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From K-Pop Tokens to Robo-Buddies: The Future of Investing is Hyper-Personal

  • Writer: horizonshiftlab
    horizonshiftlab
  • Nov 13
  • 16 min read
Hand holding Bitcoin coin on glowing red line of a financial chart. Blue background with music notes, creating a futuristic financial theme.
Image Source: AI generated via Canva

The future of investing is characterized by both complexity and unprecedented accessibility. This episode delves into the profound changes shaping modern portfolios, which now span far beyond traditional stocks and bonds to include fractional real estate, startups, and hyper-personalized digital assets. Raakhee and Sue explore the emerging concept of tokenization of culture, citing a deal in Korea that allows fans to buy tokens representing a share in the revenue streams of K-pop, K-dramas, and webtoons.


The hosts also examine the mature phase of the robo-advisor industry, noting that despite early failures by some financial giants, successful firms like Vanguard and Schwab are driving massive asset growth, leading the industry to surpass $1.26 trillion in assets under management. The conversation also touches on the ethical and regulatory challenges of linking investment models to sensitive data—such as longevity and biometric data—and the general concern over hyper-personalization that could lead to a loss of control. Ultimately, the hosts hope these new, accessible platforms will increase financial literacy and democratize wealth creation, especially as traditional salaried employment models change.





From K-Pop Tokens to Robo-Buddies: The Future of Investing is Hyper-Personal


The world of investing has exploded beyond the traditional confines of stocks, bonds, and real estate. Today's portfolios are incredibly complex, reflecting not just a financial strategy but a deeply personal, digital, and forward-looking view of the world.

For educated working professionals navigating a future shaped by AI, geopolitics, and career pivots, the new landscape offers unprecedented access, but also new risks. The future of investing is defined by two major trends: the democratization of access and the hyper-personalization of advice.


1. Tokenization: Investing in Culture and Passion

One of the newest frontiers in investing is the tokenization of real-world assets, which allows retail investors to buy fractional shares of things that were once inaccessible. While non-fungible tokens (NFTs) initially failed to move beyond speculation, the concept is evolving to offer tangible ownership and revenue streams.


  • K-Pop and Cultural Equity: South Korea is pioneering this model. A recent deal involving the Korea Exchange and the trading infrastructure for intellectual property (IP) will allow fans to buy tokens representing a share of revenue streams from cultural catalogs, including K-pop acts like Blackpink and BTS. This brings fandom into the world of investing, transforming the relationship between fans and artists into a two-way monetary flow.

  • The Next Frontier: The big question is how this model will be applied to other cultural items, like music catalogs or sports teams. Imagine a musician bypassing big funds and tokenizing a future album, allowing fans to finance it and share in the revenue. This gives investors—especially younger generations focused on value investing—a way to put their money where their passions lie.


2. Robo-Advisors: The Rise of the Automated Portfolio Manager

The era of automated, digital investing is now a mature industry, despite initial doubts. Robo-advisors are automated platforms that create and manage investment portfolios based on a user's preferences, all for a much lower fee than human financial advisors.


  • Democratizing Financial Advice: The rise of robo-advisors is fundamentally democratizing access to professional portfolio management, making it accessible even to individuals with modest investment amounts who previously could not afford a human advisor.

  • A Mature and Growing Industry: While some firms like J.P. Morgan and UBS discontinued their digital-only programs , robo-advisors are thriving for those who knew how to set up the systems correctly. The robo industry finished 2024 with $1.26 trillion in assets under management, a 16% increase from the prior year. Firms like Vanguard lead the market with over $360 billion in digital advisor assets.

  • The Future is Hyper-Personalization: The next wave of robo-advice will leverage increasingly better AI to become hyper-personalized. In the future, your robo-buddy might link your financial profile with your consumption habits, biometrics, and career aspirations, tailoring investments to your life goals—such as suggesting an investment in a K-drama based on your viewing history.


The Investment Thesis for a 100-Year Life


The confluence of digital access and increased longevity is fundamentally changing the investment thesis for midlife professionals. If one is living and potentially working well past the traditional retirement age of 65, the old, conservative models no longer apply.

The ultimate vision is a world where financial and health data converge. The same AI that manages your investments might link to your biometric data to adjust your portfolio based on your projected health and career timeline. While this promises unprecedented alignment of finances and life goals, it also raises the scary prospect of losing compartmentalization—where every lifestyle decision, from a vacation treat to a workout, could immediately impact your financial and insurance profiles.

