Lisa Bourke started regularly investing in cryptocurrency last year and is looking at it as a long-term strategy for her kids. (Source: Lisa Bourke)
An Aussie mum has shared the unique way she is building a financial foundation for her two young kids to hopefully help them achieve their own slice of the great Australian dream one day. Cryptocurrency is growing in popularity amongst Aussies, and it is increasingly being used as part of broader intergenerational wealth planning.
Lisa Bourke has been investing her spare loose cash into cryptocurrency for the last year. The 40-year-old digital marketer from Brisbane told Yahoo Finance she was investing roughly $50 a week into four different cryptocurrencies.
“It’s coffee money. It’s the money that I don’t need. If it all went to zero, if the market crashed, and for whatever reason, crypto wasn’t a thing, it wouldn’t impact me financially,” she said.
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Bourke first invested in Bitcoin in 2023, putting $3,000 from a tax refund she received into the volatile digital currency.
She didn’t look at it again until 2025, when she started getting interested in cryptocurrency again and doing more research. By then, her initial $3,000 investment was worth $9,000.
Bourke sold her Bitcoin last year and transferred the proceeds into four “utility” coins, with the majority invested in Ripple (XRP).
Along with investing $50 a week, Bourke has started collecting “cans for crypto” with her kids, aged 7 and 9.
“Whenever we go away for the weekend or after a month, we’ll collect any bottles that we’ve used at home and me and the kids will take it down to Containers for Change and convert it and then we’ll put it straight into crypto,” she said.
“You could just throw those bottles in the bin and that’s the whole point.”
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Around a third of Aussies own cryptocurrency and adoption has expanded through generations. (Source: Getty)
Bourke and her husband have other investments outside of crypto, including an investment property and some shares, so she sees it as a “fun” way to potentially build some wealth.
“It’s not like I’m hoping to make all this money, but I can see the opportunity to potentially multiply. Instead of looking at a 2 per cent increase on your money if you left it in the bank,” she said.
Crypto, of course, is notoriously volatile. Bourke has seen her balance hit north of $20,000, but it is now down at around $11,000.
She plans to potentially sell her cryptocurrency in the next five to 10 years and give the money to her kids.
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“With the great Australian dream getting further and further away for young people, it would be amazing if I could give them something that could potentially help them purchase their first house,” she said.
“If you can take that pressure off a young person getting into the housing market, I think that’s huge.”
Vakul Talwar, Crypto.com general manager for Australia, is seeing a “clear shift” in how people think about crypto, with people viewing it as a long-term store of wealth and a way to diversify other investments.
“We are seeing this play out all the way from high-net-worth-individuals and family offices, through to first-time retail investors,” he told Yahoo Finance.
Research by cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve estimates 33 per cent of Aussies now own cryptocurrency, up from 31 per cent last year.
Financial adviser Alex Jamieson said he’d noticed cryptocurrency ownership had “expanded dramatically right through generations” and people were investing as part of a broader, diversified approach.
“It’s not uncommon for someone to say, I have some crypto or digital assets, and certainly there’s that dabbling on the side,” the Jamieson Private Wealth founder told Yahoo Finance.
“Quite a large number of people that we come across have put their toe in the water at various levels.”
Financial adviser Alex Jamieson says he is seeing parents and grandparents ‘micro saving’ for younger generations. (Source: Alex Jamieson)
The strongest adoption rates are among younger Aussies, with 53 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 owning crypto. About 4 per cent of Baby Boomers own crypto.
“Older Australians are increasingly engaging with crypto, including through self‑managed super funds, as they look to diversify portfolios and plan for long‑term financial outcomes,” Talwar said.
Aussies hold an estimated $3.25 billion in crypto assets via SMSFs, according to ATO data. Meanwhile, major industry super fund Hostplus has said it is mulling how Bitcoin and other digital assets could be offered through its Choiceplus investment option following requests from members.
Like Bourke, Jamieson said he was seeing a growing number of parents and grandparents “micro saving” for younger generations, whether that be through crypto or more reliable ETFs.
He thinks this is due to the barriers to entry becoming lower, along with older Aussies looking for alternatives beyond a traditional bank account earning a low interest rate.
“Instead of putting $100 into a bank account, they could potentially be putting it into those types of things, and that may go some way towards a car for the grandkids or something else,” he said.
Talwar said Crypto.com was also increasingly seeing crypto used as part of “broader intergenerational wealth planning”, with families now thinking about how digital assets could be stored, transferred and managed over time.
Jamieson said it was important to make an honest assessment of your digital knowledge, given the technical complexity of the digital assets and the risk of hackers.
“If you do find that there is some trepidation around the security requirements, maybe something a little bit simpler, like an ETF in the crypto digital asset space, might be an introductory step,” he said.
If you are feeling confident, Jamieson said setting up an account with a reputable crypto provider can be a first step, but it is important to do your research.
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