Meet the 20-year old bitcoin trader who says he turned $1,000 into $3.7 million

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After a wild ride down from a record high near $20,000, bitcoin (BTC-USD) has recently roared back, hovering above $7,000 on Friday.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has surged 50% in May, leading some big-name crypto players to declare the end of the so-called ‘crypto winter.’

Yet 20-year-old bitcoin trader Erik Finman is not so sure — despite having reaped the benefits of the cryptocurrency’s surge.

Finman first invested in the space at just 12 years old after his grandmother gifted him $1,000, and tells Yahoo Finance that his initial investment’s “grown into 458 bitcoins now, so that’s about $3.7 million.”

Still, Finman is no bitcoin bull. The 20-year-old previously told MarketWatch that the popular cryptocurrency was “dead”, and he still thinks the cryptocurrency market has problems that need to be solved.

After stating that bitcoin would probably see at least a few more bull runs, Finman said that the current rally is “teetering on the end. Is this a bull run, is it not? Is this just a bump? I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Bitcoin ‘will die’ if 4 problems aren’t solved

Bitcoin’s long-term outlook is a little less clear, the young investor said, citing four key problems that could lead to the currency’s demise.

“One, its high transaction fees. Two, it takes a long time to send anything,” he told Yahoo Finance.

Additionally, “the people that are trying to solve those problems — it’s fragmented, it’s ‘cult-ish’, it’s a lot of in-group fighting. And I think the fourth one is it’s really hard to get into” the cryptocurrency space, Finman said.

“Bitcoin will die if those problems aren’t solved,” he added.

20-year-old crypto trader says investments now worth $3.7M (Courtesy: Erik Finman)
20-year-old crypto trader says investments now worth $3.7M (Courtesy: Erik Finman)

But Finman is still not ready to give up on the crypto just yet.

“I think bitcoin will have one more big rally — at least,” he predicted. “So I’ll wait to sell when it has that big rally.”

Alexandra Canal is a Producer at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @alliecanal8193

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