Calm down phytosaw, we're not encouraging him to take out further loans, he already owes $300,000 but unlike most people who owe $300,000 when he finishes his residency he will have a high paying job that lets him pay that debt burden.  But it is still a bad burden psychologically even if you can pay it.

Because he will in the future be earning a high income he can afford in the present to risk a small amount of money on something like cryptocurrency.  No, it is NOT the safest thing to do, but since he already owes $300,000 the difference between owing $300,000 and $310,000 because he didn't pay off $10,000 now is almost nothing and there's a chance he might get a little lucky and be able to wipe some of that out.  Nobody is saying to go borrow more loans, but if he wants to chance $10,000 on something when there seems to be a truly innovative new crypto then it may actually make sense.  I've been here a long time and missed the ethereum ICO which I wanted to invest in because I was busy finishing up my residency at that point in time and frankly I would have made a lot more than my attending salary on the Ether.  But much of that is driven by this current bubble.  Still, long term I do think if you pick the right one you might have a good shot at pretty good gains.  The hard part is not investing in all the junk posted here and being selective but still brave enough to put some money in.

For the record I've only ever purchased two cryptocurrencies despite reading about all these altcoins.  I wanted to buy 3 (the third was eth) but obviously I messed that ICO up.  If you're selective and risk just a small amount of money it's certainly possible to make good returns.  My Qtum is up 28,000% in the last 2 months, it's obviously a bubble but it's still nice.