What my brother, YouTube, and Bitcoin tried to warn us | Opinion

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: What my brother, YouTube, and bitcoin tried to warn us | Opinion Original Link: I’ve always been fortunate to work in companies that value research and analysis of customer behavior. This taught me that behavioral changes tend to occur gradually, not overnight. But it is essential to notice, and act, when they start to emerge.

I had good examples at home. When I was 20 and my brother was 15, around 2005-6, I noticed he didn’t watch TV. Neither open nor closed. For him, the 32-inch TV was just a monitor for his computer, where he watched YouTube.

YouTube was already his television, his channel for information and entertainment. This was at a time when Google, visionary, had just bought a small video site about a year old with around 30 million users – YouTube. Today, a powerhouse with 2.7 billion visitors.

At that moment, broadcast television was the main and uncontested means of communication in the country. It seemed unlikely that it would face competition from a video site.

Changes tend to be like this: slow. Sometimes imperceptible, initially limited to small groups (early adopters), who end up being ridiculed, questioned, or marginalized.

After some steps in the corporate world, I gained access to research that reinforced, with data, the power of these changes and the risk of underestimating them. Habit changes create opportunities, as well as risks to established businesses with business models that often become obsolete.

I remember a study I accessed about a media company’s subscriber base: high concentration of people aged 50+ and with high education. This research supported the positioning of their products as premium: “if you want to talk to the wealthy, here is the right media”. And it was true. At that moment.

But, looking at the full picture, not just the snapshot of that moment, it was clear that this base was aging. There were signs of changing behavior among people like my teenage brother. And the inevitable question: what would happen when these older subscribers cease to exist?

Then, in 2025, when I started a new professional movement, I received another study. Analyzing American investors by age group, the share by asset class changed completely.

And two data points, in particular, caught my attention:

Cryptocurrencies / Digital Assets 21 to 43 years: second largest share, 28%

44+ years: smallest share, 14%

American Stocks | Domestic Variable Income 21 to 43 years: smallest share, 4%

44+ years: largest share, 41%

I don’t want or can endorse any investment. I only observe data. And they show a clear change in behavior: young people are investing differently from older ones.

We don’t need to like, agree, or follow. It’s not a value judgment. It is happening. Even if our friends still don’t talk about it, or if it seems “American stuff.” It’s happening there – and there’s a good chance it will repeat here.

Today, working in a new financial industry and always attentive to indicators and research, I suggest paying closer attention to this change in personal finance. To those who think that “crypto and bitcoin are not for me,” I suggest investigating. Don’t rely on social media gurus. Seek certified content, books, articles, research, and respected comparisons.

Crypto is no longer the future. It is the present. And maybe you just haven’t realized it yet. As recently said by the CEO of a telecom company in a meeting I attended: “I don’t know much about crypto, but my son studies it and keeps asking me to invest in bitcoin, so I started doing it to learn how to debate with him.”

This is what my brother was trying to say when he swapped the TV for YouTube, long before it became an undeniable truth. Behavioral changes tend to be slow and, sometimes, imperceptible. The risk is never the change. The risk is pretending it’s not happening.