Finance1 min read

India’s new wealth rituals: What are millennials and Gen Z buying on Dhanteras?

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Younger buyers are transforming traditional festive purchasing by using app-based transactions to acquire gold via mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. This approach allows them to avoid practical frictions such as making charges, insurance premiums, and storage risks. Furthermore, investors are combining these paper gold assets with equities and digital currencies like Bitcoin through recurring monthly contributions. In the future, tokenised real-world assets on blockchains may provide fractional, highly regulated avenues for these cultural acquisitions.

Key points

  • Modern festive wealth creation is shifting from physical metal accumulation toward divers…: Modern festive wealth creation is shifting from physical metal accumulation toward diversified, app-based portfolio construction.
  • Bitcoin shares a fixed-supply narrative with gold but carries higher volatility and lacks…: Bitcoin shares a fixed-supply narrative with gold but carries higher volatility and lacks gold's deep cultural and industrial history.
  • Emerging blockchain tokenisation could soon allow festive buyers to hold fractional gold…: Emerging blockchain tokenisation could soon allow festive buyers to hold fractional gold and other real-world assets as regulated digital tokens.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

For earlier generations, the ritual meant a visit to the local jeweller, a purchase of bullion or jewellery, and a place in the home safe or bank locker. It was familiar, but it carried friction: making charges, storage and insurance costs, and the ever-present risk of loss or theft.

The aspiration endures. Its expression is changing. Millennials and Gen Z grew up with digital payments and app-based services, and they expect buying an asset to be as seamless as booking a ride. Importantly, the shift is additive rather than substitutive. Many younger investors still buy gold, but increasingly through gold ETFs and mutual funds, which remove making charges and storage worries. Alongside this, digital platforms have opened equities, mutual funds and digital assets to anyone who can invest a modest sum each month.

Also Read | Dhanteras 2026: Buying gold today? Here's how to choose between jewellery, coins, ETFs and SGBs

The more consequential change is one of mindset. The question is moving from “what should I buy this Dhanteras?” to “how should my assets work together?” Diversification, asset allocation,…

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