Gen Z Pivots to Crypto as Housing Costs Reach 7.5x Salary
Speaking at Consensus Hong Kong on February 11, CoinFund managing partner David Pakman argued that Gen Z's embrace of high-risk crypto products is not reckless gambling but a logical reaction to a broken economic system. He termed this behavior “economic nihilism,” where traditional wealth-building strategies are no longer viable. The primary barrier is housing, with the average home now costing a Gen Z buyer 7.5 times their annual salary, a steep increase from the 4.5 times multiple faced by Gen X and Boomers. This has effectively locked a generation out of the housing market, as evidenced by homeownership rates for 25-year-olds falling to just 13%.
This economic exclusion is directly channeling capital into digital assets. Over half of all Gen Z investors now own cryptocurrency, viewing high-leverage instruments as a viable, if not necessary, path to financial mobility. This trend underpinned the massive growth in crypto perpetual contracts, which saw notional trading volumes hit $100 trillion last year. Pakman views this turn toward memecoins, prediction markets, and leveraged futures as a calculated choice.
It's becoming actually rational to think that if the typical ways that long-term wealth creation is closed off to you, a small chance at a large return beats near certainty of slow decline.
— David Pakman, Managing Partner, CoinFund.
Prediction Markets Explode With Over $1B in January Volume
The speculative appetite Pakman described is materializing in the rapid expansion of prediction markets. What was a $100 million niche has ballooned into a $44 billion sector in just three years. Leading platforms are capturing enormous flows, with Polymarket alone processing over $1 billion in trading volume in January 2026. This momentum demonstrates a clear product-market fit for instruments that allow users to speculate on a wide array of outcomes, from sports to politics.
In response to this demand, platforms are innovating beyond simple binary outcomes. Polymarket recently announced a partnership with AI data firm Kaito to launch "attention markets," a new product allowing users to bet on the social media popularity and sentiment surrounding trends, brands, and public figures. This move quantifies cultural relevance into a tradable asset, meeting the generational demand for new, transparent, and digitally native ways to express risk and market views.
