Aunty Hays’ crypto-themed children’s books for the little HODLers

Your toddler could be a future crypto HODLer. These crypto-themed books for children can be great gifts for them, and even for the crypto-curious adults.

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A is for Address… B is for Bitcoin… and C is for Crypto!

ABC Digital Assets with Me is the title of this little book. It’s perhaps one of the few children’s books in the world that introduces crypto to young children. 

For many parents, the time between ages 3 to 5 is a critical period of accelerated learning. The toddlers would learn the names of the many objects around them, and even abstract words to describe what they are feeling — happy, sad, and hungry.

Additionally, children around this age are also beginning to learn expressions and slangs unique to the culture in which they live. The author of Digital Assets with Me, Hays Niwa, who goes by the name Aunty Hays and Haycrypto in her community, started this project “to make it fun for families” to explore the nascent technologies of Web 3.0.

I got an exclusive interview with the author to talk about this fascinating and unique project. If you are like me, who ventured into the crypto space as an adult, you may wonder if the content of the children’s book is fitting for children.

“Kids learn at an incredible speed, especially with technology,” Aunty Hays explained, “I can see kids speaking about crypto and slang like it’s a native language to them.” 

She went on to talk about how, when the Internet came into the public scene, most people didn’t understand what it was, let alone children. 

Today, that has all changed. Toddlers can now ask for the “password” to gain access to their home “WiFi” in order to watch videos on the “YouTube” app. It may seem like a stretch of the imagination, but perhaps one day toddlers could use their own Bitcoin wallet and ask their parents for some bitcoins to buy ice cream.

“As I’m getting more feedback, [the adults] actually learned more from it than the kids,” Aunty Hays remarked. “As an adult or a beginner in the [crypto space], it can be quite overwhelming. Most of the information is quite complex to really understand, let alone the time you put in. So, being able to explain to a kid makes it easier for adults to also grasp the concept.”

Curious? Get a copy of Digital Assets with Me from Aunty Hays Academy.

Making use of NFTs 

Many people got their heads around non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, as these overpriced JPEGs of monkeys and pixelated ‘punks’, while questioning their real purpose. The reality is, like other digital assets, NFTs can be used to represent a membership of a community, and can give its holder the exclusive benefits from the project.

Aunty Hays collaborated with an NFT digital artist to mint a series of art pieces, such as these Curious Pigs and Learning Cats. With every purchase, the NFT holders can buy Aunty Hays’ products at a heavy discount, and participate in exclusive community projects in the future.

When asked if it’s necessary to own the NFTs to get access to Aunty Hays’ children’s books, she shook her head. 

“No. It almost feels like a crime to restrict these educational resources,” she said. “I want my products to be accessible for people to purchase and learn. 

“If NFT holders only get access to the resources, it scares off new beginners who wouldn’t know where to start when purchasing an NFT, let alone setting up a wallet, purchasing ETH and so forth. So, restricting access to the products was NOT an option going into this project.”

The project’s future

Regardless, the part involving NFTs in Aunty Hays’ project is far from being just a gimmick. 

“We are seeing the bigger picture which can include course access for kids and adults, metaverse spaces, kid’s camps and more. Essentially we want our NFTs to be a key that opens all the resources and opportunities for kids and families.”

But for now, the NFTs are minted to give holders the benefit of discounts and free digital products, while the project gains more traction.

Aunty Hays will be releasing more books in the future, in bundles of educational packs. For instance, Digital Assets with Me is a part of the first round of product release and NFT drops. 

Along Digital Assets with Me is a colouring book, a set of flashcards, and other digital products. As of November this year, the second round of product release is Safety First, a book for older children about passwords, wallets, seed phrases, and Internet safety advice.

NFTs are traded, knowledge is shared

In New Zealand, NFT projects like these aren’t that uncommon. However, Aunty Hays’ approach is particularly unique. 

I asked whether her ebooks have the same protection as the ISBN-registered hard copy version. Just as anyone could simply copy-paste the $3.4 million dollar Bored Ape NFT, there is no stopping anyone from copy-pasting the digital versions of Digital Assets with Me.

Aunty Hays responded, “If they’re sharing it for free, it’s cool.”  

At that point in the interview, a thought dawned on me: 

NFTs will probably not protect your intellectual property. That’s perhaps the government’s job, to ensure that your identity is linked to a piece of content or work.

On the other hand, NFTs can reduce the likelihood of someone profiting from another’s work through piracy. After all, Aunty Hays started the project to make fun and simple learning resources for kids. Her goal of educating curious young minds would be accomplished if her books get shared around.

NFTs can be traded, but content, images, and especially knowledge, will inevitably get shared around. Knowledge is unrestricted, but the right to profit lies in the hands of the NFT holder.

Educating through example

The NFTs in Aunty Hays’ project would also provide her the opportunity to show the use cases of NFTs as something more than what NFTs critics like to assume.

“The majority of assumptions are fueled by people who have invested in NFTs that turned out to be a scam, and that is also something people need to be educated about and is something we are working on as well.

“And that’s also what I want out of this project,  for everyone to understand the possibilities of NFTs and use cases, rather than over-hyped and useless images.”

Check out Aunty Hays Academy and follow Hays Niwa on Instagram (@haycrypto) and Twitter (@AuntyHays). Some opinions presented here are of the author and do not represent the views and opinions of Easy Crypto.