How can someone invest in areas that require you to be an accredited investor [without qualifying as an accredited investor]?
Unfortunately it is not possible for an ordinary person to become an accredited investor without a career change. Gaining any legal certification in investments typically require sponsorship from an investment company (which you would be working for). There are reasons why these kinds of investments are not available to ordinary people directly, and you should definitely consult an RIA (registered investment adviser) before investing in something that isn't extremely standardized (traded on an major exchange). The issue with these kinds of investments is that they are not particularly standardized (in terms of legal structure/settlement terms). Registered investment advisers and other people who manage investments professionally are (theoretically) given specific training to understand these kinds of non-standard investments and are (theoretically) qualified to analyze the legal documentation of these, make well informed investment decisions, and make sure that their investors are not falling into any kind of pyramid scheme.  There are many many kinds of issues that can arise when investing in startups. What % of the company/ the company's profits are you entitled to? How long can the company go without paying you a dividend? Do they have to pay you a dividend at all? How liquid will your investment in the company be? Unfortunately it is common for startups to accept investment but have legal restrictions on their investors ability to sell their stake in the business, and other non-standard contract clauses. For example, some investment agreements have a clause which states that you can only sell your stake in the business to a person who already owns a stake in the business. This makes your investment essentially worthless - the company could run for an exponential amount of time without paying you a dividend. If you are not able to sell your stake in the company you will not be able to earn any capital gains either. The probability of a startup eventually going public is extremely small.. so in this scenario it is likely you will end up gaining no return investment (though you can be happy to know you helped a company grow!)  Overall, the restrictions for these kinds of investments exist to protect ordinary folks from making investing their savings into things that could get them burned. If you want to invest in companies on FundersClub build a relationship with an RIA and work with that person to invest your money. It is easier, less risky, and not all that more expensive :)
Not sure why you're posting in r/finance; did you meant to post in /r/PersonalFinances ? Or /r/financialindependence ?  Anyway, I'll play.  There are 3 ways you can go about it, make it 4:  1. Commercial: find yourself a job/career that you'd do it for free.  I once met a guy who was in your similar situation and he had a hot dog stand in the hearth of the financial district of a large US city; he did it for the fun and to be social.  He'd be there only when the Stock Market was open and if the weather was good.  You could also develop a more challenging career for the satisfaction of it: writer, artists, craftsman....  You could go back to school, or take an online class, or do an online degree for the pure satisfaction of it all 2. Start a company. Similar to #1 above, but this this 100% entrepreneurial. It could be just yourself, or enlist the help of the wife; full time or part time. This again, follow your passion; since you're set financially it should not that difficult to break even. With time you could grow and hire people, but that increase the complexity and you might find yourself managing the business and not actually getting the satisfaction of doing what you had set to do. 3. Volunteer: find a non profit whose mission aligns with your values, and volunteer there; 1 or a couple of organizations; if you're up to it with time you could climb up the ranks ...   4. Mentoring: there are a lot of people who dream about being in your situation. I am sure it was not luck but hard work as well. You could become a blogger, write a book (in your name or anonymously); or mentor directly someone, reddit and a web site is a good marketing start.  If you have enough money (accredited investor) you could become an angel investor, or join an angel consortium to help people with your background to make something out of themselves. 5. A combination of 2 or more from the above. First of all, I didn't say anything about Bitcoin - nothing I said was even related to Bitcoin but rather the inherent value of the market beyond a cryptocurrency.  This market is at the beginning stages right now, so of course you are going to have schemes and scammers, why wouldn't you? The established financial market as it stands today has been around for a while and still has schemes and scammers. Wherever there is money, specifically copious amounts of money, you will have people trying to game the system or pull the wool over other people's eyes. Sometimes in life, the sheep get slaughtered, so I am not really sure why certain people losing their ass in crypto could be considered different from people losing their ass in other financial instruments. You ever been to /r/wallstreetbets?  Your basic view is more than likely developed from what you are reading in main stream outlets, which is why I encouraged you to go beyond what you are reading in the easily accessible, and often way behind and misinformed, news sources and go straight to the updated and credible sources, usually from the developers themselves.  ICOs alone have proven themselves to be a new and revolutionary capital raising instrument. It makes sense that traditional and conservative finance communities would be opposed to it because it disrupts their ecosystem and gives not only very new companies, but non-accredited investors an opportunity to participate. When major VCs are able to look at ICOs, which are in direct competition to their industry and purpose, and say to themselves wow, what an innovative way to raise capital - that's a big deal.  Regarding anonymity, the purpose of most cryptocurrencies and protocols isn't focused on that, it is usually a side effect of the decentralization of the ecosystem in general. Bitcoin isn't even a top coin for anonymity, which is again why I suggested you research the industry.  