I think I lost around, like, most in a single trade,
probably around $60,000.
I think losing was probably one of the best things.
Losing trades, I think, is a gift in disguise
because it gives you more awareness
of what you have to do and how to solve your mistakes.
And also gives you the right mentality.
[MARYANA] Can you tell me what was your childhood like?
So I think I started off pretty...
you know, the regular kid,
finding dopamine in anything you could,
trying to find fun all around.
And I think it was around the age of seven years old
is when I first discovered the sense of entrepreneurship.
So essentially I got gifted a 3D printer.
I started printing off quite ridiculous things
like little objects and toys.
And then I realised that you could actually
print more useful objects.
So I started printing off with phone cases
and then later on I brought one to school
which had, like, a custom design on it.
One of my friends said, "Oh, that's quite cool.
Can you give me one?"
And then I was like, "Okay, sure."
So I did.
And then a lot of people started asking for these cases.
So then I ended up just sitting there like, 'Okay,
I have to pay for the materials, I don't have that much.'
And then I'm like, 'Okay, why not?'
So I actually started selling them.
So then I started off selling these 3D-printed phone cases
and then I ended up making a website for them.
'Cause I made websites even earlier than that,
because I liked web designing, that type of stuff.
And then I started selling them online.
And I think that was my first time I started shipping
a physical item and it was quite a weird experience.
And then I think at around the age of 10 years old
is when I got into the stock space.
So my dad, he wasn't investing in stocks, also like me.
I asked him, "What is stocks?"
Because I heard it online when I was researching.
And then he said, stocks are basically,
you buy a share of a company.
You buy a little bit of a company.
And every single time that company does well,
you get rewarded for that as your...
that part of the company you own is more valuable.
I started getting into... the first stock I got in
was the Vanguard S&P 500.
That was, like, the first. It was an ETF stock,
which essentially the 500 biggest companies in America
all bundle into one stock which is extremely safe
because it's a low-growth, low-risk,
low-reward type of stock.
And then I think at the age of 12 and 13
I started venturing out in different branches
of the stock world.
So then I discovered something called cryptocurrency mining.
A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange
similar to your regular currencies
like your British pound, your American dollar, your Euro.
However, the one distinct difference
between the cryptocurrencies
and regular everyday currencies are it isn't maintained.
It isn't legal tender.
It isn't maintained by a central banker entity.
It's owned by everyone.
So essentially there's no one controlling
all the functions of the cryptocurrency.
[MARYANA] How does the rise of Bitcoin then happen, like how does it work?
So basically with how Bitcoin miners get rewarded
is when you're sending transactions out to people,
there's a small transaction fee
depending on your cryptocurrency.
These fees will vary from, like, Bitcoin
which can result, depending if you use just regular Bitcoin,
the transaction will be around a couple of dollars,
maybe tens of dollars.
If you use the most expensive network currently,
called Ethereum, it could cost up to hundreds of dollars.
And basically these fees, when you send a transaction,
they get sent directly to those miners.
Some coins may have different tokenomics.
Tokenomics basically mean the economic model of the coin
and how coins were distributed.
With Bitcoin, a hundred percent of the coins
and the fees get sent to the people.
So let's say I send a Bitcoin transaction to you
worth a hundred dollars, it'll probably be
maybe a $7 fee in those.
That $7 would be sent to those miners
who validate my transaction.
[MARYANA] You're under 18.
Was the choice of cryptocurrency also because you could
legally trade it without any problem?
I think the wonderful thing about cryptocurrency
is that a lot of people are catching aspect on,
is cryptocurrencies are so new
there's no government regulation
or there's little government regulation.
If I were to go and try and open a stock account,
I wouldn't be allowed. Like, opening a trading account was
one of the hardest things I've done.
I had to use my parents and it was a big mess
when they tried giving their account to me
and with taxes and all these legal issues,
even though with an ISA it's tax free.
With crypto, the beauty about crypto is it's unregulated.
And some people might see that as a scary thing.
However, the people themselves set their own regulation.
What I mean by that is the people determine their own rules.
People create their own coins.
Anyone can create a coin.
If you have the knowledge, you can create one.
That's the beauty of cryptocurrencies.
[MARYANA] Can you give me an idea of how much money did you make on crypto overall?
I don't wanna give... Can I, like, skip this?
Because I don't wanna give an exact figure for it.
[MARYANA] Can you give me like just an idea?
Can you say that it is over a million at least?
Yeah.
[MARYANA] Okay.
[MARYANA] How much have you lost in one day?
I think I lost around, like, most in a single trade,
probably around $60,000.
I think losing was probably one of the best things.
Losing trades, I think, is a gift in disguise
because it gives you more awareness
of what you have to do and how to solve your mistakes.
And also gives you the right mentality.
Because most of these people who've never lost
cryptocurrency or lost trades before
and they're getting to cryptocurrency new,
when they see their coins have dipped 20%,
they're panicking.
However, people who're already experienced with this,
they know it's nothing new.
Also at the same time, it is quick dopamine.
That's the reason why people get into cryptocurrencies.
For financial incentive, yes.
But at the same time, the feeling you get once you make
those gains is not comparable to anything else.
The best thing I think about stocks and cryptocurrency
is your work pays off.