As salaried employment models shift towards a more entrepreneurial, "solopreneur" economy, investing will become a critical, must-have stream—as essential as insurance or a savings account—for securing wealth in the future. The goal for Gen Z and Gen Alpha is a future of greater financial literacy and savvy decision-making, where the tools for building wealth are truly open to all.





Selected Links:

Finance and Advisory
Tokenization and Digital Assets


Episode Transcript:

Raakhee: (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Signal Shift with me, Raakhee and Sue. Last week we delved into new economic models, kickstarting a month of episodes in the finance and money sector. And as Sue mentioned, understanding the economic models that create the base of how we transact and why was the best place to start. Today, we want to get into the happenings in the world of investing. Investing today is very easy. also very complex, risky, but exciting in ways we truly haven't seen before. Portfolios today are incredibly complex. It's not just about the types of assets, whether it's from real estate to stocks and bonds, but it's also about the types of bets you are hedging in a future that can and will hold things that we could not have dreamed up a decade ago.


Today, you are likely to have a portfolio with a traditional firm, some old school policies, but your own playpen on Robinhood. Fun investments in passion areas and startups through sites like Start Engine, direct investments into small businesses, joint investment with friends in a property, other investments in your own community that lend to self-sufficiency in your neighborhoods.


There's a lot of places to put your money and grow your money. And that's exactly what people are doing.


Wealthy families are working together to form clubs where they share opportunities to invest even developing customized accounting systems to meet the complexity of their family's portfolios. We are also seeing massive generational wealth transfer in the next few years, let alone the geopolitics and climate shifts that are truly changing where and what we invest in and how we do it. So let's talk about the world of investing today and what lies ahead in this realm,


So what are we going to see in the future of investing?


Sue: (02:03)

Thanks, Raakhee. And yeah, really good coverage in your intro just of how broad and expansive the world of investing has become. And it's no longer the place of just access for just the wealthy or for massive funds. Even your average everyday retail investor can get involved in so many different ways. And so I wanted to kind of see what's next or what hasn't been figured out yet.


And there's this whole movement around tokenization of digital currency, where you can buy essentially fractional shares. And I think that goes into you and your friends can get together and buy a building, or you can get investments into real estate together. You don't have to purchase the whole thing outright. So there's been this question of what is the next frontier of real world assets that you can invest in? And the question has been around culture. Can you do that for culture? And a while ago,


You people were buying NFTs, but that was largely speculative and you couldn't get ownership, true ownership into it. Well, again, I'm going to bring up the example of Korea. It keeps coming up. But last month there was an announcement that basically in Korea there was a deal among multiple parties. The most notable was the Korea exchange and a group called Story Protocol that runs the that runs the trading infrastructure for IP. And so it was really interesting that now they're going to be able to invest in K-pop, K-dramas, webtoons and graphic novels. And so you can actually buy tokens for this. And the catalog is really important. It includes a lot of things, but it also includes Blackpink, BTS, Psy, a couple of very notable names.


And it brings fandom into the world of investing. So it's not just a one-way monetary flow. Now it's kind of two-way between fans and artists, right? So really, really interesting. And because it's a token, I guess you can now have it accessible internationally as well.


So super, super interesting. It takes the concept of NFTs further, right, beyond just speculation, because you can get essentially a share into the revenue streams of some of the catalog, which is really, really interesting. And so this begs a bigger question of where is the future for tokenization of culture? Things like music or sports teams or, you know, what can you own essentially? As far as I know, there are too many regulatory hurdles around sports.


But there have been a lot of talks around things like music that people are really trying to figure this out. I saw a Forbes opinion piece around Taylor Swift not too long ago because she bought all the rights right back for her own catalog. And they actually said instead of going through the difficulty of getting it financed from big funds, things like that, can you go to your fan base to get your next project financed to say, hey, we're going to actually tokenize my next album and you get a share of the revenue that comes out of it I know you can actually buy tokens now to kind of vote and things like that, but it's not actual equity. There's no big revenue coming out of it, but that could be the real next step for music for other cultural items, like how do you actually invest in something like that? So that's a big question. I was looking at actually the IP price, the token, and it's not doing very well. So I wonder, yeah, is it just that the infrastructure isn't set up yet? Because it is really complicated around things related to IP. You have to get the structure right. You have to get the pricing right. Like there's so much that has to go on. But I think this is definitely a place I want to take a look at for the future.


Raakhee: (06:02)

It makes so much sense and that is so smart, right? It, and I think especially for, I think about Gen Z and who are very much about value investing, you almost cannot separate those two things for them. And so of course they're going to want to, mean, as we've seen already, people want to put their money where their passions are and what they believe in. And of course what they love, right? And what brings them joy?


