The TL;DR is: a friend of mine online had asked me to set up a crypto wallet for myself and sent me a small amount ($6.71). I have no experience using crypto or anything and I was curious if there is any possible way to turn this into anything more? If not what options or use do I have for it?
This person may be trying to get you to participate in the cryptocurrency “ecosystem”. As with Ponzi schemes, people who have already bought into it benefit from the scheme’s expansion.
As long as I’m not putting anything in though I don’t lose anything and still gain what I was sent so I don’t see a problem with this. I’m going through personal matters that have made my living situation less then ideal, and while I don’t know this persons true intentions I don’t see it as anything besides someone just helping out a little with what they can.
So, most important thing to remember is: you can’t turn this into a significant amount of money.
I know the “yeah but what if” lure is strong with crypto, and even more so if your personal situation is rough.
But you can’t turn this into a significant amount of money, and putting more money in to have more investment potential is the worst thing you can do.
There are ways to eke out a profit from crypto, but they are either illegal, or require more network and experience than you will ever have. Or both. Plus tons of work.
It could be useful to play around with it to learn crypto, so I’d say go for it. But if you have a gambling streak in you, best avoid having that temptation in your life.
You will not make a significant amount of money on crypto.
Thanks for the information, I do have an addiction filled past (gambling and alcohol) so as someone who is now both sober and no longer wagers on sports (my only form of gambling) and would like to keep it that way, I really appreciate you mentioning that in your reply. That being said, I have no plans to invest any of my own money so I guess my best option is to figure out how to cash out and get myself a coffee. Thanks. for the reply.
The easiest way to cash out might be through Coinbase. Sell BTC for USD, then have them transfer it to your bank account using an ACH transaction. But that would require you to set up a link to your bank account, which you might not want to do. Coinbase is reputable (I’ve used them, but not their wallet), but I would understand if you didn’t want to do that. (I also don’t know whether Coinbase has any minimums on ACH transfers).
PayPal takes Bitcoin transfers now, so that might be a better way to transfer it to something usable. But be aware that transfers on the Bitcoin network have fees, and they can get high for transfers on the main network. It should be possible to designate the transaction as “low priority” or something like that, which reduces the fee you pay but means you may have to wait until all the higher fee transactions clear before yours does.
Definitely be very careful with crypto and stocks: they can definitely trigger the gambling impulse. My wife discovered her gambling tendencies with stock options, and lost a lot of money before she was able to stop.
As long as OP doesn’t put any of their own money in though, are they really at risk of anything? Maybe the friend is trying to pump the numbers for users, but it seems analogous to casinos giving you money to play. If you just use their money and never your own you don’t lose and it’s a net loss for the casino.
Which crypto? Some of them are less scammy than others.
There is absolutely no guarantee that it will balloon in price, and it could very well evaporate. I would just hold it for a while. You could find a place to spend it, but there are not many places that take crypto anymore
If you do want to convert it to cash, there are several more options than there used to be. There are the main crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini in the US, but they have an exhaustive customer onboarding process. I think Paypal and Robinhood now take crypto transfers in, and their process may be simpler. But they all accept only certain types of crypto. If your friend gave you $7 in SafeShibaElonMoonCoin, you would have to figure out how to convert it into something Paypal accepts.
So it bitcoin unless I’m confused, 0.00017btc which equals 6.72 is what I’m seeing in my account. I’m using the coinbase wallet app.
Bitcoin is safe. Do not sell for something more risky. Even if Bitcoin continues to grow as it did before, you will only have 67.2 in 2026. That amount of money will not make you rich. The average human owns 0.002375 btc, so you are still poorer than the average human in Bitcoin
btc is bitcoin yes. coinbase is one of the bigger exchanges so that’s fine
if you live in the USA crypto makes your taxes more complicated; the IRS wants to know when you buy and sell it and how much you got it for just like traditional investments.
Watch out for crypto scans. Friends can turn scammy or be hacked by scammers.
One scam is to have you set up a wallet on a fake site. The site then shows ridiculous gains (all fake of course), at which point your “friend” talks you into investing more and more of your own money, making you believe you are getting rich. When you try to cash out, they stall as long as possible, and when you finally figure out you’re getting fooled the site and scanner suddenly disappear and you’re left with nothing.
The other scam is getting you to link your crypto wallet to a bank account, tricking you into giving them control over it, and then draining the account.
The big question is why is your friend suddenly pressuring you to try crypto? Use common sense and be safe.
Educate yourself about crypto. The price could easily double, but then you’ll still only have like $13.
But it’s enough to play with it a little. Try sending some back or making a new wallet and transferring to that to see how that works.
There are certainly scammy cryptos out there. But the good ones are quite useful.
What are the benefits of sending it around? Why would I make a new wallet and transfer it? Thanks for the reply.
I think they were just recommending you try it out by sending it between your own accounts. Which is fair. And about all you’re going to be able to do with $6.71 worth of crypto on pretty much any chain. Fees are gonna eat it all up.
Mostly just to see how it works.
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You could cash out and buy a Starbucks coffee.
I prefer tims
