Over the past few years, I've backed a number of successful (and just as many not successful) projects of Kickstarter and Republic. Looking back on some of these, I thought it would be nice to write about a few of the backings, just to see what worked and what didn't... to see if I can learn from my mistakes, or if I will always just throw that dice one more time!

Of course when backing on Kickstarter or Republic, you have to come to terms with the fact that your investment is at best highly risky, and that not everything is going to make it to completion... let alone a decent and worthwhile end product! That is even more true on Republic as you are taking part in crowdfuding of startups instead of just backing a single project launch!

So, one project that I had backed in the start of 2019 was this Pigzbe hardware crypto piggy bank that was being marketed as a savings/pocket money tool for parents and children. Now, I have distinctly set views about pocket money, in that I don't think that my children will receive pocket money. I don't want to set a dynamic where they have a direct link between doing chores and receiving a reward... my wife and I were brought up in a family dynamic where everyone just contributed, and everyone received the rewards when it was time to have ice-cream and all of that sort of thing. There was no division of assets within a family... something that my wife and I do as adults as well. Honestly, I'm always surprised when I hear that some of my friends have separate husband and wife accounts. I can see the purpose of it... but it doesn't appear to be necessary for us (at the moment!).

So, Pigzbe was an attempt to piggy back (haha...) the emerging crypto mania of 2019 onto the concept of children learning about the concepts money and saving. Given my own views on pocket money and chores, and my dubious thoughts about why this really required a blockchain implementation I was enticed by the fact that the launch company was Primo Toys, which is a edu-tech company that we've had good experiences with their previous toys.

Basically, the Pigzbe hardware would function as a sort of hardware wallet similar to a Ledger Nano but simplified and blinged up for children, it would be essentially a way to view their balance only. The parents would operate the behind the scenes chore giving, rewards and all of that on the Stellar blockchain (XLM).

So, a very tech-ed and blockchain-ed up version of a pocket money tracker with some savings features.

Throughout the development process, I took part in quite a few product tests as it was something that I was quite interested in. However, I started off with quite a few doubts about how it would ever be sustainable or profitable... and why the hell it needed cryptocurrency in the first place!

The balances would be held on the wallets in a private token that Primo controlled (I guess there is the profitable part...), but denominated in fiat. There was the first problem, that the fluctating token/fiat exchange would directly impact on the value of savings/earnings of the wallet. This is just like the real crypto exchanges, especially as the token was freely listed and exchangeable on the Stellar blockchain. However, when I asked about how they would shield the "savings" from currency fluctuations... they dodged the question. In fact, I would have to say that most of my questions about crypto/blockchain were dodged...

... the reasoning behind the use of crypto was so that family members/grandparents in different countries could easily send "money" without being bothered by high foreign exchange rates. Now, I don't know if they have ever met any grandparents... but mine are bothered by the internet banking experience already... let alone the idea of holding and sending crypto on-chain! Sure, the grandparents could download the app and use that to abstract all of that... but it seems like a huge run-around for a problem that isn't really there.

Meanwhile, they had quite a number of dubious design choices in the app that ran the chores and rewards... one that stuck in my mind was the fact that they defaulted all the rewards to automatically paid as soon as the kid marked them as done! Well... I said that they should default to parent authorisation instead (after the parent checks). Not saying that kids would game the system... but kids would game the system.

I also distinctly remember taking part in on of the app product tests as well. One of the last questions in the closing interview was "how much would you pay for a subscription to this service?". I said "zero" (after all, I had paid for the hardware... and what they were providing on the app chore tracking could be replicated with a piece of paper....).... I heard a choked laugh at the other end... I hadn't realised that there was a team of people listening and watching the product test! I had thought that it was only the person that I was interacting with!

Anyway... they kept pushing, and asking if I had to pay a non-zero amount what would it be... I finally consented to 1 euro per month. But I did qualify that I would likely just not use it instead...

Needless to say, this was one product that was built on the 2019 crypto hype, that didn't have a real use case and no real purpose. As we enter into the next bull run, there will be more of these! Look at all the token launches this year and the incredibly amounts of "DeFi" that are derivative projects!

Pigzbe died a quiet death last year... so, a little note to myself to trust my gut instincts on projects (some of them...). Hardware projects are notoriously risky to back as they are difficult to deliver upon (no after launch tweaks!)... this was no exception.

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.