Sue: (06:26)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, I think this week's episode and just digging into signals made me realize, you know, it wasn't too long ago when things like digital currency were like, it's just a passing fad. It's not going to go anywhere. And, know, you have Larry Fink making a huge announcement about the democratization of finance and how digital currency, digital investing is a huge part of that access to all these new markets, things like that. And so, yeah, it's here in so many different ways.


Raakhee: (06:54)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the signal I wanted to focus on for today was something that is also here and people also doubted, but it's going to stay. And that is what is known as a robo advisor. So robo advisors are basically automated digital investing platforms or programs.


These sort of robo advisors are not just, you know, sites for you to manage, but they also make those investment decisions and choices for you, right? They create and manage your portfolio based on certain choices you make in preferences you indicate, but they are making those decisions. Their fees are a lot less than having human advisors telling you where to put your money. And as we know, AI is getting better and better with time, right?


Now, what initially happened in the last couple of years is there were a lot of doubts and questions about RoboAdvisors in the last couple of years. A lot of companies kind of jumped to them and then the AI bubble in the space did start to sort of burst. So JP Morgan discontinued their digital only automated investing program. They didn't have any traction on it. It had to go. Ellevest, which is the woman's investing platform, similar thing. They had a digital robo advisor service that had to close down. And UBS has also decided to retire its AI Advantage robo advisor. So we've seen kind of this wave of people really doubting and saying, OK, this is not working. But on the flip side, robo advisors are actually working really well with investors who are already working in that digital space and who really knew how to set up the systems and set them up the right way for people to manage their finances online. Companies like Vanguard and Schwab. Vanguard, for instance, leads with over 360 billion in its digital advisor assets.


The robo industry actually finished 2024 with 1.26 trillion in assets under management. This is according to the company Condor and the estimates around this, And that number, interestingly enough, and this is a big percentage, but it's up 16 % from the prior year. So again, what we see is this massive growth that now is happening really quickly one year. It's going to be even higher the next year and it's going to be much higher the following year. So the robot industry has officially entered a mature phase. So if anybody thinks that this is just, again, a passing phase, that's actually not true.


Robo advisors are getting much better at dealing with complexity because AI is getting better.


So, you know, the big question is, and I think it is, I think my answer is I think it is, that our robo-advisors now democratizing access to financial advice.


Are they making these professionally managed portfolios more accessible to individuals with modest investment amounts? Who cannot afford to have investment advisors and financial advisors but still want to put their money really smartly somewhere? I think, for example, in the Indian community, gold has always been that. And gold has actually been a way to democratize access to wealth in a certain sense, right? So even sometimes the poorest of families would have their little bit of gold that gets passed down generation to generation and grows and grows. when you think about the value of gold and how it's gone even recently and probably is going to be even higher next year.


It's not the silliest of bets to take. But I think now with things like robo-advisors that change things where even if you may not have all the education in the world, I mean, understand this world, where to put your investments, you have this robo-buddy who might be able to make these choices for you. And I assume we'll get to a point where there'll be a lot of protections in place as well for consumers when using these kinds of products. now from... Vanguard to Fidelity to Wells Fargo. Many financial institutions do have robo advisors. Again, this is the study that was done from Condor Capital. But for example, Wells Fargo, the intuitive advisor showed 11.68 3yr total returns 4 to 10 % is generally considered good, right, over three years.


Right now, part of what's restricting the industry is that there are some stringent fiduciary responsibilities and disclosure regulations. SEC has already penalized two advisory firms for this concept that's called AI washing, making misleading claims about what the AI can do. So, you there are these multiple factors all come into play.


When we do get it right, those same regulations will ensure we are all protected, but we can still, like I said, democratize access and have access to these cool robot advisors helping us grow our money. I think the future, again, of this is going to be hyper-personalization,


I think after two years, after three years, I'm taking guesses here. But I think after that point, like with everything else, it's simply going to be linked to your profiles everywhere. And I don't even know if you'll have to tell it where to put your money. It's going to kind of make those choices for you. like, well, you watched this K-drama last week. So-and-so actor is now starting his own whatever. I think you want to invest in it. Hyper-personalization, which I think will be the next wave.


