On September 6th 2018, the Pigzbe ICO went live on Eidoo. It was a BIG moment in a long list of big moments.

To date, we’ve sailed past our $2.85 million soft cap — as I write we’ve raised $7.2 million of an $8.85 million hard cap. We’ve secured a Bitfinex listing; won 1st place and $600,000 at the world’s biggest ICO competition in Lugano, Switzerland; and attracted the attention of the FT, Wired, Motherboard, Quartz, Forbes, and many others.

We’ve also just completed R&D for the remote device, and shipped our production-ready prototypes to our factory in China, where we’re gearing up for mass production and delivery. Plus, our Pigzbe App got the green light from the Apple App Store.

But the ICO is special — really special — because it’s our chance to share our product with our community at large, giving everyone the option to join our mission and have a say in how we go about creating a better financial future for a new generation.

If you’re already sold on our mission, that’s amazing — click here to complete Tier 2 Know Your Customer (KYC) on the Eidoo App where you’ll be able to buy Wollo.

If you’re looking for a final reason to take part and understand why Pigzbe has the potential to be the first mass-market crypto product in history, read on…

We already bank digital.

It’s not just physical money that’s on the way out; physical banking is too. PwC’s 2017 Digital Banking Consumer Survey showed 46% of consumers already use digital only banking channels, up from 27% just four years ago. Meanwhile, 82% of 18 to 24-year-olds with smartphones opt to bank via mobile apps right away.

Then there’s the phenomenon of challenger and neo banks, which now number more than 100 globally. In the UK alone, leading challenger Monzo recently celebrated half-a-million UK current accounts in March, while its peer Atom saw its loanbook shoot up from £99m to £1.2bn in the 12 months to April. Pigzbe scaffolds on this behaviour, serving a new generation of families increasingly comfortable with banks that live on their phones.

Crypto users keep growing.

Even with recent market fluctuations, global crypto uptake is on the rise. In 2017, Cambridge University put the number of active cryptocurrency wallet users at between 2.9 million and 5.8 million. Compare that to the 25 million customer wallets Blockchain celebrated in May this year. Or Coinbase’s March announcement that it had hit 20 million user accounts. That’s close to double the 11.7m users Coinbase counted in October 2017, twice as many users as stock exchange brokerage Schwab, and almost as many customers as Fidelity.

It doesn’t stop there. Institutional buy-in from finance, business and government remains strong. CBOE Global Markets, the owner of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and one of the world’s largest exchange holding companies, is looking to launch futures for Ethereum (ETH) this year; Japan’s leading messaging App line launched its very own exchange this summer; and in the UK the FCA has hinted — this is massive — at financial offerings like derivatives for the cryptocurrency markets in the UK.

Today, an astonishing 1,600 currencies and 200 exchanges operate globally. Check these stats again in 6 months, and I guarantee they’ll be higher still. This matters, because as demand for crypto continues to spill over into the mainstream, Pigzbe will be there to introduce 9- to 90-year olds to tokens in a safe and secure setting. We’re riding a wave of adoption like no other, and catering to what will become the most active and prolific crypto users in human history.

Pocket money isn’t small change.

So banking is on the phone, and crypto is on the up. But what do pocket money and piggy banks have to do with anything? Answer: pocket money is secretly Big Money. In the UK alone children get an average of £7.01 ($9.07) in pocket money per week. In the US that figure is $8.43, and in an average month, 9–11 year olds in the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia receive $30, while 12–14 years receive $34. Think about these numbers in terms of the market of 400 million affluent families Pigzbe is targeting across Japan, Korea, Europe, Russia and the US… Who knew that piggy banking was a billion dollar economy?

Now shift your focus so you’re no longer talking about a child’s money but about a family’s money. Consider that the Centre for Economics and Business Research says a fifth of all parents leverage the ‘bank of mum and dad’ to help their children get on the housing ladder. Think about the mortgages, insurance and savings accounts those families are involved with. No wonder US household debt is now close to $500 billion. The opportunity is even greater still.

What Pigzbe brings is a different level of responsibility and visibility around a child’s savings and their economic power. It places them within the family finances, not in a silo of their own. That’s a hugely important first step in showing them what money means to the wider community, not just themselves.

The potential for Pigzbe to provide families with a financial nucleus for all those fragmented elements is enormous.

So, what are you waiting for? Don’t miss out on the piggy-wallet revolution. Join us :)

Filippo, Piggy-in-Chief