A Kenyan Investor’s Guide to Balancing Crypto, Plots & Everything In Between
TL;DR
- Most of us in Kenya invest like this: a plot there, some MMF, maybe some crypto there and hope it all works out.
- A simple framework we learnt from Nabo Capital that helps: give your money five jobs: liquidity, passive income, growth, speculation, and safety.
- If one bucket (usually crypto or “ploti”) has quietly grown too big, you don’t have to panic-sell. You can rebalance gradually with your next investment decisions.
- This is an education piece, not investment advice. Use it as a starting point for your own plan.
Why this matters right now for Kenyan investors
If you’ve been paying attention over the past few years, your money has already been through a lot:
- Interest rate changes – money market funds suddenly feeling… interesting.
- The shilling moving, school fees rising, groceries doing their own rally. What in the world is that price at the butchery?
- Crypto cycles – 2021 hype, 2022 pain, recovery again. And we’re back there again…
If you’re reading Digipesa, chances are you’re not starting from zero. You probably already have:
- A MMF or savings product doing some quiet heavy lifting in the background.
- A SACCO, pension, or unit trust somewhere.
- A “small” crypto bag that is somehow not that small anymore.
- Maybe a plot of land: “I’ll decide later if it’s for home, farming, or to sell on later.”
The problem: most of us didn’t build this with a strategy. We built it with vibes, opportunity, and whatever was hot that year.
This piece is about stepping back and asking:
“What jobs is my money actually doing for me? And what’s missing?”
Enter the five-bucket framework.
The five jobs your money should be doing
Instead of thinking in terms of products (MMF, plot, crypto, etc.), think in terms of roles:
- Liquidity: cash that actually earns something
- Passive income: money that pays you regularly
- Growth: money you don’t need for 5–10 years
- Speculation: high-risk, high-upside bets only
- Safe haven: your parachute
You don’t need to use every product under the sun. You just want each of these roles covered in a way that fits your life.
Let’s break them down with examples.
1. Liquidity: “Cash that actually earns something”
This is money you can access easily without drama. It’s not pretending to be an investment; its main job is to be there when life happens.
What it’s for:
- 1–3 months of basic expenses (rent, food, house essentials, fuel).
- Short-term goals (fees next term, December travel, a phone upgrade).
- Being able to grab an opportunity without touching long-term investments.
Examples:
- A money market fund (MMF) you can redeem in 1–3 days.
- A savings/lock account you can unlock without penalties that make you cry. Hello M-Shwari!
- A SACCO deposit portion you can actually access quickly (not all SACCO shares are liquid).
Red flags:
- All your “emergency money” is in crypto, land, or long lock-in products.
- You’d have to sell a plot or your crypto to pay a hospital bill.
Even if the returns look small compared to crypto, liquidity is what keeps you from panic-selling good investments when life shows up. It’s also not just money parked in a current account doing nothing, it should still be earning something while staying easy to reach.
2. Passive income: “Money that pays you without WhatsApp drama”
This is the money that quietly sends you something every month or quarter, without you having to:
- chase tenants,
- rely on chama payouts for your core bills, or
- monitor charts every night.
What it’s for:
- Reducing the pressure on your salary or business income.
- Funding recurring obligations – e.g. school fees top-ups, supporting family, small treats.
- Building a base you can lean on if work becomes shaky.
Examples:
Depending on what’s available to you and your risk appetite:
- Treasury bills and bonds (direct or via a fund). You can invest directly in a corporate bond like the one recently offered by Safaricom.
- Bond funds / income funds through a local asset manager.
- Income-focused unit trusts.
- I-REITs or other regulated property income vehicles (vs managing that one troublesome tenant yourself). There is an interesting upcoming TRIFIC iREIT that you should watch out for 😉)
- Dividend-focused equity or global ETFs (via a broker that gives you international access).
This bucket tends to be boring, which is exactly the point. You don’t come here for adrenaline. You come here so the month no longer “gets to that corner”.
3. Growth: “Money your future self will thank you for”
This is money you’re not planning to touch for 5–10+ years. You accept ups and downs because the goal is to grow faster than inflation over the long term.
What it’s for:
- Retirement or semi-retirement.
- Big future goals: paying for kids’ uni, relocating, buying a proper family home later.
- Building real wealth, not just surviving.
Examples:
- Balanced funds (mix of equities, bonds, and sometimes property).
- Life insurance policy.
- Global ETFs and thematic funds via your international broker.
- SACCO Shares / savings that can be leveraged for big purchases.
- Pensions or retirement schemes that invest in a diversified portfolio.
This is where discipline lives. You don’t pull this money out because the market had a bad quarter. You only invest here what you can truly leave alone.
4. Speculation: “High-risk, high-upside bets”
This is the bucket some of us in Kenya and Africa may have knowingly or unknowingly overfed.
Speculation is where you intentionally put money into high-risk, high-upside assets. You don’t need this money for obligations. If it went to zero, it would hurt, but it wouldn’t ruin you. I repeat, louder for the people at the back: If it went to zero, it would hurt, but it wouldn’t ruin you.
What it’s for:
- Educated risk-taking.
- Exploring new asset classes or ideas.
- Satisfying (in a controlled way) that inner “what if this 10x’s?” voice. You know that “I’m a HODLer” vibe.
Examples:
- Crypto (Bitcoin, ETH, altcoins, DeFi experiments, yield farms, etc.).
