a Cryptocurrency Exchange? Or alternatively setting up your own mining rig and earning bitcoin from supporting the network with your own miner? For some people, just getting started with Bitcoin is a hassle in itself, some new thing you have to learn and likely are only getting in because of the hype. But there are alternatives to actually buying or mining your own bitcoin directly. If any of these fit you, and you're willing to invest in a publicly traded company as a proxy to Bitcoin, there are a few companies with large Bitcoin holdings that you can buy on almost any stock investing app. Here are the Top 6 Stocks with Bitcoin Holdings you can buy, ranked by the number of Bitcoins they hold.
#6 Coinbase - $COIN
Coinbase, ticker symbol COIN, is the largest and most well known way for you to directly buy and hold Bitcoin in the United States. The have an iOS and Android app that makes it easy to create a digital wallet to hold Cryptocurrencies or trade them, whether you're buying Bitcoin or using the wallet as a way to send and receive cryptocurrency from others. It is also now a publicly traded stock with its IPO in April of 2021. Surprisingly Coinbase is not the largest holder of Bitcoin, or even in the Top 5, despite being the most popular way to buy Bitcoin directly. You can think of Coinbase as the TD Ameritrade or Robinhood of Cryptocurrencies. Coinbase currently holds a little over 4 Thousand Bitcoin as of their last Quarterly report in May of 2021, which was their first as a publicly traded company. Coinbase at the time of this post, is a $52B company, but is down 26% year to date.
Coinbase's Bitcoin Holdings Value Based on Price per Coin:
#5 Marathon Digital Holdings - $MARA
Marathon Digital Holdings, ticker symbol MARA, owns the 5th most Bitcoins of publicly traded companies, with 5 Thousand Bitcoins. MARA was previously known as Marathon Patent Group, which is the parent company of Uniloc, a well known "patent troll company". Essentially what the company does is sue other companies for patent infringement, which is why they are called a patent troll. However the parent company is now known for being one of the largest Bitcoin Miners, and one of the largest public holders of Bitcoin. MARA is a $3B company, is up 190% YTD, and 3228% over the past 12 months.
MARA's Bitcoin Holdings Value Based on Price per Coin:
#4 Square Inc - $SQ
Square Inc, ticker symbol SQ, the 4th largest publicly traded company to hold Bitcoin, is a holder of over 8 Thousand Bitcoin. Square is mostly known for their mobile payment platform, which allows you to place their Square reader in the headphone jack of an iPhone, and use the reader to accept credit card payments directly from your phone! Since then Square has expanded to POS Systems for small and large businesses, and created the wildly popular money transfer app called Cash App! Cash App also now allows you to buy shares of stock, including fractional shares for as little as $1 or $10 for recurring purchases. You can also buy Bitcoin in Cash App as well! The CEO of Square, Jack Dorsey, is also the CEO of Twitter. Square is a $111B company, is up 10% YTD, and 112% over the past 12 months.
Square's Bitcoin Holdings Value Based on Price per Coin:
#3 Tesla - $TSLA
Now we're moving into the Top 3, and each of these companies owns more than all of the previous companies combined! The third largest holder of Bitcoin for a publicly traded company is Tesla, ticker symbol TSLA, with over 43 Thousand Bitcoin! Tesla is mostly known as being the most popular and well-known Electric vehicle. They are seen as the leaders in the movement to Electric vehicles, as well as technology behind driverless cars. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, recently jumped on the Bitcoin train in 2020 after having a conversation via Twitter with the CEO of the #2 Company on this list. And if you were to look at the stock chart of both of these companies, their chart looks almost identical. Tesla is a $654B company, is down 3.79% YTD, but up 180% over the past 12 months.
Tesla's Bitcoin Holdings Value Based on Price per Coin:
#2 Microstrategy - $MSTR
Which takes us to number 2. If you were to add up all the Bitcoin held by all of the companies mentioned so far in this video, it would still be less than what this company holds. Microstrategy, ticker symbol MSTR, currently holds 105 Thousand Bitcoin! Nearly 2.5X that of Tesla. Outside of being the largest holder of Bitcoin for any publicly traded Business, Microstrategy is a provider of enterprise analytics software and services. The CEO Michael Saylor decided in 2020 that he would use the companies cash on hand, as well as borrow additional cash by issuing Bonds, to build up this treasure chest of Bitcoin. He believes that holding Bitcoin is better than holding Cash, because we know that cash will be worth less a year from now, and every year in the future, due to inflation. Bitcoin however can stay the same or grow in value, although It can also lose value. Given his average holdings of Bitcoin are a little above $25K per Bitcoin at the moment, his strategy has returned over 20% given a $30K value of Bitcoin. MSTR is a $6B company, is up 63% YTD, and up 441% over the past 12 months.
