3 Dividend Stocks Invested In Cryptocurrency: Bank of New York Mellon (BK), CME Group (CME), and Visa (V)

Bitcoin. Ether. Blockchain. Cryptocurrency.

We’re in a very interesting time as investors. It’s also an exciting time. Now, I’m a businessman who invests in businesses.

As a longtime dividend growth investor, I look for high-quality companies that can pay reliable, rising dividends because they’re producing reliable, rising profits.

Think companies like Apple, Johnson & Johnson, and Pepsi. Using the dividend growth investing strategy to my advantage allowed me to retire in my early 30s. So no complaints here. Life is wonderful.

But it gets better.

Another great thing about this strategy is, a lot of high-quality dividend growth stocks are “future-proofing” themselves. They’re investing in areas like 5G, automation, AI, and you guessed it – cryptocurrency.

While I don’t know where this whole bitcoin thing is going to go, I will say that investors can expose themselves to these new frontiers while still managing their risk and collecting safe, growing passive dividend income.

It’s the best of both worlds. Today, I want to tell you about three dividend growth stocks directly exposed to cryptocurrency. Ready?

Let’s dig in.

Dividend Stock #1 Invested in Crypto: Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK)

Bank of New York Mellon is the oldest bank in America, but don’t let their age fool you.

This custody bank is adapting to the 21st century. They announced in February 2021 they will begin to finance bitcoin and other digital currencies. They’ll allow digital currencies to pass through the same financial network it currently uses for more traditional assets like bonds and equities.

While the opening of networks is sure to become more widespread, this bank gets an early mover advantage.

Here’s what Roman Regelman, CEO of asset servicing and head of digital at BNY Mellon, said about the move: “BNY Mellon is proud to be the first global bank to announce plans to provide an integrated service for digital assets.”

With or without this move, though, I think this is a great long-term investment for dividend growth investors.

It’s just that this is icing on the cake and even more of a reason to be invested. I highlighted this stock back in December as an attractive long-term idea when the stock was around $40/share.

It’s now over $50/share, and it could be headed higher with this smart move. Meanwhile, the stock offers a safe 2.4% yield with a dividend that’s been consistently growing over the last decade. The 10-year dividend growth rate is 13.2%, and they’ll likely be handing out a nice dividend increase this summer.

Dividend Stock #2 Invested in Crypto: CME Group Inc. (CME)

CME is one of the largest exchanges for financial instruments on the planet.

They’ve typically offered options, futures, and other derivatives contracts on things like stock indexes and commodities. And they’ve now moved into cryptocurrencies. They previously announced an exchange for options in bitcoin. And then in 2020, they expanded that to futures contracts. They’ve most recently moved into ether.

CME is another case of old world meets new world.

It’s also another case of exposing yourself to some of these new areas of finance without taking on all of the direct risk. And you get a safe, growing cash dividend that you can reliably go out and spend anywhere you please, unlike some of these other currencies that are still being worked out.

The company has been increasing their dividend for 11 consecutive years, and I think they’re just getting started.

There’s money to be made in these new financial instruments. And shareholders can profit from that. The stock only yields 1.8%, so it’s not a huge income play. But the 10-year dividend growth rate is 14%. If some of these new exchanges work out even half as well as expected, there could be plenty more returns and growing dividends to come.

Dividend Stock #3 Invested in Crypto: Visa Inc. (V)

Visa is a credit card company that doesn’t need credit cards – because it’s too busy printing money.

Visa has been making money hand over fist for years by taking a small percentage of transactions that go through its network. The credit card game is highly lucrative. But Visa has upped the ante by leaning hard into cryptocurrency solutions.

In March of this year, Visa announced a big crypto move.

Digital currency has come to Visa’s settlement platform. They announced that there have been the  first transactions settled with Visa in USD Coin (USDC), a regulated stablecoin backed by the US dollar and transacted over the Ethereum blockchain.

One of the big things holding back cryptocurrencies is moving from a store of value to transactional value.

Visa is aiming to solve that. You know what else this solves? An investor’s desire to be exposed to the future of cryptocurrency without sacrificing a desire to be invested in a real business producing real profits and paying out real dividends. Visa’s yield of 0.6% won’t knock you dead, but the 10-year dividend growth rate of 25% might. The stock has compounded at an annual rate of 30% over the last 10 years, turning a $10,000 investment into over $140,000 in a very low-risk way complete with safe, growing passive dividend income. Look for plenty more where that came from.

— Jason Fieber

P.S. If you’d like access to my entire six-figure dividend growth stock portfolio, as well as stock trades I make with my own money, I’ve made all of that available exclusively through Patreon.