Mark is ten years old, and he loves chess, pizza and Minecraft. He usually gets all the in-game stuff online — he is particularly fond of vast custom maps. As an underaged person, he cannot have a bank account to buy these, nor does his father, Philipp, trust Mark with his own credit card. What Philipp did was far more innovative — he created a crypto token to manage his son’s allowance.
What follows is their story of blockchain-powered parenting, published with their consent. The names were changed to ensure their privacy.
A migration of commercial sales to the online domain is nothing unexpected — and the ongoing pandemic has only exacerbated this process. Philipp, a father of three, confirms this trend hasn’t escaped his sons either, which made him as a parent reconsider ‘the old ways’ of pocket money.
‘Most of the stuff the kids want to buy is ordered online these days,’ says Philipp. ‘My eldest son is old enough to have a bank account, and I already handled his pocket money electronically, but for the younger one [...] I didn't have this option.’
With more people preferring not to use cash for payments — for safety reasons, too — the same shift may be emerging on a micro level within families. Sharing a straightforward sentiment, Philipp adds, ‘I got tired of giving them cash every week, only to have it come back and have to deal with change when they wanted to order something. [So] I decided to create my own token.’
POCKET is an EOS-based token that essentially works as an IOU. Mark transfers the needed amount of POCKET to his father — and he, in turn, buys what Mark wants. The token itself has no value, so all the rates are discussed between Philipp and Mark. This also saves Philipp from worrying about introducing his child to volatile assets and complex financial mechanisms. ‘Since this token is simply an IOU for him, he doesn't have any exposure to anything outside the POCKET token. He just knows he has a balance that he can use.’
The overall system has worked pretty well so far for both Philipp and Mark. The vanguard parent confessed that using the standard token creation contract on EOS was pretty easy. The rest, from account creation to token transfers, both of them handled in Wombat.
For Mark as a gamer, operating digital assets is a very familiar thing. Although crypto is over-regulated in many countries, it still attracts many young investors not much older than him. As observed by by Mike Novogratz, crypto is an intuitive thing for them — also because they recognize its potential as a store of value. Mark is still detached from this world — but seeing as his father is an avid token holder and DeFi enthusiast, it may not stay like that for long.
Philipp points out that he didn’t impose it on his son — in fact, Mark has chosen POCKET himself. ‘This system is something he actually prefers. He is free to use cash if he wants, and [...] he still hold[s] some cash so he can spend it in the local shop.’
Philipp and Mark have only begun their crypto journey as a family, but it remains to be seen if this practice spreads on. Although blockchain is primed to enhance other aspects of family life, it is too early to consider it an everyday thing, especially when it comes to children’s financial education. But it could be that these two just found a perfect entry point.
This is only one of the many crypto stories from Wombat Family. Want to share yours? Drop us a line at hello@getwombat.io!
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