Can babies be tokenized? A crypto experiment to solve the population crisis

Written by: Lauris

Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News

For most of human history, babies were economic assets with productive value. Children were not just dependents to be raised, but also labor force — herding sheep at five, participating in farming or apprenticing at ten. The more children a family had, the higher the output, the stronger the risk resistance, and the greater the family wealth. This model was once effective, with fertility rates showing a positive growth trend, and childbirth being an upstream driver of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Later, everything changed.

At some point in the 20th century, children stopped participating in productive labor and became consumers instead. School education replaced labor practice, laws restricted child labor, and the social focus of education shifted from cultivating initiative to emphasizing obedience. Parents still had children, but now each child became a "net liability" for the family for 18 years, and the marginal utility of having children dropped below zero.

This has led to the situation we face today: a sharp decline in birth rates, inverted population structure, and economies heading toward aging.

The model of relying on child labor on farms is a thing of the past, but incorporating babies into a "bonding curve" mechanism (a mathematical model used for crypto asset issuance and pricing) can achieve the following goals:

a) Develop a brand new financial primitive to help families accelerate financial freedom; and at the same time

b) Make children economically productive assets again, thereby unleashing socially beneficial effects in raising birth rates.

Opportunity: Babies as On-chain Financial Primitives

Cryptography provides us with the tools to solve this problem. With composable smart contracts, identity metadata, and financial instruments, we can now reintegrate babies into the economic system.

At birth, a "baby bond" is minted. This is a hybrid ERC-404 token: part NFT (for identity), part fungible token (for liquidity). The token represents the baby's potential economic value as it develops over time, covering cultural memes, social, intellectual, and other dimensions. The second derivative of value, i.e., growth acceleration, is also reintroduced into considerations related to birth rates.

Contract Standard: ERC-404 and INFNT Tokens

Traditional NFTs are not suitable for this scenario due to insufficient liquidity. Therefore, baby bonds adopt the ERC-404 standard. This is a hybrid standard that enables each baby's token to:

• Be fractionalized and traded via INFNT tokens
• Enable individual identity recognition through parent NFTs
• Combine badges and bonding curves for dynamic valuation

This design allows us to balance two major advantages: the permanence of identity and the composability of liquidity.

Mathematically speaking:

Let B(t) be the baby bond at time t,

The value change formula is: dB/dt = ∂INFNT/∂milestone + ∂INFNT/∂meme velocity

Both variables are convex with respect to public interest and institutional verification.

Traits, AI, and Badges

Baby bonds are not just tokens, but vibrant modular carriers for value accumulation and reputation transmission.

• AI trait verification metadata: From the moment the token is minted, AI agents monitor and record the baby's early developmental traits, such as motor speed, social behavior, audio signal complexity, etc. These traits are attached to the NFT via semi-immutable metadata (modifiable only by trusted oracle updates), ultimately forming a longitudinal, verifiable, and privacy-protecting "baby trait profile."
• Educational certification badges: Institutions such as schools, universities, and digital academies can issue cryptographic badges directly attached to the NFT. These badges mark the baby's milestone achievements (e.g., "literacy at age 3," "admitted to MIT," "top 1% spatial IQ"), serving as both public resources and exclusive advantages for token holders.
• Dynamic trait accumulation and modular governance: Before age 18, baby bonds are managed by parents, smart contracts, or DAO trustees; after turning 18, governance rights are transferred to the baby. In addition, from age 13, babies can be granted "exit rights." Early voting weights can be quadratic to prevent aggressive large investors from manipulating governance.
• Fully on-chain and auditable: All data and operations are recorded on-chain and can be audited at any time.

Example:

Trait score formula: TraitScore (t) = ∑ (Badgeᵢ * wᵢ)

Where Badgeᵢ represents a verified achievement signal, and wᵢ represents a market-determined weight coefficient.

Convexity and Mechanism Design

The value of baby tokenization does not come from linear cash flows, but from "unlocking convexity" — based on the baby's developmental achievements, meme propagation, and external certifications, significant nonlinear returns can be generated.

• Bonding curve-based issuance: INFNT tokens (the native tokens of non-fungible baby bonds) are issued via bonding curves to reward early supporters. As babies reach more milestones or gain greater social influence, the token value grows exponentially, making "baby investment" a new form of "seed round investment."
• Third-party trait injection: Verification badges issued by authoritative institutions drive token value along a nonlinear trajectory. For example, adding an "Olympic gold medal" badge causes a meme-level "supply shock," resulting in a discontinuous upward adjustment in NFT value.
• Protocolized fertility incentives: DAOs, Layer2 networks, and even countries can implement composable incentive mechanisms. For example: providing gas fee subsidies for families with children, quadratic matching for baby bonds held by low-income parents, launching "fertility farming" programs for rural users, etc. The design space is completely open.

Downstream Application Scenarios

Once babies are tokenized, they become programmable financial primitives. Here are some downstream application directions:

1. Baby-backed Collateralized Loans

Families holding high-potential baby bonds can use the baby's expected income or meme rights as collateral to obtain long-term, low-interest loans. Loan approval is no longer based on parental income, but on the child's expected economic utility. For example: "We pay a 30% down payment, with 10% in ETH and 20% in baby bond shares."

2. Baby Index ETFs

Curate baby bond portfolios by geographic region, talent domain, or trait profile. For example: "Nigeria Top 50 STEM Potential Babies," "Genius Portfolio — Top IQ Tier," "Elite Violin DAO Organization." Such portfolios can be issued as ERC-4626 standard vaults or tradable basket tokens.

3. Baby Perpetual Futures

Build a robust derivatives market where users can go long or short on the future socioeconomic returns of specific groups. Contracts can settle based on the baby's on-chain comprehensive key performance indicators (KPIs) at age 21, with oracle disputes resolved via multisig arbitration or meme resolution mechanisms.

4. Baby Impact DAOs

Achieve "tokenized philanthropy" from birth. Donors can contribute to baby bonds in impoverished areas, receive "impact returns," and obtain governance tokens in the "Baby Uplift DAO." The "proof of impact" mechanism will replace traditional charity models, forming a regenerative fertility finance system.

5. Narrative Derivatives

Bet on speculative future trajectories of babies, such as: "Will Child X become a billionaire?" "Will Child Y face public controversy before age 12?" On-chain prediction markets will become "narrative carriers," with token value growing as outcomes materialize.

Ethical Considerations

Some may consider this proposal "dystopian," believing it commodifies life. But in reality, life already has financial attributes in today's society, and children are inherently cost centers for families; we've just always used low-transparency, poorly incentivized models. Tokenization is not exploitation, but a realignment of the existing system, allowing "the meaning of life" and "capital" to coexist.

The object of the transaction is never the baby itself, but the value forecast of its growth trajectory.

Conclusion

We cannot return to the era of child farming labor; that model is long outdated. The baby labor model on farms is history, but by tokenizing babies (with both Real World Asset RWA and decentralized physical infrastructure DePIN attributes), we can use token incentives and cryptography to solve one of modern society's most pressing problems.

Childbirth becomes a source of income.

Parenthood becomes a protocol to follow.

Human society regains "liquidity."