"It was honestly just gambling": Investigating the Experiences of Teenage Cryptocurrency Users on Reddit

Despite fears that minors may use unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges to gain access to risky investments, little is known about the experience of underage cryptocurrency users. To learn how teenagers access digital assets and the risks they encounter while using them, we conducted a multi-stage, inductive content analysis of 1,676 posts made to teenage communities on Reddit containing keywords related to cryptocurrency. We identified 1,409 (84.0%) posts that meaningfully discussed cryptocurrency, finding that teenagers most often use accounts in their parents' names to purchase cryptocurrencies, presumably to avoid age restrictions. Teenagers appear motivated to invest by the potential for relatively large, short-term profits, but some discussed a sense of entertainment, ideological motivation, or an interest in technology. We identified many of the same harms adult users of digital assets encountered, including investment loss, victimization by fraud, and loss of keys. We discuss the implications of our results in the context of the ongoing debates over cryptocurrency regulation.