Microstrategy's Bitcoin Holdings Value Based on Price per Coin:
#1 Grayscale Bitcoin Trust - $GBTC
Last but not least, is a non-operating business, an ETF called Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ticker symbol GBTC, which currently holds 607 Thousand Bitcoins! This ETF is available on many brokerages, but not all. It is currently the closest thing to directly owning Bitcoin, that you can get within the Stock Market. Due to this the volatility, the ups and downs, of this ETF are very similar to Bitcoin. It does not mirror bitcoin exactly, as at times you may either purchase GBTC at a discount or a premium compared to directly purchasing Bitcoin, but it's the closest you're going to get in a publicly traded stock at this time. GBTC's market cap is $20B, is down 18% YTD, but up 187% over the past 12 months. Just last week Morgan Stanley purchased over 28K shares of GBTC.
Grayscale Bitcoin Holdings Value Based on Price per Coin:
However there may be more options on the way later this year. Speaking of which, here are a few bonus details for current and potentially future ways you can benefit from the gains of Bitcoin. Bonus - ARK Invest: Cathie Wood
Recently Cathie Woods, the CEO of Ark Invest, submitted an application to create her own Bitcoin ETF which will likely be similar to $GBTC. If approved, the ticker symbol for her Bitcoin ETF will be $ARKB. Approval or Denial is expected before the end of this year. But right now you can invest in Cathie Woods Ark Innovation ETF, ticker symbol $ARKW. This ETF holds 48 different Internet and Technology related stocks, of which includes Coinbase, Square, Tesla, and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. That's right, you can own 4 of the top 6 companies who hold Bitcoin, just by owning the ARKW ETF from Ark Invest. These 4 stocks are all in the Top 12 Holdings of the ETF, and account for 21.82% of the total ARKW Holdings as of June 25th 2020. ARKW is only up 2.96% through the first half of 2021, but is up 71% over the past 12 months.
Many Alternative Options
There you have it, 7 different ways to own Bitcoin and benefit from the rise of Bitcoin without creating a Digital Wallet or opening an account with a Cryptocurrency Exchange. If you're familiar with how to invest in the stock market, and don't want to take the time to learn how to buy Bitcoin directly, or don't want to take direct risk yourself, owning the stocks mentioned in this video is a great alternative which also allows you to minimize direct risk in ownership.
You also get the added benefit of growth from those stocks primary sources of revenue, which may smooth out the ride and lower volatility in comparison to the price moves of Bitcoin. However if you are interested in directly purchasing Bitcoin, and earning some interest on your holdings, checkout my referral links for Coinbase and BlockFi to open an interest bearing Cryptocurrency wallet! What do you think about this alternate strategy to benefit from Bitcoin through publicly traded stocks? Would you rather own Bitcoin directly, own a Bitcoin ETF, or own a company which holds Bitcoin as a proxy way of investing in Bitcoin? Which company, either on this list or not, do you think will become the next Billion Dollar Buyer of Bitcoin? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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I just bought a football team...no seriously I'm now a part owner of a football team. But it's not the NFL, it's the FCF. FCF stands for Fan Controlled Football, which is a league that allows the fans to become part of the game. Not only that, but they allow the average Joe to become an owner as well! I like to think of this as real life Madden Franchise Mode.
You may be thinking, AJ, what does this have to do with Investing or Finances in general? Well this is an Alternative Investment. An Alternative Investment is when you invest your money into something other than the stock market. Bitcoin for example, to some, is considered an alternative investment, even though it was created to be a Currency. Gold, Silver, and Real Estate are all Alternative Investments. And investing in Startups like the FCF League is an alternative investment. In this post, not only will I tell you about the FCF League and why I invested into it, but I will also tell you how you can invest in Alternative Investments if you're interested. What is Fan Controlled Football?
