Why a Crypto Startup Acquired a Popular 'Roblox' Stock Trading Game

Last week, crypto educational gaming startup PiP World announced acquired a Roblox stock-trading game called StockRise, which raised some eyebrows. Why would a crypto company buy a user-created game on a platform largely populated by kids and teens?

Roblox allows users to create their own games and worlds that anyone can explore and play in. Within the curated “learn and explore” section of the game, StockRise sits as the only financial educational experience. As such, the world has garnered over 7 million visits to date over its three-year lifespan.

In StockRise, players are invited to take control of a virtual portfolio as a way to learn how to make money by investing in the stock market. Part of this experience includes being able to simulate the act of trading cryptocurrencies—all without the risk of handling actual tokens.

Now, thanks to PiP World’s move, StockRise will boost its crypto educational 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 know the space well, having played other stock trading simulators as kids. In many ways, that experience inspired the creation of the company.

“Founding PiP was all about: How can you gamify trading and investing, and make it fun?” Al Naja explained. “The vast majority of people have no idea how to manage their money, right? You're not taught in school how to manage your finances.”

In turn, the company was looking to create a Roblox world due to the massively popular platform having over 200 million monthly active users—most of which are under 18 years of age.

As PiP World weighed the possibility of creating its own Roblox game and attempting to grow an audience, they stumbled upon StockRise, which was already dominating the sector they wanted to enter. Instead of competing, they simply acquired the game for an undisclosed fee.

“If you get a few things right from [a young age], it changes the trajectory of your life,” Al Naja told Decrypt. 

PiP views the Roblox game as a funnel into the rest of the ecosystem they are building. PiP Trader is a mobile app that will be the company’s “core gaming experience,” launching in Q4 of this year. Meanwhile, PiP Academy will utilize AI to provide a richer and more in-depth educational product, launching around Q2/Q3 2025.

“Roblox is our future generation of users,” said De Cata, while the mobile game will be targeted at users 13 and older.

Once part of the broader ecosystem, users can interact with play-to-earn elements by converting points into real cryptocurrency. In order to interact with this, users must prove that they’re over 18 through a know your customer (KYC) process.

De Cata said that much like companies need a presence across multiple social platforms to “derive different audiences,” PiP World sees much the same in the gaming world. Roblox will be just one of many funnels into the ecosystem that the company is building.

“In time, I'd love to see how each and every person ends up downloading the app and what their experience is,” he said. “But ultimately, that's where that bridge of Web2 to Web3 happens.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward