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Dan Morehead, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-chief investment officer of struggling cryptocurrency hedge fund Pantera Capital, recently claimed that even if bitcoin fails like Pets.com did during the dot-com bubble, the hedge fund would still see investors make money. According to CNBC, Morehead’s reasoning was that cryptocurrencies are revolutionary and here to stay. Using … Continued

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Jimmy Song's Programming Blockchain workshop taught me about a lot more than bitcoin.

• Warren Buffett is one of the richest people in the world because he saved and invested — and didn't follow get rich quick schemes.
• Wealth is attainable to everyone with good financial habits, and you may already be on the right path.
• Spending less money than you earn, saving for retirement, and investing money are simple ways to become wealthy.

Owning bitcoin won't guarantee future wealth — but the right saving and investing strategies will.

At least according to Warren Buffett, who considers cryptocurrency a get-rich-quick scheme. Though chances are slim you'll end up with the multi-billion-dollar fortune Buffett has, there are sensible ways to build wealth without betting on a bubble.

It's hard to put a number on "wealth" because it's personal and it depends on many factors, including where you live. Generally, having wealth means not having to worry about being able to pay your bills and knowing a comfortable retirement at a decent age is feasible. 

These 11 indicators are easy to follow and will help you build wealth — whatever that means to you. Even better, a lot of these tips go hand-in-hand and require little work or maintenance.

If you are already following this advice, congratulations! You are on the road to being wealthy.

SEE ALSO: Building wealth starts with out-thinking your emotions — here are 5 mental traps standing in your way

DON'T MISS: 10 US cities that make it easier to build wealth thanks to savings in one key area

You started saving for retirement as soon as you started working.

A portion of every paycheck — including the first one when you start working — should be set aside for savings.

Retirement may seem like a long way down the line when you first start your career, but the wait will be even longer if you don't prepare. Saving as early as possible triggers compound interest and can lead to a huge difference in the long run.

You always make loan payments on time and in full.

Whether its a student loan or a mortgage, it is best to make all payments in full and on time. Paying off less and missing loan payments will end up costing more in the long run.

Business Insider's Áine Cain has some tips on how to pay off student loan debt in your 20s — including paying before the grace period, using auto-pay, and prioritizing loan payments.

You clip coupons and look for good deals.

Just because you can afford to shop at Whole Foods or your hip local market doesn't mean you should, especially if you want to end up wealthy.

The USDA says that a family of four can spend between $150 and $300 a week on groceries. Shaving those expenses in half can really accumulate on the savings side. Shopping at a store like Costco, known for its bulk products and huge savings, is economical and fun.

• A new review in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that America spends about twice as much as other high-income countries on healthcare.
• At the same time, the health outcomes, or how well people fare with their health, aren't any better and are often worse than countries that spend half as much on healthcare as the US does. 
• The study's authors concluded that the main reason the US spends so much has to do with the prices of labor, goods (like pharmaceuticals), and administrative costs — not how often Americans get certain procedures, which was no more than any other country. 

The US healthcare system has seen a lot of changes in the past decade, from the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, to attempts to dismantle it, to criticism of high prices.

Through all of that, policymakers and the public have been trying to determine why the US spends so much on healthcare. 

In a review published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Global Health Institute, and the London School of Economics and Political Science, found that the US spent about twice as much on healthcare as other other high-income countries.

At the same time, outcomes were no better and healthcare wasn't used any more frequently than the other countries. 

The researchers found that what's different, as far as US healthcare spending goes, is what the country spends on labor, goods like prescription drugs, and administrative costs. 

"As patients, physicians, policy makers, and legislators actively debate the future of the US health system, data such as these are needed to inform policy decisions," the researchers concluded. 

The review compared up US healthcare against the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Here's how the country stacked up. 

• Drawing from public health reports and policy analysis, it found that the US spent 17.8% of its GDP on healthcare in 2016. The country that spent the least percentage of its GDP on healthcare was Australia, which spent 9.6%.
• At the same time, the US was the least-insured country among the group, with only about 90% of the population insured while all other countries had closer to 99-100% of their population insured. 
• While the US did have some things stacked against it — the most obese or overweight population, and highest poverty rate, for example — it also had the lowest percentage of the population that was below 65. 
• The US had the highest administrative burden, spending about 8% of its GDP on administration and governance — on average, other countries spent about 3%. 
• The review found that US routinely spent the most on pharmaceuticals, followed by Switzerland. 
• Despite what the researchers said is a common perception of the US, the country does not have a higher number of specialist doctors compared to other countries. 

SEE ALSO: The lines around healthcare are being redrawn — and all eyes are on pharmacy giant Walgreens to make the next move

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NOW WATCH: Goldman Sachs investment chief: Bitcoin is definitely a bubble, Ethereum even more so

• The government is consulting on scrapping the use of 1p and 2p coins.
• This has caused outrage among some of the population, but it makes perfect sense.
• Copper coins are rarely used in transactions, are expensive to manufacture, and have little role in an increasingly cashless society.

LONDON — Philip Hammond's Spring Statement earlier this week was — as anyone paying attention had expected — an uneventful and quite frankly dull affair.

