Coin Review - Pigzbe and the Wollo (WLO) token

Summary

Wollo (WLO) is a utility token described as a “family-friendly cryptocurrency”.

It is native to the Pigzbe platform - a decentralised application that provides a digital alternative to money stored in piggy banks, and incorporates:

Wallet app and educational game
Cold storage device
Game controller
Wollo card for real world spending

Statistics

Asset Type: Utility Token
Maximum Supply: 675,000,000 WLO
ICO Allocation: 175,000,000 WLO
Hard Cap: $8.85m
Soft Cap: $2.85m
ICO Price: $0.12
Accepted: ETH
Public Sale: 5th September 2018 - 19th September 2018
Private Pre-Sale: Live
Raised: $6.1m
Launch Exchanges: SDEX, Bitfinex
Token Economics: Deflationary, fixed supply
Protocol: Stellar Consensus Protocol
Community: Telegram 26.7k, Twitter 11.2k, Facebook 8.3k, Subscribers 26k
Target Market: 205m children who get up to $15 pocket money each week

History & Development

The idea behind Pigzbe and the Wollo token was conceived in 2015, Pigzbe Ltd was registered in January 2018 and Pigzbe SA was incorporated in Switzerland in April 2018.

Pigzbe is a decentralised application that allows people to create their own financial networks and to exchange money within them. Transactions within Pigzbe are made using Wollo (WLO), the platform’s native token.

Users will be able to purchase Wollo on the open market, initially through the SDEX and Bitfinex exchanges. It aims to provide a fun and exciting family experience that helps children learn about finances and saving through a play-based app. It therefore improves children's financial literacy (something that is distinctly lacking in many education systems today) in a simple and effective way, allowing parents and family members to reward children and help them to develop good financial habits.

The project is still in it’s very early stages having recently moved through from concept, design and prototype development to the manufacturing ramp-up which began at the end of Q2 2018.

From here, the roadmap looks as pictured.

Team

Pigzbe have an experienced team of designers, engineers, founders and investors from the consumer electronics, product design, fintech, cyber-security and banking industries. Filippo Yacob and Jon Marshall (2 of the 6 founders), have previously developed award-winning ed-tech and consumer electronics focussed on families and children. Combined, the team has project experience from companies like Apple, Google, NASA, Nokia, Honda, IBM, B&W, Yamaha, VEON and Bloomberg.

Use Cases

According to the company, the Pigzbe “experience” (the Wollo token, app and hardware combination) is:

"Designed to replace physical money normally stored in a traditional piggy-bank with a digital alternative that caters to modern globalised families, while maintaining all of the important kinesthetic benefits of learning through hands-on play.”

Pigzbe

It therefore aims to solve a number of problems:

Physical piggy banks
The next generation are growing up used to the digitalisation of many aspects of their lives and the humble piggy bank is no different. With a Pigzbe device, kids can earn, track, save and spend the Wollo token in a safe and secure way, whilst interacting with the game based element. It also may be less tempting to spend and therefore easier to save with this digital format, whilst using a device that is more likely to have extended use beyond their early years.
The need to educate young people about money and finances
Managing our money and finances is one of the most important life lessons to grasp and yet most education systems fail to sufficiently cover this on their curriculum. Particularly in the west, this has arguably contributed to generations of increasing debt and poor household budgeting. By helping to educate the next generation on how to manage their finances in a gamified and friendly way, they can avoid the mistakes of the past and enjoy taking their first steps into the world of cryptocurrency.
High remittance fees
Billions of dollars are spent every year on remittances and can incur very high fees in the traditional banking system. Wollo reduces these costs to sub-cent levels, dramatically reducing costs for users and vastly increasing the potential to send smaller sums globally.
Slow payments
It can take up to 72 hours or more using traditional payments systems and apps. The Wollo wallet provides real-time settlement in less than 5 seconds, so that rewards can be sent near instantly on demand, or on task completion.
Geographical limitations
In an increasingly globalised world, many current “digital piggy-bank” apps simply don’t work across borders. That’s no good for families that are spread across the globe. Pigzbe creates a borderless network where micro-payments are possible across over 180 countries.

Technical Description

Wollo (token)

The Wollo token issuance and smart contracts are based on Stellar and the Stellar network. Transaction costs are just 1/100,000 of one Stellar Lumen (XLM) in network fees. Settlement is typically achieved in 3 to 5 seconds globally. Wollo tokens will be instantly tradable on the SDEX and Bitfinex exchanges for other tokens and fiat currencies supported on the network.

Wollo supply has been designed to distribute 70.3% of tokens directly to active users of the Pigzbe DApp, first through the Pigzbe ICO, then an ‘Active User Incentive Pool’ distribution scheme, and then a ‘Network Growth Pool’ scheme for the first 1m Pigzbe devices purchased.

From the remaining tokens, 1.9% will be held for strategic M&A to help accelerate the Pigzbe roadmap and vision, and 27.8% distributed amongst founders, team members, partners, advisors and service providers. Private sale tokens are distributed under a lock-up scheme to ensure long-term commitment.

The Active User Incentive Pool contains 100,000,000 tokens split into 500 smaller pools of 200,000 tokens each. Once delivery of the ICO devices has been completed, every active account will be rewarded with a weekly payout from one of the 500 pools for the next 500 weeks in accordance with their account score (based on activity).

Users that are early adopters and token savers will receive a larger share of the token rewards. This can be compared to mining rewards with proof-of-work coins for example.

