Zigazoo is a TikTok-like social media app for pre-schoolers aged three years an up. ‘We’re trying to teach kids about digital and financial literacy’, says Zigazoo founder Zak Ringelstein in July 2022. The platform teamed up with Moonbug Entertainment to sell Blippi Fan Pass NFTs to toddlers, as well as crypto collectables associated with Cocomelon and Serena William’s Qai Qai’s Invisible Universe project. For parents scared about what their three-year-old might get up to with a smartphone and a crypto wallet, there’s Pigzbe. The pocket-sized box is described by its developers as ‘what the piggy bank did next’. As well as functioning as a crypto hardware wallet, Pigzbe also pairs with a kid-friendly version of Task Rabbit: a gig economy phone app. Family members and friends download the app, buy some cryptocurrency called Wollo, and then pay it to the child once they’ve successful completed some assigned tasks. The company’s founder Filippo Yacob explains that ‘Pigzbe teaches kids how to earn, save and spend, so they can grow up to do the things they really love’. So long as they love chores. As kids become dependent on dopamine and Wollo tokens, motivating them to do jobs, or even get out of bed, requires the parent to repurchase evermore Wollo from the Pigzbe guy, before the child sells them back to him, usually at a lower price. Educating children about labour theory of value is a noble cause. But onboarding toddlers to the wild west world of crypto isn’t the only way to do it. You could use a piggy bank.
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