Last week, crypto educational game startup PiP World announced the acquisition of a Roblox stock trading game called StockRise, which caused quite a stir. Why would a crypto company buy a user-created game on a platform used primarily by kids and teens?

Roblox allows users to create their own games and worlds for anyone to explore and play in. Within the curated “Learn and Explore” section of the game, StockRise is the only educational experience in finance, and the world has received over 7 million visits in its three-year lifespan.

In Stock price riseplayers are invited to take control of a virtual portfolio to learn how to make money by investing in the stock market. Part of this experience is the ability to simulate cryptocurrency trading – all without the risk of dealing with real tokens.

Thanks to PiP World’s move, StockRise will now be stepping up its crypto education efforts with new courses like “How to Not Get Rekt” – a lesson that traders of all ages could benefit from.

PiP World CEO Saad Bachir Al Naja and VP of Partnerships Adam De Cata are well versed in this space, having played other stock trading simulators as children. In many ways, this experience was the inspiration for the creation of the company.

“When we started PiP, it was about: how can you make trading and investing gamified and fun?” Al Naja explained. “The vast majority of people have no idea how to manage their money, do they? You don’t learn how to manage your finances in school.”

The company, in turn, wanted a Roblox World, as the extremely popular platform has 200 million monthly active users—most of them are under 18 years.

When PiP World considered the possibility of developing their own Roblox game and building an audience, they came across StockRise, which already dominated the sector they wanted to enter. Instead of competing, they simply acquired the game for an undisclosed fee.

“If you do a few things right from a young age, it changes the course of your life,” said Al Naja Decrypt.

PiP shows the Roblox The game serves as a link to the rest of the ecosystem they are building. PiP dealers is a mobile app that will be the company’s “core gaming experience” and will launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Meanwhile, PiP Academy will use AI to deliver a more comprehensive and in-depth educational product that will launch around the second or third quarter of 2025.

“Roblox is our future generation of users,” said De Cata, while the mobile game is aimed at users ages 13 and up.

Once users are part of the wider ecosystem, they can interact with Play-to-Earn items by converting points into real cryptocurrency. To interact with it, users must go through a Know your customer (KYC) process.

De Cata said companies need to have a presence on multiple social platforms to “reach different audiences,” and PiP World sees the same in the gaming world. Roblox will be just one of many channels into the ecosystem the company is building.

“Over time, I would like to see how each individual downloads the app and what their experience is,” he said. “But ultimately, this is building the bridge from Web2 to Web3.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward