In 2019, a group of people believed that toys and games could nurture the first generation of “crypto natives.”
That year, PlayTable and ToyBox announced a partnership to create physical game toys tracked on-chain. Children would move pieces across a game table; RFID tags inside the pieces would record every move on the blockchain, turning them into unique NFTs.
That same year, CryptoKaiju released its third monster figurine, with each toy’s “DNA” stored on Ethereum—limited, scarce, collectible.
And Pigzbe introduced a pig-shaped crypto wallet. Kids could earn Wollo tokens by doing chores and grow a digital “money tree” inside the app.
That was 2019—the eve of the previous bull market.
Six years later, Bitcoin has risen from $7,000 to a peak of $100,000, fallen, risen again, and fallen again. Ethereum completed the Merge. Layer 2 became standard. NFTs went through a frenzy and then quieted down. But where are those projects that once vowed to “educate the next generation”?
PlayTable & ToyBox: A Partnership Without a Sequel
October 2019, San Francisco Blockchain Week. PlayTable and ToyBox announced their collaboration.
PlayTable built blockchain board game platforms: a table, several pieces embedded with RFID chips, and every movement and outcome recorded on-chain. ToyBox specialized in 3D printing, allowing users to design and print custom game pieces.
The vision: kids design toys, mint them as NFTs, and permanently preserve their game progress.
It sounded cool. Then what?
Then nothing.
PlayTable’s social media stopped updating after 2020. ToyBox’s website shows its last product release in 2021. Neither company officially shut down, but neither released new developments. Their partnership was like a stone tossed into water—the ripples faded, and the surface went still.
Perhaps they were simply too early. In 2019, NFTs had not yet gone mainstream. The ERC-721 standard was only beginning to gain adoption. Most people didn’t even understand what “digital ownership” meant.
For a child to understand blockchain at a game table, their parents first had to understand blockchain. And at the time, there weren’t enough such parents to fill a stadium.
CryptoKaiju: From Monster Figurines to Silence
CryptoKaiju’s story lasted a bit longer.
In 2018, they released their first product: a sentient Bitcoin-themed monster. Then a Bitcoin lizard. Then a monster inspired by CryptoKitties, the hottest NFT project of the time. Each figurine sold for $62—three times the price of mainstream Funko Pop figures. Buyers weren’t playing with them; they were collecting.
CryptoKaiju addressed a real pain point: NFTs are digital and intangible; figurines are physical and displayable. Combining both theoretically satisfied collectors and on-chain purists alike.
But the collectibles market was overcrowded. Funko had thousands of SKUs—Marvel, DC, Disney, NBA, every IP imaginable. CryptoKaiju had only a handful of monsters, no major IP backing, no narrative ecosystem. Its only selling point was “on-chain.”
Once the NFT bubble faded, “on-chain” stopped being a bonus and became a barrier.
CryptoKaiju still exists. Its website still lists those monsters at the same price, inventory marked “limited.” But its social media has been inactive since 2022. It has become a time capsule of the last cycle’s “physical NFT” dreams.
Pigzbe: Successfully Crowdfunded, Then Gone
Pigzbe had the strongest start.
In 2018, it launched a Kickstarter campaign targeting £50,000 and raised £300,000. A pig-shaped hardware wallet paired with an app: children could earn Wollo tokens by doing chores and grow a “money tree.” Tokens could be saved, spent, or transferred to friends. The team emphasized it was a savings tool, not a speculative instrument.
In 2019, Pigzbe began shipping. Early users found the app clunky, hardware connectivity unstable, and Wollo tokens illiquid—essentially unusable. Reviews were sparse. Return shipping cost more than the product, so most customers simply left it in a drawer.
After 2020, the team went silent. The website went offline. Social channels stopped updating. The £300,000 in crowdfunding backers became the last group who remembered the name.
Pigzbe revealed a hard truth: teaching children to use crypto tools requires the tools themselves to be highly usable. Adults using MetaMask still send funds to wrong addresses, lose private keys, or fall for phishing attacks. How could a six-year-old possibly manage?
When the tools aren’t mature, adding educational features only makes the tools harder to use—and the education more likely to fail.
Why “Crypto Kids” Never Emerged
Six years later, today’s active crypto users are largely the same cohort as before—just six years older. The so-called “crypto native generation” never materialized.
Children who played with Pigzbe or held CryptoKaiju figurines in 2019 are now teenagers. Their assets are e-wallet balances—not Bitcoin.
Children do not need crypto assets. They need pocket money, game skins, peer-to-peer transfers—things fiat already handles more simply. Crypto’s advantages—censorship resistance, borderlessness, self-custody—are not children’s needs.
Core blockchain concepts—decentralization, immutability, private keys as ownership—require abstract thinking. A six-year-old who barely understands what a bank is cannot grasp “a bank without a bank.”
All child-oriented crypto products ultimately relied on parents’ wallets. Parents must believe in crypto to pay for it. In 2019, too few did. In 2026, more do—but those early projects are gone.
New Attempts Are Emerging
The story isn’t over.
In 2025, StepN launched a kids version encouraging walking to earn sports points redeemable for NFT gear. In early 2026, OpenSea introduced an educational hub teaching wallet use, transfers, and phishing prevention through gamified tutorials.
Some international schools have begun offering introductory blockchain electives, using materials like Chris Ferrie’s “Blockchain for Babies,” originally published in 2019 and now selling better in its reprint than its first edition.
The fundamental difference from six years ago: these initiatives no longer attempt to “raise crypto natives.” They aim to lower entry barriers.
StepN’s kids version doesn’t explain decentralization—it teaches walking, saving points, and redeeming gear. OpenSea’s education hub doesn’t dissect consensus algorithms—it shows users where to click, how to sign, how to confirm.
The earlier projects aimed too far ahead, trying to leap directly to “the next generation.” Today’s projects aim closer: first teach this generation how to use the tools.
Conclusion
Most of the companies that tried to cultivate “crypto kids” in 2019 have vanished into the cracks of the cycle. PlayTable’s website still exists but is unmaintained. CryptoKaiju’s monsters remain on shelves, but no one talks about them. Pigzbe’s Kickstarter page remains online, its comments filled with “Did anyone receive theirs?”
Yet their ideas did not disappear.
PlayTable’s vision of true player-owned game assets lives on in Web3 gaming. CryptoKaiju’s ambition to bridge physical and digital worlds lives on in physical NFTs. Pigzbe’s attempt to instill savings habits through crypto tools lives on in StepN’s children’s model.
The first wave failed—but they left traces in the water for others to swim farther.
And if one day a generation learns to use a wallet before learning to use mobile payments, they may look back at 2019 and remember both the foolishness and the foresight of those early pioneers.
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