‘Just convert to USD and see’: Finfluencer says India’s ‘best’ investments are fake wins

In a pointed LinkedIn post, Wisdom Hatch founder and finfluencer Akshat Shrivastava says Indians celebrating decent investment returns may be missing the bigger picture. The real loss, he warns, is in their currency.

“In 2023, the best performing stock market in the world was Pakistan,” Shrivastava wrote. “You know why? Due to currency debasement.”

Shrivastava argued that even highly educated Indians overlook a simple fact: a weakening rupee erodes real wealth. “If currency depreciates (compared to other currencies), it hurts you,” he said, adding that NRIs benefit from a stronger USD, as it boosts their buying power in India.

The numbers he shared are stark. Over the last decade, the rupee has depreciated by 3–4% annually. Compound that over 10 years, and the result is what he calls a “massive erosion of buying power.”

The fallout, according to Shrivastava, is visible across the Indian real estate market. “Most of the properties in India are being bought by either black money guys or NRIs,” he said.

He attributes the affordability crisis to stagnant wage growth. “Salaries in India (on an average) have grown by 0.4% CAGR over the last 10 years,” he noted, calling the mismatch between income and asset prices unsustainable.

Even disciplined savers are losing, Shrivastava said, if they kept their money in rupee-denominated assets. “If you worked and saved money over the last 10 years (i.e., you ‘invested’)… again they lost value.”

Indians, he says, must measure investment performance against a stable base currency—typically the US dollar. “So the next time you are calculating your Mutual Fund returns or Real Estate returns from India: convert those returns to USD and see.”