During the Super Bowl, an ad played out for millions of viewers promoting cryptocurrency with stars like Tom Brady and Matt Damon. Since then, those companies have reported a surge of new investors and interest.“If you take a look at what they’ve done it’s just computers that have created a very complex mathematical problem to allow people to mine for cryptocurrency,” said Cathy DeWitt-Dunn, CEO of DeWitt & Dunn Financial Services.
She warns there’s risks involved and advises people to keep retirement accounts separate if people do choose to invest in cryptocurrency, as its value can fluctuate rapidly.“Cryptocurrency was running between $27,000 and it went all the way up to $69,000 for a bitcoin and some days it has fluctuations of 12-16% but we’ve also seen many days where it’s come down and consumers confidence is what drives things,” DeWitt-Dunn said.
While investing in anything comes with risks and rewards, some are finding there’s money to be made in Bitcoin mining, too.The U.S. Justice Department announced Feb. 17 that they are creating a National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to crack down on cyber attacks and scams related to this type of currency.“If you really have to go out there and you have to go mining for cryptocurrency, make sure you do it with just a little bit of money, not all of your money,” DeWitt-Dunn said.