Cryptocurrency; A Parent’s Guide

“Andrew you aren’t doing a finance podcast, why are you writing about cryptocurrency?” – You, maybe. 

We were inspired to start work on The Dopamine Slot Machine after seeing just how much of a blind spot most parents, even ones who were very concerned about smartphone use amongst children, had when it came to the way games are designed and how that impacts children.

Funnily enough, we also both have extensive experience with Cryptocurrency. I’ve contracted for Wirex, Coinburp, and other companies in Crypto, whereas Brandon has experience studying Crypto-Casinos. Both of us have traded extensively on and off chain, across a multitude of coins and tokens. Talking about cryptocurrency has a tendency to devolve into word salad, but what I’m trying to say is, we know our stuff here.

There is a huge amount of overlap on these issues. Both modern gaming targeting children, and cryptocurrency, actively utilise the same predatory design that children are vulnerable to.

Did you know that as of 2023. quarter of UK teens have either already ‘invested’ in cryptocurrency (7%) or are planning to (15%)? This study was done at a relative lull in the market. In contrast, in 2025, we have a US President actively promoting their own coin, celebrities launching their own coins, and the President of Argentina is embroiled in a scandal around a ‘memecoin’ scam.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, has highlighted the skyrocketing number of young men being treated for cryptocurrency addiction. 

So how is cryptocurrency trading like gambling?

We’ve all seen betting shops on the high street. Maybe you’ve been gifted a scratch card at Christmas. If you’re lucky, no one in your life has been hurt by gambling addiction, but we’re all familiar with what gambling looks like, right?

The issue is, cryptocurrency trading does not look like gambling. It adopts the verbiage of share trading and investing. You don’t need to look hard to find stories of people making millions overnight off of cryptocurrency. In fact, if your child or their peers are on social media, they probably don’t need to look at all; that media is actively being promoted to them. Gurus on tiktok promote courses on how to trade cryptocurrency to get rich. Go look, I dare you. There is an endless stream of content about how to find investments that’ll go up five times, ten times, a hundred times!

“Trading cryptocurrency is gambling dressed up as investing, with all the risks, and even fewer protections.”

On-chain, as in, on the blockchain itself (interacting entirely with code rather than through a website) means that once they get funds into a wallet, they can trade that with zero oversight, and anybody with a phone or computer can set up a wallet in seconds. It’s not just that this isn’t regulated, but that the nature of blockchains makes it impossible to regulate effectively. If you ban the website, the contract exists, and can be interacted with, on chain. That means there exists entire on-chain crypto casinos that if your child has a phone, they have access to, and there is nothing that the UK Government can do to stop that.

Broadly, there are coins, tokens, and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Massively generalising, coins are the native currency of a blockchain like Ethereum and Solana, whilst tokens are moved around on that blockchain. Some tokens have a purpose, some have no inherent value, being effectively decentralised pyramid schemes. Anybody can launch a token in minutes, from their phone. In fact it’s so easy, that I just launched one.

Obviously, don’t buy this.

This won’t make any money, and if you do invest in it, you’ll lose that money, but even legitimate cryptocurrencies are hugely volatile. To take one example, in 2021, Solana rocketed from $2 to $240, then dropped back to $9 in 2022. It hit $290 this year, and is as of writing, about $140. Very few people can, psychologically, cope with that level of volatility. Staggering amounts of money are lost here by people who convince themselves they are investing, but are actually gambling.

Beyond the sheer amount of content promoting massive gains in cryptocurrency, and the lack of barriers to prevent children trading cryptocurrency, there’s the fact that so many crypto platforms use gamified features that if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know are built to encourage addictive behaviour. Push notifications, FOMO inducing notifications, rewards for volume trading, notifications when a token has gone up x%. And worst of all, it is available 24/7. The market never sleeps, and unless you want to miss out on the next big opportunity, or sleep through a market crash, neither will you.

Just a normal day in crypto.

This leads to a community that is, to put it kindly, hostile. It was actually seeing a recent livestreamed suicide just to promote a coin that inspired me to write this.

Wait sorry, wrong article. I was referring to this time.

Of course the crypto community obviously mourned and reflected on the tragic death. Oh no, wait, dozens of coins were launched to try and capitalise on this man’s suicide.