Robinhood is in hot water with its customers after recently stopping trading in GameStop, as well as other stocks many people in the reddit forum Wall Street Bets had their eyes on. Many are now looking for Robinhood Alternatives, and even started the hashtag #DeleteRobinhood. I've even personally noticed an uptick in the views of my Investing Tutorial videos for other investment apps. There are also Apps who are moving away from the Payment for Order Flow model, and/or providing account transfer bonuses, in order to appeal to those who may be disgruntled.
I'll give you a list of brokerage accounts which can provide you with many of the same features as Robinhood. So first I'll talk about what are the main features that attract people to Robinhood, and what other brokerage accounts can offer you some of the same features. User Friendly Mobile App One of the main things that attract users to Robinhood is the easy of use, or user friendliness of the app. Now I would say that what one person considers user friendly will vary, so almost every app in this video is an app that I would personally consider user friendly. That leaves 5 specific features that I want to focus on for this list of alternatives. 1) Free Trading 2) Fractional Shares 3) Automated Share Purchases 4) Options Trading 5) Cryptocurrency These are 5 features Robinhood offers which I believe make it a very attractive app, whether you are a new or seasoned investor. Here are the apps you may want to consider which provide some of these same features. This is not a head to head ranking of which app is the best investment app, I will start off with the apps that provide at least 2 of the 5 features mentioned above, increasing the number of matching features as we go along. Matches 2 of 5 Features
Motif Investing is closing down as of May 20th 2020. If you choose to do nothing, your accounts will transfer to Folio Investing, and this process will be automatic. However, you do have the choice to choose a new brokerage account for yourself instead. As a former Motif user myself, here's why I think M1 Finance would be the best choice for your next brokerage account. Let's discuss some of the Similarities and Differences between Motif Investing and M1Finance.
Similarities
Motifs vs Pies:
With Motif and M1 Finance you can select pre-made portfolios, combine pre-made portfolios to create a hybrid, or create your own portfolio! Motif Investing called these Motifs, while M1 Finance calls them Pies. This allows you to select multiple companies you would like to invest in, and purchase them all in one transaction. This was a game changer when Motif Investing first offered this to the public, and I jumped at the opportunity! This essentially allowed you to create your own Index Fund or Mutual Fund like portfolio. I used Motif Investing for over 5 years, up until I started using M1 Finance last year. Fractional Shares: The great thing about both platforms is the ability to deposit a small amount of money, while being able to buy into the companies you believe in. No matter the price! This means that for as little as just $1 you could buy into high priced stocks like the MAGA Stocks: Microsoft (over $200), Amazon (over $2K), Google (over $2K), Apple (over $200) per share. Differences
Lower Minimum Buys:
With Motif in order to add more money to your motif, you needed to either have the paid subscription to automate it, and you needed to buy-in with a minimum of $250 each time. With M1 Finance you only need $100 to open your account or $500 for a Traditional or Roth IRA, however once your pie is rolling, you only need a minimum of $10 to add money to your pie, and $1 per individual stock or ETF within your portfolio. Recurring Income: No bonuses for other users buying your pie, other than the current referral bonus available at the time if a new user joins based on you sharing your pie with them. This is one feature I liked about Motif, as you could make several portfolios, and whenever other users bought into your portfolio you would receive commission. It was a small amount at just $1-$2, but something that you could continue to receive even after their initial purchase if they continued to put money into it. Rebalancing and Reinvesting Dividends: Motif didn't offer rebalancing free of charge. All trades within M1 are free, whether you are buying, selling, or rebalancing. You have the ability to reinvest your dividends, as long as your cash balance is above $10. You can setup automatic reinvestment of your dividends into your whole pie, not just back into the stock that paid the dividend, once your total cash balance is over $10. You can set a higher cash balance threshold if you choose. No Fees: M1 Finance is essentially Motif, without the trading fees! Although you can upgrade to the M1 Plus account if you would like an additional afternoon trading window to make your purchases. Otherwise, your trades can only go through once per day if you put in your order before 10am EST. Why M1 Finance? Pretty Much the Same App, with less limitations, more automation, and no fees! Instead of a maximum of 30 stocks or ETFs in a Motif, you have a maximum of 100 stocks or ETFs in a your M1 Pie. Both have the option to automate your investing, add money to your fund in order to rebalance back to the levels you set for each stock or group of stocks, and allow you to purchase fractional shares! Balance Transfer Bonus: If you transfer a balance of greater than $100K, you will receive at least a $250 Bonus, up to a $2,500 Bonus. This bonus lasts through the month of May. Folio Investing vs M1 Finance
The alternative you have to selecting your own new brokerage is to go with the new owner of Motif accounts if you take no action before May 20th, and that is Folio Investing. Is M1 Finance a better platform than Folio Investing? Well one of the major differences is that Folio Investing will charge you fees, when M1 Finance is essentially the same as Motif and Folio Investing but without the fees? What does FolioFirst have to offer?
