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Home / Business / Personal Finance

Cooking the Books podcast: Are alternative investments like bitcoin and gold worth it?

Frances Cook
By Frances Cook
BusinessDesk Investments Editor·NZ Herald·
9 Dec, 2020 04:25 AM2 mins to read

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How does bitcoin compare to other speculative investments like gold? Photo / 123RF

How does bitcoin compare to other speculative investments like gold? Photo / 123RF

OPINION

Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's the allure of bitcoin, and whether it's an investment you should consider. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Listen to the Cooking the Books podcast here or watch the interview above.

Once you've started to dip your toe into the investing world, it can be surprisingly boring.

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Far from the movies of men in suits shouting over each other incoherently, for most people the investing experience is about regularly putting some money into an account, spreading it across a wide range of assets, and then letting it do its thing.

For some people, that's a relief. For others, it's a little less exciting than they'd hoped for.

So I've been getting increasing numbers of people sending me messages, asking what I make of some of the less mainstream investments, especially bitcoin, and gold.

Now full disclosure, I'm not convinced by them, for reasons we'll talk about in this episode.

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How does bitcoin compare to other speculative investments like gold? Photo / 123RF
How does bitcoin compare to other speculative investments like gold? Photo / 123RF

But another thing that can make life boring is if we all agree with each, so I've found an investing expert who thinks a little differently than I do.

For the latest podcast I talked to Darcy Ungaro, authorised financial advisor and host of The NZ Everyday Investor podcast.

We discussed whether cryptocurrency is a legitimate investment, how you make money from it, and how it compares to other speculative investments like gold.

For the interview, watch the video above, or listen to the podcast.

Discover more

Personal Finance

Podcast: How to watch your pennies in 2021

06 Jan 02:00 AM

• If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

• Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can find new episodes in the Herald, or subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple podcasts app, or Spotify, or to our Youtube playlist

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