TAMPA, Fla — Cryptocurrency: the most basic definition is that it's a digital currency that can be used to buy goods and services unregulated by a third party.
Since it's such a foreign concept to use a currency not backed by a government, many shy away from it. Not to mention it's not exactly easy to understand. But like most technology, teens are grasping it and jumping right in.
A recent study of 7,000 teens by an investment company showed 9-percent of them have traded cryptocurrencies. That's pretty significant for a currency many of us struggle to understand. USF student Romeo Hill, 19, is one of the investors and he is excited about the future.
"As I've come more to understand it, I've put more and more faith into crypto and not only do I invest in it as a financial mover, but I kind of see it as the future of finance."
When this economics major got his stimulus check last year, he took that money and invested it in cryptocurrency. Hill quickly made a couple thousand dollars, but he had studied it for a while before investing.
"They have fixed inflation area or deflation area rates and it's all very extremely transparent. There's a blockchain ledger for each of them when you can see every single transaction and how much goes to what address etcetera."
He thinks more people should invest, but not before doing a ton of research and at least having a basic understanding of how it works and how to store it safely.
"I've understood it enough, I've learned about it enough where I trust it more than US dollars. And I want to pay my rent in crypto, I want to get paid in crypto and I want to buy my groceries in crypto and I really see that in the future."
When this 19-year-old told his mother, a financial planner, that he wanted to put his stimulus money into cryptocurrency, she was a little skeptical. But Hill says the more she researched it, she became interested and wound making her own significant investment.