Hey there friends! As some of you already know, I am involved in this industry and like to share information about it with others who have an interest in it. I've seen interest in digital currency like Bitcoin expressed here, so I thought I'd share my take on what's going on in our neck of the woods...
Crypto currencies have seen a huge investment boom in 2017, sparking a new wave of development on all kinds of blockchain technologies.
Yet mainstream online gambling has seen relatively less progress in the area, and this comes as no surprise. While there have been many interesting announcements made about new betting and gambling platforms attached to the blockchain, the current players haven’t changed. After all, it’s just too soon for something this new to be fully implemented and adopted into finished gaming platforms.
The first contribution to gambling made by blockchain technology came through the first currencies themselves, and today, many casinos accept Bitcoin, and even other more obscure tokens. From the standpoint of a casino operator, it is relatively easy to accept a variety of tokens once the groundwork has been laid to accept Bitcoin, the latter still being the ‘blue chip’ of crypto currencies. This being said, the incentive to do so was not very high, at least until a few months ago.
Digital currency systems still have very little reach within the mainstream (under 10% of the population), and “alt coins” are even less widely used, and accessible than Bitcoin. Chances are very few potential customers would ever use them to gamble online.
But with the huge rise in interest in crypto investing last fall, prices for bitcoin and alt coins skyrocketed across the board, causing much buzz, but also headaches for crypto gambling.
Bitcoin shot up well past $10,000USD, and the spike in trading traffic on the network caused a huge inflation in transfer fees. It used to cost a dollar or less to send bitcoin from one address to another, and by year’s end, fees could exceed 30-40 USD.
The appeal of using bitcoin to gamble was severely handicapped by this. Who would spend this much in order to gamble 50 bucks on their favorite video poker? There were still alternatives that provided fast transfers and sub-$1 fees, such as Litecoin and Dogecoin, but even fewer casinos have payment facilities in place for those, and fewer people own these currencies. We at Wajur see little traffic with these currencies, but this stands to change as more mainstream exchanges like Coinbase are offering more alternative coins to purchase, and users are becoming more savvy about the technology, and are buying into these coins.
Luckily, recent programming developments were implemented to ease up Bitcoin transfer fees. They are currently back to affordable levels for average gambling uses, and this is good news for everyone. The question is will they remain as such. Regardless, these issues will eventually be ironed out to provide the ideal medium for gambling online.
The ecosystem is still young, but it’s here to stay and promises to grow even more. Gamblers can look forward to blockchain based betting systems, fair gaming tracking, and even new currencies built from the ground up with gambling in mind. Gamblers have a huge incentive to familiarize themselves with cryptos now, as this will provide them with an even more interactive experience.
Crypto currencies have seen a huge investment boom in 2017, sparking a new wave of development on all kinds of blockchain technologies.
Yet mainstream online gambling has seen relatively less progress in the area, and this comes as no surprise. While there have been many interesting announcements made about new betting and gambling platforms attached to the blockchain, the current players haven’t changed. After all, it’s just too soon for something this new to be fully implemented and adopted into finished gaming platforms.
The first contribution to gambling made by blockchain technology came through the first currencies themselves, and today, many casinos accept Bitcoin, and even other more obscure tokens. From the standpoint of a casino operator, it is relatively easy to accept a variety of tokens once the groundwork has been laid to accept Bitcoin, the latter still being the ‘blue chip’ of crypto currencies. This being said, the incentive to do so was not very high, at least until a few months ago.
Digital currency systems still have very little reach within the mainstream (under 10% of the population), and “alt coins” are even less widely used, and accessible than Bitcoin. Chances are very few potential customers would ever use them to gamble online.
But with the huge rise in interest in crypto investing last fall, prices for bitcoin and alt coins skyrocketed across the board, causing much buzz, but also headaches for crypto gambling.
Bitcoin shot up well past $10,000USD, and the spike in trading traffic on the network caused a huge inflation in transfer fees. It used to cost a dollar or less to send bitcoin from one address to another, and by year’s end, fees could exceed 30-40 USD.
The appeal of using bitcoin to gamble was severely handicapped by this. Who would spend this much in order to gamble 50 bucks on their favorite video poker? There were still alternatives that provided fast transfers and sub-$1 fees, such as Litecoin and Dogecoin, but even fewer casinos have payment facilities in place for those, and fewer people own these currencies. We at Wajur see little traffic with these currencies, but this stands to change as more mainstream exchanges like Coinbase are offering more alternative coins to purchase, and users are becoming more savvy about the technology, and are buying into these coins.
Luckily, recent programming developments were implemented to ease up Bitcoin transfer fees. They are currently back to affordable levels for average gambling uses, and this is good news for everyone. The question is will they remain as such. Regardless, these issues will eventually be ironed out to provide the ideal medium for gambling online.
The ecosystem is still young, but it’s here to stay and promises to grow even more. Gamblers can look forward to blockchain based betting systems, fair gaming tracking, and even new currencies built from the ground up with gambling in mind. Gamblers have a huge incentive to familiarize themselves with cryptos now, as this will provide them with an even more interactive experience.