- Single high-volatility stocks (especially speculative small caps or penny stocks).
- Land purely bought to flip(sell) within a short period in a location you barely know.
- Very early-stage private deals you got via “there’s this guy I know…”
Speculation is not where:
- Your children’s school fees live.
- Your entire retirement hopes live.
- Your emergency fund lives.
It’s the chilli in your portfolio – small but powerful. You don’t cook with only chilli. Capisce?
5. Safe haven: “The parachute”
This is the “if things go very left, I still have something” bucket.
Safe haven assets won’t always “go up only”, but their job is to help you preserve value when everything else is chaotic.
What it’s for:
- Protecting part of your wealth from local shocks (currency, politics, etc.).
- Giving you psychological peace when markets are volatile.
- Making sure you’re not 100% exposed to one country, one currency, or one asset class.
Kenyan-ish examples:
- Exposure to gold (e.g. gold ETFs, not random jewellery only).
- Hard-currency bond funds or money market products (USD, EUR, etc.), if accessible.
- Conservative global bond funds.
- A portion of savings in a relatively stable foreign currency.
Again, this isn’t about running away from Kenya or panicking. It’s about not having all your eggs in one basket – whether that basket is one country, one bank, one SACCO, or one token.
“Help, I’m overexposed to crypto… now what?”
Let’s be honest. A lot of us did this:
- Started with a small amount in Bitcoin or ETH.
- It did well during a bull cycle.
- We added more on the way up.
- Suddenly, crypto is 30–40% (or more) of our whole net worth.
Now you’re in that awkward place where:
- Selling feels like betrayal (“What if it keeps going up?”).
- Keeping it all feels risky (“I cannot explain to my parents why my retirement is in internet coins.”).
You don’t have to solve this in one dramatic move. You have three calmer options:
- Pause new crypto buys.
- Let your other buckets catch up.
- Direct new savings into income, growth, or safe haven for a while.
- Skim gains, not the whole position.
- Decide a small, consistent percentage of your crypto to move every time you take profits.
- Redirect that into:
- Passive income (bond fund, income fund, etc.),
- Growth (a global ETF, balanced fund, etc.), and/or
- Safe haven (gold / hard-currency exposure).
- Write down a rule and stick to it.
- Example: “Crypto will not be more than 15–20% of my total investable assets.”
- Once it breaches that, take some profit and rebalance.
The key idea: you can still believe in crypto long term and still manage your risk. You just stop letting it quietly dominate your entire financial life.
And if you don’t hold any crypto at all right now, that’s also perfectly fine. This framework still works: your “speculation” bucket could be something else entirely (a small allocation to higher‑risk stocks, a future land bet, a business idea). The point is not that everyone must add crypto, it’s that whatever high-risk bets you choose live in a clearly-labelled corner of your portfolio, not in the same place as school fees and retirement.
The land question: identity vs investment
Now let’s talk about the plot.
In Kenya, land is never just land. It’s culture, identity, a story to tell at family gatherings. But from a portfolio perspective, you need to ask a blunt question:
“Is this land for speculation or for use/income?”
If the land is:
- Far from any infrastructure,
- Bought mainly because “everyone is buying there,”
- With no clear timeline for development or use,
…then it probably belongs in the speculation bucket. And that’s fine, as long as you treat it like that and size it accordingly.
If the land is:
- Where you plan to build your family home,
- For a real farming or agribusiness plan (with numbers),
- In a location you actually understand and intend to work with,
…then it leans more toward growth/income – a serious, long-term plan, not just a thing to sell later.
Land is powerful. But it’s not automatically “safe” or “income”.
How to do a simple rebalancing audit (Kenyan edition)
You don’t need Excel magic to do this. You just need 30–60 quiet minutes and some honesty.
Step 1: List everything
Write down:
- MMF balances
- Bank savings
- SACCO shares & deposits
- Pensions/retirement accounts
- Unit trusts (income, balanced, equity)
- Crypto holdings
- Land/plots (with realistic current value)
- Other investments (chamas, private deals, etc.)
Approximate values are fine. The goal is clarity, not perfection.
Step 2: Put each item into one bucket
For each line, ask:
- Is this liquidity (easily accessible cash-like)?
- Is this income (pays me regularly)?
- Is this growth (5–10+ years, diversified)?
- Is this speculation (could 5x or go to zero)?
- Is this safe haven (helps me preserve value when things are rough)?
Some things will sit in between and that’s okay. Just pick the main role it plays in your life right now.
Step 3: Estimate percentages
Add up your total. Then roughly calculate:
- Liquidity: X%
- Passive income: X%
- Growth: X%
- Speculation: X%
- Safe haven: X%
You’ll probably be surprised. Most people discover they have:
- Almost no safe haven assets,
- Underweight income,
- Overweight speculation (crypto + land), and
- Totally undefined growth.
Step 4: Choose one bucket to feed this year
Instead of trying to fix everything at once, pick one bucket that needs love.
Example:
- “For the next 12 months, any new savings go into income and safe haven.”
- “No new land until my liquidity and income buckets are solid.”
- “Crypto stays where it is; I’m only rebalancing with future contributions.”
Build structure around what you already have.
Digipesa is here as Africa’s money & markets guide – crypto and smart money tools explained simply, safety first. This piece is education, not personalised financial advice.
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