Basic Plan: Similar to Motif and M1 Finance, with their Basic Plan you can invest in groups of stocks and ETFs called Folios. Just like M1 Finance, Folio Investing also allows you to invest in up to 100 total stocks or ETFs within your Folio. There are 160+ ready to go folios that you can choose from. However Folio Investing charges $15 per quarter, and charges $4 per trade. Unlimited Plan: With the unlimited plan, you can make up to 2000 "commission free trades", so you don't have the individual $4 charge per trade. However you are charged $29 per month instead of $15 per quarter for this plan. Or you can save slightly by paying $290 for the annual plan, saving you 2 months worth of fees. However, that's still almost $300 per year in fees, compared to ZERO fees with M1 Finance. The one feature Folio Investing has, is the ability to make market, limit, stop, and stop-limit orders...for a fee of course! If you have the basic plan it is $10 per trade or $3 per trade with the Unlimited Plan. With M1 Finance you have only 1 trade window per day with it's free basic account, or 2 windows if you choose to upgrade to their M1 Plus Account. The M1 Plus upgrade has a few other features as well, like a high yield cash management account, and the ability to borrow against your investments. These are not features I personally use, but may be of interest to others.
So what's keeping you from switching to M1 Finance? It's essentially a free version of Motif with less limitations and no fees! If you're a passive investor, and like to automate your investments into the individual stocks or ETFs you are interested in over a the long haul, then this is the perfect time to switch to M1 Finance!
I have a referral link available in the description and comment section below, so let us know what you think in the comments below. If you're a current or former Motif user, let us know what decision you made in the comments below. Did you stick with Folio Investing? Did you switch to M1 Finance? Or did you choose an alternate route, and if so what brokerage did you choose?
When thinking of getting started with investing in the stock market, there is a lot of initial fear for some.
Stock Back Rewards?
Before you swipe your card again, read this post! Better yet, before you spend any money, read this blog post. Sooner or later we all have to spend money somewhere. Whether it is to buy groceries, pay our phone bill's, light bill, furniture, gas for our car, maintenance of our car, eating out, new mobile phones and laptops etc... Almost every day we are spending money either in-store, through an app on our smartphone, or on a computer via a web browser like Chrome, Safari, FireFox, or Internet Explorer. Well why not get rewarded and get paid to spend money! If you're really pressed for time, here's my Top 7 of the Best Cash Back Apps. Use my referral links to receive a bonus for signing up. Otherwise keep reading for more details.
The Best Cash Back Apps
Rankings updated 12/24
7) Drop App: Code bjse9 Get $5 Sign Up Bonus
6) GetUpside App: Code FAB72 Get 15 Cents per Gallon Sign Up Bonus 5) Dosh App: Code AJM62 Get $1 Sign Up Bonus 4) Ebates App: Code AJMOB14 Get $10 Sign Up Bonus 3) Pei App: Code 4ozbzr Get $2.50 Sign Up Bonus 2) Bumped App (Waitlist) 1) Bits of Stock App (Waitlist) SoFi Money and SoFi Invest just hit mainstream! Striking a 20 Year Deal with an NFL Stadium.9/19/2019 Social Finance is really putting themselves out there now! The Financial Services start-up, known as SoFi for short, just paid big bucks to put their name on the most expensive NFL stadium ever built! That stadium is the home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. It is the only private company with its name on ANY stadium of a sports team. They are really stepping their marketing game up to promote the many financial products they have released this year. Who is SoFi?SoFi is a Financial Services company who provides many services. The CEO Anthony Noto is the former CFO of the NFL, former COO of Twitter, and head of Twitter Ventures. Given his background its not surprising for him to spark a deal like this with the NFL! SoFi started out providing Student Loans and Student Loan Refinancing, and have recently expanded their available financial products to other loan types including Mortgage Loans, as well as Insurance. The products which interest me particularly is the Cash Management Account and Investment Account made available in the past year. SoFi Money
Let's first start off with a disclaimer. I am not a tax professional, and I do not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Readers should consult their tax advisors! There...I said it!
