In 2019, a batch of projects attempted to cultivate “crypto kids” with toys and games: PlayTable and ToyBox promoted on-chain board games, and CryptoKaiju released limited-edition monster dolls.

In 2019, a group of people believed that toys and games could cultivate the first generation of “crypto natives.” That year, PlayTable and ToyBox announced a collaboration to create a set of physical game toys that could be tracked with blockchain. Children moved pieces on the game table, and the RFID tags on the pieces recorded each step on the chain, turning them into unique NFTs.

That year, CryptoKaiju released its third monster doll, with each doll’s DNA stored on Ethereum, limited, scarce, and collectible.

That year, Pigzbe made a crypto wallet that looked like a piglet. Children earned Wollo tokens for doing chores and grew a “money tree” that would grow in the App.

That was 2019. That was the eve of the last bull market.

Six years have passed. Bitcoin has risen from $7,000.00 to a high of $100,000.00, then fallen, then risen again, then fallen again. Ethereum completed its merge, Layer 2 became standard, and NFTs experienced a frenzy and then returned to silence. And where are those projects that were determined to “educate the next generation”?

PlayTable and ToyBox: A Collaboration with No Follow-Up

In October 2019, San Francisco Blockchain Week. PlayTable and ToyBox announced a partnership. PlayTable was building a blockchain board game platform, a table, a few pieces, built-in RFID chips, the movement of the pieces, the outcome of the game all on the chain. ToyBox was doing 3D printing, allowing users to design and print the pieces they wanted. The two companies said at the time: children can design their own toys, and the toys can be chained to become NFTs, and the game progress can be permanently saved. Sounds cool.

And then? Then there was nothing. PlayTable’s social media stopped updating after 2020. On ToyBox’s official website, the last product release remained in 2021. Neither company announced a closure, but there was no new news. The collaboration that year was like a stone thrown into the water, the ripples dissipated, and the water returned to calm.

What went wrong? Maybe it was too early. NFTs in 2019 had not yet broken out of the circle, the ERC-721 standard had just been widely accepted, and the vast majority of people had no idea what “digital ownership” meant. To get a child to understand blockchain at a game table, their parents had to understand blockchain first. And at that time, there were not enough parents who could understand blockchain to fill a stadium.

CryptoKaiju: From Monster Dolls to No One Cares

The story of CryptoKaiju is a little longer. In 2018, they released their first product: a sentient Bitcoin, made to look like a monster. The second was a Bitcoin lizard. The third was a CryptoKitties-themed monster, echoing the most popular NFT game of the year. Each doll sold for $62.00, three times more expensive than the mainstream Funko Pop on the market. People who bought them didn’t buy them to play with, they bought them to collect.

CryptoKaiju hit on a real pain point: NFTs are digital and intangible; dolls are physical and can be placed on a shelf. Combining the two can theoretically satisfy both collecting habits and on-chain fundamentalism. But the problem is that the collectibles track itself is too crowded. Funko Pop has thousands upon thousands of SKUs, Marvel, DC, Disney, NBA, all kinds of IPs. CryptoKaiju has only a few monsters, no IP endorsement, no content support, and the only selling point is “on-chain.”

When the NFT bubble receded, “on-chain” itself was no longer a plus, but a barrier to understanding. CryptoKaiju is still around. Their official website still has those few monsters hanging on it, the price is unchanged, and the inventory shows “small quantity.” But social media has not been updated since 2022. It has become a time capsule, sealing all the fantasies of “physical NFTs” from the last cycle.

Pigzbe: Crowdfunding Success, Then Disappearance

Pigzbe had the highest starting point of these projects. In 2018, they launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, with a target of £50,000.00, and finally raised £300,000.00. A hardware wallet that looks like a piglet, with an App, children earn Wollo tokens for doing chores, and grow a “money tree” in the App. The tokens can be saved, spent, or transferred to friends. The design team said it was a tool to teach children to save, not a tool for speculation.

