I used to advocate for loosening accredited investor standards, and was involved in a 2014 effort that did so. Then I see this. Where public equities are put on the same pedestal as crypto (and implicitly, private equity), while the universe of commodities, fixed income, credit, real estate and their myriads of derivatives are ignored. Like, I dabble in angel investments. But they’re as risky as crypto, and require thousands of dollars of legal diligence per investment, even to do irresponsibly.

We have a gambling problem in our markets that’s been sold to everyday Americans under the guise of democratising finance. We don’t need to block people from being irresponsible. But there should be a low cap, in line with a responsible fraction of one’s wealth that could be burned in a casino, and strict exemptions guarded with exams, not a wealth test. Particularly for the socially useless forms, such as slot machines and crypto futures.

I'm not sure this is fair to Vegas. Sure the odds are against you but if you somehow win they'll cash your chips out.

I'm also not sure about the lack of investment opportunities. Returns in the public market and real estate have both been quite decent. In my adult life I've bought index funds and a small, crappy house and they're both worth more than what I bought them for.

I appreciate the desire to get involved with early stage companies but I'm not sure how many really want to put in the effort to bring in someone who doesn't have enough money to be an accredited investor. That accreditation bar isn't very high, anyone under it doesn't have much capital by definition.

Based on these requirements I would guess that 10% of the population could certainly qualify given that a quick Google search says that almost 9% of the population are millionaires.

I think you mean lack of legit opportunities to get rich quick, which is not a new phenomenon. Getting rich quick requires a lot of luck.

Is that true?

Just putting your money on an index fund like S&P would've yielded you an average 14.5% per year in the last decade or an almost 400 % return in a decade.

Stock market more than doubled in the last 5 years and it highly outperformed crypto markets.

There has been no shortage of investment opportunities, but you people sound simply...looking for highly volatile quick gains.