Sue: (12:15)

Yeah, that's interesting. Also for me, scary thought. And yeah, I guess it is true that this is going to be kind of this Wild West, and it's going to catalyze more regulation of what's going to be happening, because there will be people who will, you know, unfortunately get the downside of a lot of this. So I think that's been the risk overall, thinking about this is just what protections are there for retail investors, especially who don't have a lot of investing experience, things like that, to make sure that they're still making wise choices on what they're doing.


And I think that kind of gets into my second signal, I think what I wanted to do was tie the future of investing and what we're seeing, especially the digitization and democratization of it. With some of the economic models we had last week. So I really picked longevity, because if we really are living to 100, how does that change your investment thesis? And for so long, there's been this investment thesis of more conservative move, the closer and closer you get to 65. But again, if we're saying we're going to be working way past 65, what does that do to our investment models? And also, converge that with the fact that so many people are not saving enough for retirement.


I thought, does that change? Could you actually have AI and some kind of app that will combine your longevity and your biometric data along with your financial data? I have not seen that to date from what I was looking at. There were a couple of life insurance companies that were starting to do better pricing around that as people are living longer and creating more insurance packages, but nothing related to actual investment, your health.


But I think where you're going with that, Raakhee, is exactly towards that. Like, can you get your health profile and your career aspiration linked to your investment profile so it all makes sense with your life goals? Because not everyone's following kind of this very standard, you know, you do your education, you do your work, you do your family, and then you retire and that's it. You have one career. And so I think that's kind of the next wave that I want to see is with all these available investment options. How do you tailor one? there probably will be some now new like intermediary that will help you figure out all these choices as you move every three to five years in your life journey.


Raakhee: (14:50)

And I think the scary part of it is we will make some dings. So if you go to that family wedding and you're having a blast and you gain a couple of kilos and you come back from holiday, you get dinged for that, right?


If you get dinged for that on, I don't know, your health insurance, does it then impact your life insurance and does it impact some portfolios? I think the fear, and tell me if you feel the same way, almost these rigidity that might come up with all these things, right? And the integration and almost like a sense of like, like you have more control, but you don't have control. Like you're losing control. How do you feel?


Sue: (15:30)

Exactly. I think that's what scares me is that just that every single decision has such an impact over multiple realms of your life, whereas at least in the analog version, right, you can compartmentalize as you need for better or worse. But now if you have just, yeah, just linked decisions that kind of start getting triggered based on something that you barely gave a thought to, that part is really scary to me.


Raakhee: (15:59)

That's one of the, I think, the challenging things about our current and our future for sure. But on the positive side, is there anything, any places or, you if you had to get tokens, what would it be? Or, yeah, is there anything you're excited about in terms of the future investing and where you can put your money or things you can do with it?


Sue: (16:20)

I guess the interesting thing is with just larger digital access to a lot of investing platforms and people younger and younger being able to do this, you're able to just have more financial literacy when you're younger, right? Like one of the big gripes, at least growing up here, is there was no financial literacy class growing up. And so you study while you can make really poor financial decisions.


And there's really no curriculum that's provided or mandated for people to take, right? Even just basic financial literacy courses. So by allowing a lot of these investing platforms, just digital banking platforms available and also tailored for basic banking concepts, I feel like, you know, maybe the millennials missed out on that, Gen X, but like Gen Z, hopefully Gen Alpha, they're just more savvy in terms of how to use their money.


And they will be, and now you're seeing all these different ways to hopefully gain wealth,


In the future with some of the ways that we're opening up investment opportunities for people like, does this actually sway who gets investment, what it's for, how communities are benefiting? So that's my hope for the future.


Raakhee: (17:36)

especially Gen Alpha, who I think will just be wiser. And I think for me, the way I see it as well is that reality dawning of kind of work in a way we know it traditionally changing, it becoming more of an entrepreneurship, solopreneur, whatever it may be, I think investing becomes really critical, kind of very similar to how we've always gotten insurance and had certain insurance or had savings accounts, I think investing has got to become a critical aspect of one of those streams of how you secure your wealth and your finances in the kind of world we're gonna be entering into, in a world that's going to be really different where the question of salaried employment, I think, really changes in the future.


And I think with that, I'll add the very, very important disclaimer about this week's episode.


It applies to really all of our episodes, but particularly this one is we are not at all claiming to be financial experts and we not. We just share information. We find interesting things we're thinking about, but please do not take anything we have said in this episode as any kind of financial advice.


Be really smart about your choices and how you play and experiment. We just want to point to some signs of what is happening in this space. So with that, thank you so much for being here. We still have a couple of more episodes in this theme, So we're excited for those few more coming up. And we will see you again next week. Bye for now.

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