In 2019, Pigzbe began shipping. Users who received the product found that the App was not easy to use, the hardware connection was unstable, the liquidity of the Wollo token was very poor, and it could not be spent at all. There were not many good reviews, and the return shipping cost was more expensive than the product, so most people chose to keep it and let it collect dust. After 2020, the Pigzbe team lost contact, the official website could not be opened, and social media stopped updating. The £300,000.00 crowdfunding supporters that year became the last people to remember the name.

Pigzbe’s failure illustrates a problem: teaching children to use crypto tools requires that the tools themselves be good enough. Adults often make mistakes when transferring accounts, lose private keys, and get phished when using MetaMask. How can a six-year-old possibly figure it out? When the tools themselves are not mature enough, stuffing educational functions into them will only make the tools more difficult to use and make education more of a failure.

Why “Crypto Kids” Haven’t Appeared

Six years have passed, and the users active in the crypto market today are still the same group of people, just six years older. There is no so-called “crypto native generation.” Those children who played Pigzbe and touched CryptoKaiju in 2019 are now fourteen or fifteen years old, and the assets in their hands are WeChat pocket money, not Bitcoin.

The problem lies in three levels.

First, demand mismatch. Children do not need crypto assets. What children need is pocket money, game skins, and transfers between classmates. These things can be solved with fiat currency, and solved more easily. The advantages of crypto assets are censorship resistance, borderlessness, and self-custody – children have none of these needs.

Second, the barrier to understanding. The core concepts of blockchain – decentralization, immutability, and private key as ownership – require abstract thinking skills. A six-year-old child doesn’t even understand “what a bank is,” how can they understand “a bank without a bank”?

Third, parents are the real users. For all crypto products aimed at children, it is the parents who actually pay. The premise for parents to spend money is that they themselves believe in this set of things. In 2019, not enough people believed. Today in 2026, more people believe, but the projects of that year are already dead.

New Attempts Are Happening

The story is not over. New attempts are constantly emerging. In 2025, StepN launched a children’s version, encouraging children to earn sports points by walking, and the points can be exchanged for sports equipment, which is an NFT. In early 2026, OpenSea launched an education zone, using gamification to teach novices how to use wallets, transfer money, and prevent phishing. Some international schools have begun to put basic blockchain knowledge into elective courses, using Chris Ferrie’s “Blockchain for Babies” textbook – the one that came out in 2019, and was reprinted six years later, with sales better than the first edition.

These new attempts have a fundamental difference from those of six years ago: they no longer try to “cultivate crypto natives,” but try to “make it easier for ordinary people to get in the door.” StepN Kids doesn’t teach kids what decentralization is, it just teaches them to walk more, earn points, and exchange equipment. OpenSea’s education zone doesn’t explain consensus mechanisms, it just demonstrates how to click buttons, how to sign, and how to confirm transactions.

The projects of that year thought too far ahead, wanting to jump directly to the “next generation.” The new projects now think closer, first let this generation learn to use it.

Conclusion

Most of the companies that were determined to cultivate “crypto kids” in 2019 have disappeared into the cracks of the cycle. PlayTable’s official website is still there, but no one maintains it. CryptoKaiju’s monsters are still on the shelves, but no one discusses them. Pigzbe’s crowdfunding page is still on Kickstarter, but the comments section is full of “has anyone received the goods.”

But the ideas of that year have not disappeared. What PlayTable wanted to do was to make game assets truly owned by the players, and this idea has now been taken over by Web3 games. What CryptoKaiju wanted to do was to connect the physical world and the digital world, and this idea has now been taken over by physical NFTs. What Pigzbe wanted to do was to cultivate saving habits with crypto tools, and this idea has now been taken over by StepN Kids.

The people who tried the first wave failed, but the traces they left in the water can be followed further by later people. When one day, a generation really learns to use wallets before learning to use WeChat Pay, they will remember the stupid and good things done by the people in 2019.

[ApNews]