Hammond, not known for his bombast at the best of times, didn't announce any new policies, and simply updated the House of Commons on the government's fiscal progress.

There was however, one talking point — the possible removal of Britain's one and two pence coins from circulation.

The Treasury published a "call for evidence" on the proposed changes on Tuesday, and began formally consulting the British public about whether to phase out the denominations over the coming years as part of a move towards digital payments.

This wasn't a formal announcement of the withdrawal of pennies and tuppences, merely the start of a consultation on their future.

The news however, sparked outrage among certain sections of Britain. On Wednesday, the Daily Mail ran a front page story asking "Do you REALLY want to kill off the coppers in our pockets Mr. Hammond?" — while a prominent journalist started a campaign under the hashtag #HandsOffOurCoppers.

One of the most often cited reasons for opposition to removing coppers from circulation is that it would make receiving change in shops difficult, and could lead to price increases. Say for example you buy something for £2.99, paying with a £5 note. Without the penny it would be physically impossible to get the correct change.

However, there is a clear precedent for managing this change. As many as six European countries, including Finland, the Netherlands, and Belgium, have a so-called "rounding" system in place, whereby change is rounded to the nearest five cents when change is given in a cash transaction.

Rather than a simple rounding up or down, the system means prices ending in one, two, six or seven get rounded down, while prices ending three, four, eight or nine are rounded up.

Ireland uses the system, and a survey from the country's central bank in 2016 when it was introduced showed that 93% of people approved the idea.

Nostalgia

Penny acolytes also cite the historical and cultural value of the coins. "Their value is more than just monetary. I still remember the excitement as a child of finding a penny older than I was," one commentator said in a column earlier in the week.

That sort of thinking is almost sickeningly nostalgic, coming from the same sort of people who want a new royal yacht, and still yearn to buy their groceries in pounds and ounces rather than the far superior grams and kilograms.

In a post-Brexit world, if Britain truly wishes to succeed, such nostalgia needs to be thrown out immediately.

The simple reality of copper coins is that they are, for the vast majority of us, almost entirely pointless.

I cannot honestly remember the last time I actually used a copper coin in a transaction. Instead I endlessly save them up in a jar so that I can eventually take a trip to the bank to get rid of them, and add the princely sum of about £1.12 to my bank account.

"Surveys suggest that six in 10 1p and 2p coins are used in a transaction once before they leave the cash cycle," the government said, illustrating just how little coppers are actually used. 8% are even thrown away, such is the difficulty in getting rid of them.

Besides the sheer inconvenience and uselessness of them, there are numerous practical reasons for scrapping coppers.

For one thing, they cost almost as much to make as they're worth, with the Royal Mint having to produce 500 million new 1p and 2p coins each year, despite continually dwindling demand.

"The cost of industry processing and distributing low denomination coins is the same as for high denomination coins, making the cost high relative to face value and utility," the Treasury said in its consultation announcement.

By contrast, bank notes cost only a fraction of their worth to make, with the newest note, the £10 costing only 1.2 pence per note, according to the Bank of England's chief cashier Victoria Cleland.

At a time when Britain's public services are stretched, and debates about extra funding for the NHS and the Armed Forces are at a feverish pitch, why not stop spending money on making new pennies, and push that money into vital services instead.

Society's dependence on cash is declining

As Britain, and the wider world, becomes ever less reliant on cash, surely it would make sense to experiment with removing the smallest, most pointless coins. Canada, Brazil, Sweden, and Australia — all major economies — have already ditched small denominations and don't appear to have suffered any harm.

Cashlessness itself is something of a polarising concept. Some believe that within decades cash will cease to be, with  MasterCard's UK and Ireland boss Mark Barnett telling Business Insider in 2016 that in 30 years handling physical money will seem as old fashioned as the horse and cart.

"By the time we get to another generation, 30 years down the track, will there be any cash? I very much doubt it. The idea of carrying coins — 2p, 1p, 50p all cluttering up your pocket — it will be an anachronism. It will seem as antediluvian as carrying a pouch full of gold," Barnett said.

Others, however, see a continuing role for cash for a long time to come.

Of course, no one is suggesting that taking the one penny coin out of circulation is going to lead to the rapid withdrawal of all physical money in a few years, but it would certainly be a start of a process that takes a very long time.

Recent research from the Guardian newspaper showed that "Britain will move beyond 'peak cash' this year," and that "notes and coins are rapidly being supplanted as the favoured payment method, particularly in cities."

Removing the penny and the tuppence from circulation would mark a small step in the direction that Britain is clearly already travelling, why stand in the way of progress for the sake of an outmoded and faintly ridiculous idea of tradition.

SEE ALSO: 1p and 2p copper coins and £50 notes could soon be phased out in the UK

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NOW WATCH: Goldman Sachs investment chief: Bitcoin is definitely a bubble, Ethereum even more so

What happened in crypto this week? Price Watch Bitcoin is down about 8% this week to $7,800.This has been attributed to low volume, FOMO, and the ICO hearing. The news isn’t all bad though, several experts are saying now might be a good time to buy. Ethereum is down about 16% this week to $560. This is

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