In recent months, cryptocurrencies have catapulted at exponential rates in price, but most people don’t even know what a cryptocurrency is.

  “I kind of saw an opportunity, really just to make money at a more rapid rate. I figured this summer was about the time to get into it because it had been around long enough to show some stability for some people to figure out what it is,” said Physics teacher Andrew Mikolajczak. “It hadn’t been around too long that the market was already flooded with people. I got into it around June or July.”

  Senior Tom G. has been involved with cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, the largest and most well known cryptocurrencies, for four years.

  “Four years ago, some friends and I started a bitcoin mining company. We stopped mining bitcoin around two years ago and shifted to investing,” said Tom. “My first investment was in Bitcoin. But in the past month, I have invested in Ripple, Ethereum, EOS and ETOP.”

  According to Mikolajczak, he became a fan of the cryptocurrency Ripple through outside sources, specifically news articles.

  “There were a ton of outside sources I used. It was nothing more than just reading news articles on cryptocurrencies. For example, what appealed to me about Ripple was its idea of how it makes bank transactions happen a lot faster, especially if you are crossing from one international currency to another, say US dollars to euros,” said Mikolajczak. “Then you keep reading news articles and you find out some companies like American Express are interested in Ripple; Amazon is interested in Ripple. The more and more news you read and the more and more information you have and the better decisions you can make.”

  When making investments in cryptocurrencies, Tom emphasized the significance of technical analysis.

  “I know a lot about blockchain; I made my own cryptocurrencies. You got to do your research. Aside from that, investing is different from learning how the things actually work. A lot of people don’t really understand what it is, but they invest in it regardless,” said Tom. “I am going to become a chartered market technician. I am basically a professional in technical analysis, which is this one school of thought for investing. The majority of investors in cryptocurrencies use technical analysis to analyze whether they should invest or not.”

  “Bitcoin was on the rise and I had been watching it for a long time. I believed it could grow more than it already has and finally felt it was time to invest. I didn’t want to put that much money into it at the time. I decided to put $100 in as a trial run to see how it would go,” said junior Benny Fellows. ”I plan to keep this money in Bitcoin because there is not much risk with $100. If I continue to feel optimistic about Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency progressing forward, I will put more money in when the time is right.”

  Mikolajczak detailed the risk people undergo when investing in cryptocurrencies.

  “If you are going to invest, not just in cryptocurrencies, but anything, I would treat it a similar form as gambling. You go into it the full expectation that you may lose everything,” said Mikolajczak. “Just be aware that anything you invest, you have to be prepared to lose everything. I would say the younger you are, the better of a time it is for you to invest. This is because, if you are younger, you have more time to make money if you do lose everything.”