The issues go further than this. I actually wrote a paragraph highlighting some of the racist, sexist, and anti-sematic coins you could trade, but decided it was too shocking to put here. However bad you’re imagining it, I promise you, that it is worse than that. You can search here for yourself, or read this article.

And finally, I haven’t even begun to touch on scams. From pump-and-dumps, where the team behind a coin manipulate the market before crashing it (and taking your invested money with you), to rugpulls, where the trading pair is itself withdrawn, along with all invested money, to more traditional investment scams, the market is rife. Beyond scams, the nature of cryptocurrency means just clicking the wrong link can allow your wallet to be drained of all funds, and there is nothing anybody can do to reverse it.

My Child is interested in cryptocurrency, what should I do?

I actually think it’s a very good thing for a child to be interested in cryptocurrency. At its core, that means they are 1, Thinking about their financial future and 2, Willing to set aside money now, to improve their finances later.

These are fundamentally good impulses, but can quickly become chasing big wins that never come if they are not managed well. Every broker (not applying to crypto) has to give a disclaimer, indicating what % of their users lose money. Whilst we all know that teenagers do in fact, know everything, do they think they are a part of the small % of traders that make any money, let alone, make it big?

Not pictured : sensible investments

There’s something called ‘funded accounts’, where firms let people trade, and retain some profits form, an account that the firms fund. These have very strict risk/exposure rules, as well as needing to pass a test (that you pay for the privilege of taking) where you show you can be profitable over a period of time. If your child is determined that they’re right and you’re wrong, one option could be compromising with ‘Paper Trading’ (virtual trading); if they can consistently, with good risk management, show profits in a Paper Trading account, then supporting them by letting them put some of the money they have into cryptocurrency is one approach. It puts the responsibility back on them to prove that they are right, limits their risk exposure, and most importantly, makes it an open dialogue with yourself.

This is a brilliant opportunity to talk about the different types of debt, as well as investing (be it through ISAs or Pensions). Do you know the difference between FTSE 100, 250, and All World? What is the S&P500? Where is your pension invested? I’m a huge advocate of robust financial education, and if this is an area you’re a bit unsure on yourself, taking the time to learn together could pay dividends for your whole family.

He’s US focused, but I’m a huge fan of youtuber The Plain Bagel. He does a brilliant series watching the worst of ‘Finance’ TikToks, which would be hilarious were it not for the fact that those are pitched at the ignorant and the vulnerable. For a more UK focused influencer, Damien Talks Money is also brilliant. Stick these on, and have a chat about them.

So to conclude…

To distil what I’m trying to say into some core key points…

• Cryptocurrency can be a legitimate investment…
• …but frequently resembles gambling over investing.
• Cryptocurrency apps extensively use addictive design.
• The drive to invest in cryptocurrency is an opportunity to talk about financial education…
• …but a red flag, particularly if they’re disposed to short term thinking.

What Apps Should I be aware of?

Phantom / OnChain Wallet / Exodus / Binance Wallet

These are all ‘onchain’ wallets; ways to directly interact with the blockchain. There’s no age-gating here, no proof of identity required; if they can get someone to send them some cryptocurrency, perhaps paying a peer to send it to them, they can start gambling it without you ever knowing.

Telegram / Discord

Telegram and Discord are the preferred applications for crypto communities to interact and message eachother. Both of them allow direct, and group, messaging. Even more perniciously, there are ‘premium’ Telegram and Discord groups where you have to pay a fee to be allowed in, with the promise of ‘calls’, where the influencer tells you what to invest in for massive potential gains.

They do of course delete all evidence of calls that fail…

A typical ‘call group’. Not pictured – all his failed calls that lost loads of money.

Youtube / Tiktok / Instagram

These are all common places for crypto-influencers to post content. I don’t want to talk about that content per se, but if you’re aware of the Andrew and Tristan Tate (who themselves promote cryptocurrency), then you’re aware of the sort of content that is available here.

Brave Browser

It hurt my heart putting this here as I use it in my daily life, and love it for its privacy features! Brave however has a built in wallet, and also pays you a small amount of cryptocurrency on a regular basis.