You do hours of research on some coins.
You talk to different people, you hold them for a while.
And then when you see that, that green percentage number
and you see that the coins are up,
it's that feeling you get,
like, your hard work has paid off.
And that's what I like about cryptocurrency
is because yes, cryptocurrency can change people's lives.
But also it's a feeling you get,
like you've actually accomplished something.
When you're trading and then you see a loss
of, like, you lost in a day £500 or £1,000
or something similar to this, right?
Even if you are not financially that well off,
you would be like, 'Oh, okay that sucks,' or whatever.
You'd be quite annoyed but you would
forget about it the next day.
However, that's the issue because you only see it
as digits on the screen, but then let's say you're walking
on the street and you dropped £1,000 off your pocket.
And then it just flew away in the wind.
You would feel way worse off than trading,
'cause trading, it feels like a game,
feels like digits on a screen.
People get lost into it and they don't realise
the impact it has on their financial lives.
'Cause believe it or not, that's real money.
Feel free to experiment.
I wasn't good at trading from the beginning or investing
at the beginning, I was experimenting.
But at the same time, be reasonable with your amounts.
Treat it as if it's real money instead of just some game.
[MARYANA] There is quite a lot of YouTube and TikTok accounts
where people give financial advice about crypto investments.
What do you think about all of those?
With cryptocurrency, even though there's a lot
of tremendously good advice, that's also diluted
with a lot of bad advice.
There's one thing where on TikTok, basically...
TikTok creators, they don't make money from trading.
They make money by being an influencer.
They make money by people clicking on their videos
and liking them and sharing them out
so the algorithm can pick up their views
and they get something from the TikTok creator program
or they get more followers, I dunno.
However, the really good advice is the boring advice.
It's the advice no one wants see here.
If I were to go to tell you
and then... let's say someone who's heard
about this exciting new thing, cryptocurrency
and they ask me, 'How do I invest?'
I would tell them, 'Oh, buy these coins,
hold them for a long period.
Maybe a couple months to a year,
you'll be up a hundred percent.'
They'll be like, 'Oh, double my money in a couple months?'
Like, they wouldn't be that excited.
[MARYANA] With all of that said,
do you still believe that cryptocurrencies will shape the future of financial markets?
Think of cryptocurrency now as 1998
just before the tech centre, when it's starting to boom.
Cryptocurrencies now are extremely undervalued
because the use case they bring can completely
revolutionise the world.
I can envision a future where in 10 years,
instead of saying, 'Oh, PayPal me this amount,'
I could say, 'Oh yeah, send me this via Ethereum,'
or something like this, or, 'Send me this coin.'
'Cause I dunno what coins will be available in the future.
A lot of good coins will come up.
But cryptocurrency in general has a lot
of evolution to come to it.
[MARYANA] What do your parents think about what you do?
My parents.
Yeah, my mother didn't really understand
most about cryptocurrencies.
I helped her get into it
because she's quite adventurous, like me.
She likes experimenting with these types of things.
She started asking me more about Bitcoin, Etherereum,
I was intrigued because she was interested
in these types of cryptos.
So then I just showed her how to invest.
I helped her set up an exchange account
and then she started buying into different coins
and she's quite happy with the result now, I think.
[MARYANA] Do you still go to school?
Yes, I do go to school.
[MARYANA] Did you have any thoughts about leaving it
cos' I mean you're already, kind of, getting on with your life and making money so?
I have had a lot of thoughts of leaving it.
However, I do wanna go to university.
I think leaving school now, I could definitely
leave school now. However, I think so far my workload
between balancing school and balancing
my work outside school is okay.
If it gets much, much worse, I would have to contemplate it.
But for now, I can definitely handle both.
So why not? You know?
[MARYANA] What is your dream?
My dream?
I've quite a lot of dreams and ambitions.
I think my biggest dream ever would be
to revolutionise the education system.
I think that's my greatest dream.
I think the biggest error with the education system
is the financial literacy side of it.
I think a lot of people criticise me on this and say,
"Oh, you don't need to teach a bunch of kids
financial independence, etc.
Right? They'll learn it when they're adults."
However, and not talking about things
like investing in some complex things,
because those are things... unless you actually enjoy them,
you won't want to do them.
You don't need to invest. If you want to invest,
sure, but you don't need to.
It isn't a thing you need to learn.
However, simple things that I cannot believe
are taught at a young age, such as... most countries
you can get a bank account at the age of 12.
However, the school will never tell you
to get a bank account, they'll never tell you to save.
I think credit scores are a big part of our world.
I disagree with credit scores, however, they're necessary.
However, there's ways to improve your credit score
at 16 years old by co-signing on your parents' credit card
and improving your credit score.
And that'll tremendously help you.
'Cause by the age of 18, you can buy multiple...
you can get loans at way cheaper rates, right?
And pay them back with more lax deadlines.
I think basic finance is definitely necessary
at a young age to teach.
There should definitely be a finance curriculum piled
around all the other stuff they teach you at a young age.
And I think our generation is definitely looking bright
because even though we have a lot of bad things
like high inflation rates, high rent,
all these types of stuff, I think we can combat it easier
because we have an easier access to information.
We're all connected to each other
through social media, through Google,
through forums, etc.