George Weiksner lives in Old Greenwich, Conn. He attends Greenwich Country Day School. And, from there, his story—more than likely—diverges from those of his classmates.
At 11 years old, he might look a bit out of place at the upscale New York City restaurant Bagatelle, which hosts Crypto Mondays, a meet-up group where crypto and blockchain enthusiasts meet, glad-hand and share ideas about the world of digital currencies.
George is, in reality, far from out of place.
He is the CEO of Pocketful Of Quarters, which, according to its website, is the “universal cryptocurrency for games.”
“This idea came up. I was coming back from school, and my dad told me about cryptocurrencies. I had this idea with games that [was] one for all your games, and that’s how this idea got started,” he told ICO Investor TV.
The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. His dad, Michael Weiksner, a Stanford Ph.D., is a general partner at Rostrum Capital, which invests in next-generation platform companies. According to Michael Weiksner’s LinkedIn profile, Rostrum plans to invest between $100,000 and $250,000 in 15 companies over the next two years. (George has his own LinkedIn presence, identifying him primarily as a student.)
While Pocketful of Quarters may not have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital, it is finding a niche in the crypto space.
“Cryptocurrency investing is more like, I feel, later, and [an initial coin offering] is like in the beginning. What we do in our ICO is we’re making it so you’re investing in something that has already been partly built so ours is kind of in between, which is kind of nice,” Goerge Weiksner said.
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And if his crypto peers are right, Pocketful of Quarters might have to patent Pocketful of Hundreds.
“His dad said he wanted to pitch me an ICO, and it turned out to be a cryptocurrency for games. He’s killing it,” Lou Kerner, who organizes the meetups, said.
A recent fervor over ICOs, which have ballooned in popularity in the past year, rivaling traditional venture raises, has come as bitcoin BTCUSD, +2.70% has drawn mainstream attention, with its stratospheric climb, up about 780% since the end of December of 2016. That’s despite its recent stumbles.