I have an idiot 16 year old step-brother-in-law who has convinced his parents that he doesn't need to go to school anymore and can make hundreds of thousands of dollars "mining" bitcoins on his personal PC. I've done a little bit of research online and "mining" usually involves huge server rooms loaded with huge servers crunching huge numbers. One little PC can't possibly crank out the numbers required to amount to anything. And, from what I've read, you can't even recover the electrical costs from running the PC 24/7.

But this kid "says" that he has bought clothes and various other products online with his limited number of bitcoins and that the future is going the way of bitcoins. He even points to Donald Trump as trumpeting bitcoins.

His mother is completely freaked out and doesn't know what to do. She just lets him do whatever his wants. To me, he's just a spoiled punk with no friends and no social skills. He just sits in his room and plays games.

So, who knows anything practical about these things and how do I convince his parents that this is a lost cause? Or, is it?

TIA