Friday afternoon at The Preston of Park Cities retirement home, 16 seniors look up expectantly at their teacher: a 21-year-old former president of the blockchain club at the University of Texas at Austin.
Music plays in the background of the quiet meeting room as he introduces a presentation titled “Crypto Crash Course.”
The Dallas senior living facility has regular classes, but this is the first one delving into the complexities of cryptocurrencies and NFTs (non-
fungible tokens) — topics with few experts even among younger generations.
“I was a guest lecturer at my university for an intro to blockchain course just because there aren’t a lot of people who know enough to teach this stuff,” said Owen Robertson, the young crypto lecturer who’s majoring in the management of information systems. He’s also on the board of the McCombs School of Business Blockchain Initiative and works as a marketing associate at blockchain company Quai Network.
The retirement home advertised the class as a way to educate residents on legitimate crypto avenues and how to avoid scams. The class met three times during the summer for an overview of NFTs — a unique, individual token on the blockchain that you can buy, sell or trade — and all participants left with their own NFT.
The idea for the lecture came from a brainstorming session for the community’s monthly programming series, said Debra Dickerson, director of community life at The Preston.
“In this case, we wanted to provide them with access to a crypto, NFT and internet scams expert, to help them better identify online threats and people looking to take advantage of seniors,” she said.
At the first meeting, there were four fewer people than at a typical class, Dickerson said.
“I knew it may be difficult to get them interested in this, so I promised chocolate ice cream and wine to everyone who came,” Dickerson said. “They see crypto and say, ‘I don’t know what that is.’ ”
Targeting seniors
Elder fraud has increased dramatically in the digital age, which has brought new and easier ways to scam people through phishing emails and texts. Last year, elders in the United States were scammed out of $1.7 billion through fraud schemes, a 74% increase from 2020, according to a report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. Of the complaints received from people older than 60, more than 5,000 mentioned a form of virtual currency, like Bitcoin, for a total loss of $241.1 million.
Robertson opened by telling the story of Lazarus Group, North Korean hackers who are alleged to have stolen as much as $100 million in cryptocurrency from a U.S. company in June.
“Scammers can be very elaborate,” Robertson told the audience. “The best practice is to never click on a link or PDF unless you know the person who sent it to you and have spoken to them.”
Robertson recounted a story of his own in which someone texted him pretending to be his boss. But when he got the text, Robertson was sitting across from his boss.
“Is one way they get to you by saying you won a prize?” asked one member of the audience, saying he had received such a text.
“Yes,” Robertson said. “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Robertson referenced the cryptocurrency called Luna, which fell from $116 in early April to essentially zero, causing many investors to lose large sums of money. If you had bought the coin in its first three months and sold it at its height when it hit a market cap of more than $40 billion, you could have made 1,000 times your initial investment.
“This is an example of if it’s too good to be true, it is. The token was originally trusted like the Amazon of the crypto world,” he said. “But it went from hero to zero.”
Cryptocurrencies have skyrocketed in popularity because of the ease of access to them through the internet and because of the chance of large monetary gains, he said.
“There’s a lot of people who have staked their lives on crypto, and I would say to never do that,” he said.
‘Let the dust settle’
Robertson’s opinion is the industry needs five to 10 years to “let the dust settle” before it’s a safe investment. As some in the audience jokingly pointed out, that meant it was mostly off-limits for the older crowd.
“Ninety-nine percent of what is out right now is not worth the risk,” he said about the industry that’s a little over a decade old. “Don’t trust anyone’s opinion without verifying it yourself.”
But, for seniors who were still interested, Robertson said they’d be best off by investing in Bitcoin and staying away from all other cryptocurrencies. That’s partly because its supply limit has always stood at 21 million coins, while other cryptocurrencies have an infinite supply, he said.
“Most of the cryptocurrencies we see today won’t be relevant in five years,” he said. “It’s going to keep changing over time. I see it like the internet in the 1990s.”
Robertson ended the class by asking, “Can we take a selfie together? I’d like to turn it into an NFT.”
Participants in the class went home not just smarter about non-fungible tokens, but owners of one, too.
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