The Network Growth Pool rewards users with up to 200 Wollo tokens per unit for the first 1m units delivered post ICO. 60 Wollo are distributed to each unit on activation. A further 60 tokens can then be earned over the next 2 months with active use of the device and app. The final 80 Wollo can be earned by inviting family members to the network and by introducing new Pigzbe customers via a discount referral scheme for each unit. This pool will help drive growth in the network and device sales on an exponential basis.

Pigzbe (app & hardware)

The Pigzbe DApp is built on top of the Stellar network. The front-end of the Pigzbe app is made up of the Pigzbe hardware wallets, mobile and desktop applications. It shows the status of a family’s payment network under their control.

Private keys are not transmitted over the network and remain encrypted in the hardware device.
Transactions are cryptographically secured and publicly auditable over the decentralised network.
The software applications allow you to process and manage these transactions in a user friendly way according to the user.
Children’s accounts will run in a colourful, gamified style, whereas adult accounts are more focussed on functionality.
All personal data is retained by the user and is not identifiable or accessible outside of that family network.

The wallet PCB features Espressif’s ESP32-D2WD - a WiFi 802.11 b/g/n & Bluetooth 4.2 system-on-chip with a dual-core XTENSA® 32-bit LX6 processor and advanced security features wrapped up in an ABS case. It connects to the Pigzbe server over authorised WiFi networks directly (secured using HTTPS), ensuring independent operation without a mobile device, and system configuration that can be managed over Bluetooth from the Pigzbe mobile application. The hardware uses authenticated LE Secure Connections between the Pigzbe wallet and mobile device.

The device measures 98mm x 60mm x 12mm with dual pushbuttons and a 6-axis motion sensor enabling users to interact with the wallet, alongside an audio speaker, vibration motor and 24 x 8 LED matrix display. When the device is idle, a power sleep mode conserves battery life.

Processing speed allows for fluid and engaging animations/audio for younger children and industry-leading security features to provide safety assurances to parents. The device offers AES/RSA/ECC/SHA hardware encryption and all application code must be validated by the Pigzbe remote server so that only trusted software is allowed to run and enable secure and remote firmware upgrades.

Stellar (protocol)

Stellar is an open-source protocol for value exchange founded 4 years ago by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim. The Stellar network is a distributed ledger where agreement on ledger transactions is achieved via a consensus algorithm, providing decentralised oversight, low latency, flexible trust and asymptotic security.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Strong design, technical and business/finance team with experience at Apple, Google and Bloomberg.
Substantial funding already raised.
Bitfinex listing secured on launch.
A card to spend Wollo in the real world.
Low cost transaction fees (sub-cent levels).
Relative regulatory certainty (The ICO will be conducted in Switzerland and governed under the national regulatory body FINMA).

Opportunities

Niche market as yet broadly unexplored by other projects.
Impressive pre-launch community development.
Large overall global target market, especially for geographically disparate families.
Viral growth potential through gamification.
Engagement with schools surrounding the educational aspects of the platform.
Interacting with the established communities already utilising the Stellar network.

Weaknesses

Reliance on the Stellar network (not its own DLT) and therefore impacted by any Stellar-based issues.
Reasonably high token retention for pools under Pigzbe’s control.
The focus on children impacts adult usage beyond pocket money for their kids and therefore potentially a slower (initial) growth curve.
The target market is a lot smaller if reliant upon existing crypto enthusiasts with children.
The initial devices will miss the crucial Christmas period.
The children’s device appears to only come in Pink, which rightly or wrongly will be an issue for some children.

Threats

Copycat projects or diversification into this area by more established platforms.
Further regulatory compliance requirements given the involvement of children.
Existing “digital piggy-bank” apps moving into crypto with an active customer base already.
The relatively long-lead time from ICO to product delivery with the potential for further delay.
USA residents are not allowed to take part in the ICO, impacting potential take-up.

Community Activity

Pigzbe have developed a fast growing community and successful bounty program within a short period of time, having exceeded over 26k Telegram followers, 11k on Twitter and a subscription base of over 26k too.

The Network Growth and Active User Incentives payout pools will seek to further value community contributions, usage and long term commitment in the form of rewards and a say in how the platform is developed.

Conclusion

Pigzbe is one of the few projects in the crypto space that is seeking to educate the next generation on the future of money. This is an admirable vision, intelligently applied through gamification and the kinesthetic benefits of learning through hands-on play.

With significant initial and private sale backing, they have certainly hit the ground running. Add to that impressive community growth and their 2018 ICO Race victory (entitling them to the Bitfinex listing on launch), they are already in an enviable position compared to many projects, both old and new.

This is a niche platform with real use cases and a seemingly driven development team. The product element of the ecosystem also brings something new to this project and merges the ICO token framework we have become used to, with a more traditional ‘product crowdfunding’ style offering.

The target market potential is huge and I can certainly see the interest from existing crypto enthusiasts who are also parents or guardians as a fun way to introduce their kids to cryptocurrencies. The native Wollo token forms the backbone of that experience.

If they are successful with the take up of the Pigzbe devices, Wollo’s position as a potential introductory crypto for a new generation could certainly be very powerful over the next 10-20 years as those kids grow up and explore the industry further.

Disclaimer: Investing or trading in cryptocurrencies involves significant risk. This is an early stage project with long-term goals, however short-term pricing fluctuations will likely be dependant on speculation. It is important to research and carefully assess any such investments. All the information presented in this article does not constitute financial advice or recommendations of any kind.

By James Hunt (@humanjets)