Training Future Bitcoin’Minors’

The onset of the crypto winter has arrived. As prices continue to fall, it’s a challenging time, but it’s also the greatest opportunity to build and learn new skills. In the midst of a bad market, some Bitcoin users take the opportunity to build memes or plant trees. For parents, it’s a much-appreciated break that can be utilized to expand young people’s understanding of Bitcoin (BTC).

Designers of BTC-related games and educational tools are intended to help teach kids about sound money principals.

One particular book and game titled SHAmory is a combination of the SHA-256 (the Bitcoin cryptographic function) and memory. Scott Sibley created the game and book with his child in mind.

“Financial education, especially financial education that includes Bitcoin, is something that kids aren’t going to receive in most ‘traditional’ schools. So right now it’s on bitcoin parents to find ways to weave that education in at home,” Sibley said in an interview.

Sibley said kids seeing, engaging with, and recognizing the “Bitcoin logo” or “playing our game and asking how Bitcoin mining works” is crucial for long-term adoption. Plus, Gen-Z has a headstart understanding intangible digital products: “Transacting in BTC is going to be no different than buying a new skin or level in a video game they are currently playing.”

Bitopoly was co-founded by Fold App co-founder Will Reeves. Reeves commented in an interview that Bitopoly “came from a dinner table chat” and said:

“Games provide a great way for people to understand a complex concept by ‘experiencing’ it rather than be ‘taught’ it. Humans have always used games to play this role throughout history, helping people come to understanding on their own terms.”

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Reeves claimed that Bitcoin requires adults to “unlearn” what money is.

MTC, inventor of Sats Ledger, commented during an interview that “I wanted to share Bitcoiners with my family.” As a Bitcoin influencer and freedom maximalist, he understands no five-year-old would listen to a one-hour Breedlove podcast about sound money, libertarian basic principles, and the tax system.

MTC “loved to save” as a child. He remembered filling up savings books to track his money. Sats Ledger was created because “kids don’t appreciate being cheated and ‘mine’ is one of the first notions they learn.”

Sats Ledger is a pleasant, tactile savings book for youngsters to log their Satoshi savings, money “nobody can take.”

With Sats Ledger, kids learn Bitcoin and money by HODLing with a low-time preference. MTC said, “If you can encourage youngsters to save, they’ll understand sound money and Bitcoin.”

Pigtoshi Nakamoto created a Bitcoin piggy bank. The BitPiggy works with OpenDime, a Bitcoin USB stick that uses Bitcoin-like dollar bills, to teach kids how to save in Bitcoin.

Pigtoshi said that, “I learned early on that saving will make life easier later on.” When young. Young people can succeed. They’ve collaborated with Sibley from SHAmory, so expect more toys and games.

Coach Carbon combines soccer and Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention in the UK. Coach Carbon, a life and health coach and soccer aficionado, developed Bitcoin Ballers academy, where youngsters learn “proof-of-work, personal responsibility, and combating the FUD”

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Bitcoin Ballers soccer training exercises include “51 percent attack,” “getting off zero,” and adding defenders or shrinking the pitch area. Coach Carbon promotes more than Bitcoin:

“The main thing is to get at ‘what is money?’ It’s not just currency, it’s time, its value and it’s energy. This question is not asked enough, and if it’s not talked about in schools then where are people going to learn that?”

“Hyper-Bitcoinization” (when Bitcoin becomes the worldwide store of value) is a distant scenario, considering that the Bitcoin network is just a teenager and global adoption rates are less than 1%. Young children’s exposure to Bitcoin is a minor step in that direction, teachers said.

Educating youngsters about sound money also benefits parents. Reeves determined that teaching youngsters about Bitcoin is an effective way to promote its use. Games, books, and instructional tools are Sibley’s “stealth means of orange-pilling people,” especially parents.