What caught my attention about Erik Finman was that his career all started with a deal he made with his parents. He ended up dropping out of high school and the deal that came of it was that if he could turn a $1,000 into $1 million, he wouldn’t have to go to school or college. That is some deal. If I made a deal like that with my parents, I would think they were joking. He started with investing in a haul of crypto currency at the price of $12 in 2011. Not only did he invest in bitcoin but other digital currencies as well like Ether. At the age of 15 he started his own business from his room. The business was known as Botangle. He was able to hire employees, programmers, contractors, and freelancers. In his business he made it possible for people to type in any subject matter they want to learn and be able to find someone that could teach the subject matter over video chat. When he reached the age of 18 his Crypto portfolio now had the value of over $1 million. He is known as the youngest bitcoin millionaire. The first thing he did with this money was travel the world. I mean who wouldn’t! He is focusing on a startup which uses cryptocurrencies and is intended to help in the development of a satellite for NASA. As you can tell, Erik has already done a lot for his age and continues to do more. He managed to do this all without a degree. This shows that getting a degree isn’t for everyone and he proves that.
Archive for Cryptocurrency
Erick Finman, at age 11, invested $1000 into bitcoin, which is now worth millions.
Erik Finman was 12 years old when made a bet with his parents; if he could make a million dollars from investing $1000 in bitcoin, they would let him drop out of school. You could say his bet paid off.
Now Erick is 20 years old, and his thousand dollar investment in 2011 became a net worth of $4.5 million. The approximate value of each bitcoin is $10,320.00, and Erick owns 446 of them. He says he first heard of bitcoin from a hippie wearing a bitcoin t-shirt during an occupy wall street protest in 2008, which convinced him and his brother to invest in bitcoin.
In 2018 he worked with NASA to launch a satellite into space carrying a signed copy of Taylor Swift’s “1989” album and other pop music memorabilia in a digital time capsule.
Erick’s latest endeavor has stemmed from his love for cryptocurrency. He is partnering with a company called Metal to launch a new kind of cryptocurrency to rival Facebook’s Libra (www.metalpay.com). He created a real life Dr. Octopus suit, which has robotic octopus arms intended to be used as prosthetic arms for a young boy with hyper mobility issues.
Another one of his key achievements is an educational start-up called “Botangle”, which paired students with teachers for online schooling. This was a very unique project for Eric, stemming from his bad experience in traditional school. He hopes to enable students to create for themselves the perfect educational system according to their needs. He sold the company for 300 bitcoin, which was a gamble at the time because of the volitility of bitcoins value. Later he bought the company back because he “liked the name too much”.
You can follow his Instagram account @erickfinman for more updates on what he’s been doing with his money lately. He likes to post satirical photos of “new money” stereotypes from time to time. One of his first splurges was on an Audi A8, with the caption saying “My GPA back in High School was 2.1. Now it’s going to be my license plate. (2.1 GPA)”.
Victor Santos of AirFox
Poverty is a major issue in today’s world, and one of the biggest contributors to poverty around in the world is the lack of access to banks for financial services. Well, Victor Santos and his company, AirFox are here to help solve that problem. Santos is a UC Berkley grad and Ex-Googler who takes pride in his Brazilian roots and wanted to help solve the lack of banking problem in the country closest to his heart. Santos achieved that goal by developing one of the first ever cyrptocurrencies. AirFox is a blockchain cryptocurrency that is derived from Etherium, but is handed out through advertisements and microloans. AirFox tokens, known as AIR, are also handed out by just having and using the app. The app allows those that need financial service help but cannot get it from a bank, for any number of various reasons, to receive help from anyone, so long as they pay back their loans. Users also get the benefits of unlocking bigger loans at better rates so long as they keep repaying those who help them. AirFox has numerous financial partners in Brazil and beyond and is single handedly turning the tides in the fight against poverty throughout the country.