A Bitcoin mogul became a millionaire at 18 despite being told he wouldn't amount to anything.
Erik Finman, now 22, started to invest in cryptocurrency when he was just 12 at a time he felt people 'didn't really get what [he] was trying to do'.
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Finman initially bought 100 Bitcoins for £700 ($950) and the value skyrocketed, reaching $27,000 (£19,800) per coin by 2017.
Speaking about people's lack of faith in him, Finman told the Business of Business: "I really didn't like high school. People didn't really get what I was trying to do, get what I was searching for or what I was dreaming of.
"I had one teacher tell me, yeah, drop out, work at McDonald’s since I’ll never amount to anything more in life.
"I dropped out of high school and made a bet with my parents: if I make a million dollars by the time I’m 18, I don’t have to go back to school or go to college."
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Erik built the amount of Bitcoins he had to 341, which were worth more than $4.8 million (£3.5 million) by June 2020.
After some time, Erik said he was 'desperate to get out of crypto' and was 'sick of being the Bitcoin person' so he's recently been putting his finances into aircraft which he said has made 'good money'.
He explained: "I’m tired of crypto, I’m sick of being the bitcoin person, it’s really like if I hear the word 'bitcoin' one more time, I’m going to smash my head against a wall.
"I put 100 percent of my trading under somebody else.
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"I care about building something much more than I care about just trading numbers on a screen. I’ve done bitcoin, crypto trading for six years."
He's also used his money to build an education business from Silicon Valley, California.
Speaking about his career journey, he went on: "I started a business from my bedroom. I had some bitcoin money at that point—bitcoin shot up a bit, so I was able to use a lot of that to fund my business.
"I was hiring contractors, freelancers, programmers, employees. Nobody knew I was 15."
Topics: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency
Rebecca Shepherd