A teen crypto influencer who started by investing her pocket money into bitcoin says Gen Z could make crypto go mainstream - once they understand its benefits

• Miss Teen Crypto says Gen Z could push bitcoin mainstream once they understand and adopt it.
• She began investing in crypto at 16 with her pocket money, after her dad introduced her to bitcoin.
• Digital-native teens could easily dive into NFTs, once they understand the financial side, she said.

Miss Teen Crypto, a cryptocurrency influencer who started investing her pocket money into bitcoin when she was 16, told Insider she believes Gen Z could be the catalyst to take crypto and NFTs into the mainstream, if someone would just explain the benefits and how they work.

The 18-year-old, who has tens of thousands of followers across the major social-media platforms, believes her digital-native generation could easily understand the digital side of crypto, but not the financial side - but more education could fix that.

"I think that Gen Z - we're a little behind in terms of the financial aspect, but we're not behind in terms of technology," she told Insider in an interview.

"We've been on Snapchat since it came out, we've been on the internet our whole lives. So we know the concepts of digital property, we understand how to use this technology," she said. "We just have to be educated on why we should and how we could."

Her first investment, at 16, was around $200 saved up from her pocket money and birthday gifts. Her dad had got involved with bitcoin and crypto five years before that, when she was 13 - but at that time, she paid no attention to his passion.

"I was just tuning out. I was like, 'This is boring, I don't want to hear about it,'" she said. "But then a few years after, he actually showed me how a bitcoin transaction worked."

When the New Yorker saw that bitcoin transactions were easily carried out on her phone, she recognised bitcoin's potential, both in terms of investing and changing the world, she explained.

The crypto HODLer - who grew up Randi Hipper but is known by @MissTeenCrypto on Twitter, her podcast and Instagram - has seen others have the same experience when she has talked to them about crypto and bitcoin. Her high-school peers knew as little as her teachers about the assets, and 95% of the people she has talked to at Times Square have never heard of them.

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a great way for young people to realise crypto's potential, the influencer believes. These are unique digital assets - such as image, video or audio files - that are built and stored on blockchain technology. As they cannot be duplicated, so they can be Collectable and hold value.

The key advantages, she said, are that anything can be turned into an NFT - from digital art, to music, to "your high school diploma" - and everything is documented on blockchain. There are also no age limits to creating them.

"Especially with Gen Z, we could take the space and run with it," the crypto fan said. "It's just amazing. I think NFTs could be everything," she added.

All that is needed for a wider adoption of crypto assets is more education, she argues. That could spark a digital revolution that goes beyond finance, she said, bringing changes to not just the financial system, but also to the way people interact and make transactions work.

"We have to be able to reach more people and educate more people, which is what my mission is,"she said. "I'm trying to use social media, and I'm trying to make more educational content just to reach more Gen Z - because it really is the education that matters."

For a more in-depth discussion, come on over to Business Insider Cryptosphere — a forum where users can deep dive into all things crypto, engage in interesting discussions and stay ahead of the curve.

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