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.