How Gen Z is Turning Money into Culture and Entertainment
By Rick Johanson, Founding Partner at Arbitrum Gaming Ventures
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Need to Know:
- Gen Z’s financial habits aren’t irrational — they’re a rational response to inheriting a system built before them and often against them.
- Fintech has hit a ceiling on UX and infrastructure; the next competitive edge is emotional engagement and cultural fluency.
- Gamified, community-driven financial experiences aren’t gimmicks — they’re becoming powerful levers for behavior change and trust.
- A shifting regulatory landscape is emerging, creating a rare window for new financial models built from culture, not legacy.
Gen Z is coming of age in the wake of a financial system shaped by decisions and crises they didn’t create. Their relationship to money is rooted in volatility, debt and distrust — not by choice, but by inheritance. They grew up watching financial institutions erode public trust while Silicon Valley churned out better tools to track spending, but not to change its meaning. And now, this generation is entering adulthood with record-breaking anxiety around money, student debt, and economic uncertainty.
Yet we’re still handing them dashboards and trading apps that track progress but don’t help them feel it. Products and services that demand discipline, but to what end?
This is an overlooked opportunity. It’s time for a new financial paradigm. One born from the bottom up, not handed down by legacy generations or traditional institutions. One that understands Gen Z’s culture, behavior and emotional landscape, and builds products that make finance feel empowering, social — and even fun.
We call this category Finetainment.
The lines between games, finance and culture aren’t just blurring; they’re collapsing into each other. We’ve seen a TikTok savings challenge outperform a budgeting app in downloads, and mobile games teach discipline better than credit card providers. Something is changing. AI, influencers and blockchain are now converging to create new modes of earning, spending and self-expression, and as a result, finance is becoming more than just utility; it’s becoming culture.
Over the years, fintech has succeeded in building infrastructure and distribution, but the challenge now is to leverage emotion, build identity, and impact behavior. By incorporating gamified elements and lessons from the entertainment sector to financial applications, Finetainment apps seek to rise to this challenge and meet the unique needs of Gen Z users.
The Reality of the GenZ Financial Experience
As shown year after year in Intuit’s Prosperity Index and other reports, this generation approaches finances with expectations, habits and reference points unlike any before it:
- 56% of Gen Z say financial uncertainty is their top source of anxiety.
- 73% prioritize experiences and “soft saving” over traditional financial goals.
- 74% of Gen Z engage in social media-driven financial challenges.
- 76% turn to TikTok and YouTube for financial education instead of banks or advisors.
- 42% of Gen Z doesn’t have a savings account. Yet 56% own crypto.
Traditional banks and fintechs are trying to repackage old models with better visuals and user interfaces, but that’s not enough. Legacy infrastructure cannot be retrofitted into a cultural movement. What is needed now is a fresh start.
That’s why we at Arbitrum Gaming Ventures (AGV) invested in Coverd alongside a16z, Yolo, Volt Capital, Tusk Ventures, WndrCo and others. This fresh round of funding will power a go-to-market strategy designed to meet Gen Z exactly where they are.
“Coverd is changing the way people relate to money, turning financial stress into fun through play,” says Robin Guo, partner at a16z speedrun. “Managing your finances is a complicated process and Coverd makes it much easier and more enjoyable. We’re excited to support this team on their journey to transform the financial landscape.”
Dig deeper:
- A New Playbook for Youth Banking: What Fintechs Got Right, And How To Catch Up
- Earning NextGen Business Starts with Likes and Follows
- In Credit Cards, Gen Z Is Swapping Credit Scores for Social Stardust
The largest barrier to financial security for Gen Z is not informational, it’s behavioral. Gen Z’s focus on experiences, underscores the critical need to translate financial literacy into action. That’s the gap that Coverd was designed to address.
At AGV, we invest in cultural unlocks, products and services built for where people are going, not where they’ve been. Just as Chime reimagined banking for the underbanked and Square reimagined commerce for small merchants, Coverd is reimagining finance for a culturally fluent, emotionally driven, mobile-native generation. And this is just the start, we’re excited to share more portfolio companies that are bringing gamified consumer experiences to life across fintech, education and beyond.
Finetainment is not a niche, but as an inevitable response to:
- The emotional climate of Gen Z
- The saturation of content and the scarcity of attention
- The slow decay of trust in legacy financial systems
- The explosive growth of mobile gaming, creator culture, and yes, cryptocurrencies
Finetainment is not a gimmick. It’s the next evolution.
Gen Z isn’t fiscally irresponsible. Instead they’re culturally misaligned with pre-existing systems. Finetainment is not about making finance fun for fun’s sake. It’s about unlocking engagement, trust and outcomes for a generation that’s been failed by outdated models.
If we want financial inclusion to mean something in the next decade, we need new tools. New metaphors. New loops. New rewards. We need to make financial progress feel like progress again. That’s the promise of Finetainment.
Regulation Has Always Been the Quiet Catalyst
When people talk about the rise of neobanks and personal finance consumer apps, they often focus on better design, mobile distribution or VC funding. But beneath it all was a regulatory unlock.
The Dodd-Frank Act and the Durbin Amendment didn’t just constrain traditional financial institutions. They opened the door for technology to compete. By capping interchange fees and increasing transparency around consumer protection, these policies created the conditions for Chime, Cash App and Varo to participate in an industry that was previously closed off to outside competition. They lowered the barrier to entry just enough for fintech startups to launch API-driven financial products and challenge the old guard with a new kind of approach.
These weren’t just better interfaces. They were business models that scaled from the edges of the financial system, with a focus on underserved, mobile-native audiences. We’re entering a similar window of regulatory transformation again. Crypto legislation is evolving and bills like the Genius Act signal this shift, creating deeper clarity that could unlock an entirely new generation of builders. If Dodd-Frank catalyzed neobanks, this next era could catalyze something even more radical; something built around culture, incentive design and behavioral psychology that will reach well beyond legacy rails.
From Transactions to Transformation
Gen Z doesn’t want a better bank. They want cultural fluency and rewards that match how they live. And they’re ready to adopt tools that will meet them there. That’s why Finetainment is more than a trend. It’s a necessary response to generational change and an economic reality created by a new policy frontier. AGV is closely watching this shift, backing founders who recognize the moment and have the conviction to create entirely new categories as the rules are rewritten. The next Chime or Cash App won’t look like a bank, it just may feel like a game, speak with cultural fluency and be woven into Gen Z’s daily lives, built to help them win in a system that was never designed for them.