Several projects are being launched and have been launched that will help revolutionize certain areas of the web, ranging from predictive markets with projects like Augur and Gnosis, to the Golem Network which taps into idle computer time for users that need additional computing power. Even something like Steem which is essentially a social platform similar to reddit which utilizes its own token system so content creators within the ecosystem can receive monetary payment for their time and contribution to the site and the community from other users. Imagine instead of an upvote, you received money.  To reiterate, we are at the beginning stages of seeing what is to come in the space. Many of these projects will fail, and many new ones will launch. As blockchain technology continues to grow not only individually, but in tandem with the IoT industry, there are scenarios where machines are interacting, bartering, and negotiating with each other, without human interaction or intervention, to agree on payments for products and services and then conducting said payments. SecondMarket attempts to add liquidity to privately held companies. You may be able to find a buyer there, but this is still incredibly illiquid due to accredited investor regulations constricting businesses from catering to the 99%. As around 1% of the United States population qualifies as an accredited investor. "I'm not the OP, but I'm happy to give a brief overview.  Basically, pre-JOBS act there were a lot of limits on who could make an equity investment in a non-public company (i.e. a startup or even a hedge fund). There were some loopholes, but basically you had to be an 'accredited investor'. An accredited investor was someone who either has made $200,000+ ($300,000+ for married people) for the past two years and expects to make that much again in the current year. Alternately, they could have a net worth of $1 million, excluding the value of their primary residence. There was also a limit of 500 investors for a non-public company before the company had to become public (they didn't really have to IPO, but they did have to file their financials with the SEC, so the effect was basically the same). Finally, non-public companies were prohibited from seeking investment through advertising basically. They couldn't take out an ad in a paper or event send a mass email and say, ""Hey, we're looking to raise a $1 million funding round, contact us if you're interested!""  Okay, now after the JOBS Act.  The JOBS Act changed a) the number and type of investors who could make equity investments in a non-public company b) the regulation of advertising for investments.  Post-JOBS private companies could have 2,000 shareholders and 500 of those could be unaccredited (e.g. regular people like you and I). The change in the number of shareholders isn't really that important because it's just shareholders of record, but that's another post for another day. There are still some requirements for unaccredited shareholder, which I don't remember off the top of my head. I think you have to have income of at least $40k. They also changed the solicitation ban, so it's possible that you might see an ad in the WSJ someday for a startup company, venture capital fund, hedge fund, etc.  There are some other things it changed, but IMO those are the two most important." Let's say that you want to invest in the stock market.  Choosing and investing in only one stock is risky.  You can lower your risk by diversifying, or investing in lots of different stocks.  However, you have some problems with this:  When you buy stocks directly, you have to buy whole shares, and you don't have enough money to buy even one whole share of all the stocks you want to invest in. You aren't even sure which stocks you should buy. A mutual fund solves both of these problems.  You get together with other investors and pool your money together to buy a group of stocks.  That way, your investment is diversified in lots of different stocks without having to have enough money to buy whole shares of each one.  And the mutual fund has a manager that chooses which stocks the fund will invest in, so you don't have to pick. There are lots of mutual funds to choose from, with as many different objectives as you can imagine.  Some invest in large companies, others small; some invest in a certain sector of companies (utilities or health care, for example), some invest in stocks that pay a dividend, others are focused on growth.  Some funds don't invest in stocks at all; they might invest in bonds, real estate, or precious metals.  Some funds are actively managed, where the manager actively buys and sells different stocks in the fund continuously (and takes a fee for his services), and others simply invest in a list of stocks and rarely buy or sell (these are called index funds). To answer your question, yes, the JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Fund is a mutual fund.  It is an actively-managed stock mutual fund that attempts to invest in growing companies that do business in countries with rapidly developing economies. "You may want to look into robo-investors like Wealthfront and Betterment. There are many others, just search for ""robo investor""." The best way I know of is to join an investment club.  They club will act like a mutual fund, investing in stocks researched and selected by the group.  Taking part in research and presenting results to the group for peer review is an excellent way to learn.  You'll learn what is a good reason to invest and what isn't. You'll probably pick both winners and losers. The goal of participation is education.  Some people learn how to invest and continue happily doing so. Others learn how to invest in single stocks and learn it is not for them. Consider looking into real estate investment trusts (REITs). Assuming that they are available for the area that you are considering they simplify the process of investing in this sector. Your money pooled with other investors and then invested in a broad range of properties. If you go this route make sure to only by REITs that are traded in the open market (liquidity and an honest current valuation). Even better I would consider a index fund of REITs for more diversification. Personally I do use a US based REIT index as a small part of my portfolio so as to get better diversification.