However, I thought this would be a fun math experiment. Is it possible for a middle class family of 4 to optimize their federal tax to the point where they won't owe anything at the end of the year? I think there are many ways to do this if you plan correctly! In the past I've used my income from the previous year, plus making adjustments to my W-4 withholding to try and approximate how much tax I will owe at the end of the year, so that I can get my tax bill or perhaps a refund that is as close to ZERO as possible! BIG TAX REFUNDS & BIG TAX BILLS ARE FOR SUCKERS
First let's discuss why getting a huge refund at the end of the year is not "The Move" at all. When you receive a refund, this means that you've OVER PAID what you OWED in taxes for that year. You're essentially providing the government with an Interest Free Loan! When is the last time someone...anyone, especially an institution given you an interest fee loan? For 99% of us that answer is never! The closest you'll get is a credit card balance transfer, and most charge you a fee upfront, with no interest for a certain time period. Typically 6-12 months. After this time period, if you haven't paid off your card, you will be charged interest for the remaining balance as if you were being charged interest the whole time period. Banks are in the business of making money, so a loan is a means of making money off of your need to access cash.When you pay taxes, you are providing cash for the government to take care of the country or states needs. Now it may not be as efficient as we would like it to be, but that is its purpose.
Let's start with a rough example: You or your family unit provides the government with $1,000 of tax revenue each month, which adds up to $12,000 total at the end of the year. Of that $12,000, let's say you really only owed $9,600. That equals $2,400 at the end of year. Unfortunately that money had no opportunity to compound in order to help your money grow in a savings account or in investments. If instead, you could figure out a formula where you pay the exact amount of taxes you will owe, after taking into account Tax Deductions and Tax Credits, then you could put that money in a savings account or invest it throughout the course of the year. Let's assume you are a tax genius, or know one, and you were able to pay exactly $9,600 throughout the course of the year. What would the $2,400 turn into? There are three main ways that MAJOR wealth is created in the United States, and throughout the World. Those 3 are by creating a Business, selling or renting properties in the Real Estate market, and investing in the Stock Market. Of those 3, guess which is the easiest to get started in, and takes the least amount of money? You guessed it, investing in the Stock Market! Well if it's so easy, why doesn't everyone do it? I think one of the main reasons is that we, as well as your traditional Financial institutions, and investing gurus, make it seem more difficult than it really is. In the simplest form, all it takes to invest in a company via the stock market is 1) Opening a Brokerage Account (as easy as opening a Checking or Savings Account), 2) Depositing money into that account, and 3) Selecting the company or companies* you would like to invest in! Yes, investing in the stock market is as easy as 1,2,3! So why do Financial Institutions, the gurus on CNBC and other forms of media, as well as your friend's coworker's 3rd nephew who hit it big in the market, make it seem like it is so difficult that you MUST pay them (or someone) to do it? Like most things in life, you can make them as simple or as complex as you want. The OracleFor example: Warren Buffett is the greatest investor of our lifetime. Over about a 50 year period, he averaged over a 20% gain per year in the stock market, while the overall market gained about 10% per year. Yes, he basically DOUBLED the average gain of the market, which means there was someone (or thousands of others) who gained less than average in the stock market. Traditional wisdom might tell you to just pay Warren Buffett to invest your money, or someone else may tell you that if you pay them you can get similar gains from the stock market. Or you could literally get the exact same gains as Warren Buffett by purchasing stock in the company he is the head of...Berkshire Hathaway, Ticker: BRK/A or BRK/B. Before 1996 you would have needed $33,500 (now over $319,000) in order to purchase 1 share of BRK/A. But in 1996, Berkshire Hathaway created a 2nd class of their stock (BRK/B) in which its cost per share was only $22 (now over $200). As you can see, both are worth about 10x more now than in 1996, so performance for both classes of stock percentage wise, are basically the same. This made it affordable for the Average Jill to invest in Berkshire stock, and let Warren Buffett literally be the captain of their investment ship. But Wait, There's More! |
AJ Mobile MoneyHusband | Father | YouTuber | Former ATLien Subscribe!Disclosure: Some of the links throughout my site are Affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase or sign up for certain accounts. Affiliate links help to run this site!
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