It depends what your life goals are. If you're not sure, these are two options that come to mind: - Find a decent paying job, start investing the money. Time

It depends what your life goals are. If you're not sure, these are two options that come to mind: - Find a decent paying job, start investing the money. Time is the biggest thing you have going for you when it comes to investing. Figure out how to become financially independent (not have to work for your money, but make your money work for you). - Live life for a year or two (do so cheaply, there are a lot of resource on the Internet to help you in that regard). Use that time to write a novel, explore the world, do something unconventional and/or risky. The younger you are, the more risk you can take (because you have more time to recover). It's going to be a lot harder for the average person to do these kinds of things later on in life when you have financial, familial, and other obligations. If you can share any thoughts on what you want to do with your life, that might help. It's cliche, but the sky is the limit, don't let other people's expectations keep you tied to the ground. Also, at this point I would call buying Bitcoins speculating, not investing. When I say investing, I'm talking about the stock market, mutual funds, etc. However, like I said earlier, you're young - you can take more risk. With Bitcoin, the risk is high, but so is the potential reward. With $20,000 and a few more years of continued strong growth of Bitcoin, you could have enough money to become financially independent that way.