Bitcoinopoly: Patch Fordham teaches by day and makes card games by night

Bitcoinopoly, A New card game, aims to take the mystery out of cryptocurrencies – and help educate and amuse those who don’t have a clue what’s going on right now.

Despite several years of widespread media coverage, many people are still fairly clueless when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Now a teacher who works at Hampstead School in London has launched a new card game designed to help students learn more about the process – and understand a little bit about what crypto is, and how it works.

Like many people, Patch Fordham didn’t have a clue what blockchain was, what a cryptocurrency is, an NF-what? What do you mean people pay for a jpeg?

So he decided to take a light-hearted approach to teach his sixth-form students about the complex nature of this new matrix-like world. He created a deck of playing cards featuring the leading crypto coins – including Bitcoin, Ethereum and the infamous DOGECOIN – and used them to get his class more engaged with the process.

“I am a teacher. I teach business and computer science. During my free time, I like to play, design and create board games. I like to bring my business experience into the classroom as a tool for learning, I think the pupils find the subject more engaging learning from a real-life example happening in the classroom; plus, it’s fun to talk about myself.

“I’ve been teaching for 5 years and absolutely love it. I have also been creating games for the same period of time.”

So Patch decided to turn the crypto phenomenon into a card game.

Bitcoinopoly:

Why did the project start?

“I like to create games that make the players think, not just about strategy and gameplay but about the current trends that are part of the daily global and national context. I believe that the more we talk out our opinions and share them with each other, whatever they might be, the better.

“I have now created three games based around Brexit, a contentious issue in the UK. It was usually a toxic conversation with both sides very entrenched.

“It was a dark and stormy winter night back in 2015. While playing one of my favourite board games Catan, the players around me started talking politics. But it wasn’t the aggressive argument I’d heard so many times previously, it was a rational and logical argument with great opinions from both sides, and even better, they were being listened to!

“This is weird I thought to myself. Why is no one shouting at each other? These two couldn’t disagree more on this topic.

“I realised that this was because they were concentrating on actually playing the game, so while they debated host topics like foreign affairs, they were also trading rock and sheep. So that’s when I decided to start making games with a controversial or current theme.

“This then broadened on to other topics to create further games including International Meddlers, Vegans Suck, Footballers Lives, ’I’m Not Orange I’mpeach’ Donald Trump The Card Game, and now Bitcoinopoly.

“I’m creating Bitcoinopoly to help my pupils and other players better understand what will be an important part of finance in the future. It can often be difficult to learn something new, especially when it seems so complex and alien.

“So I created this card game to spark peoples’ interest in the world of cryptos and everything that comes with it. This includes a pretty incredible, weird, certainly amusing, slightly opportunist but ultimately (for the most part) forward thinking community I have ever come across.

“I hope Bitcoinopoly will act as a gateway for people to become more curious about a decentralised currency and the pros and cons that come with it.”

The project is now live on Kickstarter and Patch is trying to raise £5,555 to make his Bitcoinopoly game a reality.

Visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitcoinopoly/bitcoinopoly to find out more or contact:  patch@patchgames.co.uk.