What are dabloons?: Tiktok’s new imaginary economy explained

A "dabloon revolution" is taking over TikTok - but what is it and how did we get here?

The dabloon economy is the latest craze engulfing TikTok. It's a collaborative, loosely structured role-playing game where users collect the fictional currency "dabloons" - based on the 16th-century Spanish coin known as a "doubloon" - and exchange it for imaginary items, such as soup, weapons or a giant shark with a horse head.

You earn dabloons simply by coming across a video giving you some. You will then eventually come across other videos - most featuring a picture of a cat who will greet you with the phrase "hello traveller" who will then proceed to show you their inventory of items that you can buy for a set number of dabloons.

Anyone can make a dabloon gifting or sale video, there's no database that tracks how many you have or what you buy, and there is no external website that creates or regulates them. In fact, there's really nothing stopping you from just saying that you have ten billion doubloons in your pretend bank account , but with no tangible benefits besides whimsey, if you choose to cheat, then you're only really cheating yourself.

"I think the reason we all love this is that we all secretly miss being 5 and playing with our friends," avid UK dabloon collector Beth Woodward says.

"I miss being a kidnapped princess or a witch making potions. Being a part of this trend means I can do that again. I can be a silly little cat buying silly little items and just having a great time."

According to the website "Know Your Meme", the dabloon trend's origins can be traced back to two images, shared by the Instagram account catz.jpeg, of cat's paws, with the simple caption "four dabloons" beneath.