Cryptocurrencies went from a niche investment opportunity to a mainstream one in the past five years. They first appeared on the World Wide Web in 2009 when Bitcoin debuted, the original form of digital money whose transactions get recorded on a public ledger referred to as a blockchain. The price of one BTC (Bitcoin) when from $1,100 at the tail end of 2016 to $87,000 in November 2021. Hence, now everyone is on the lookout for the next big coin.
At the time of writing, there are over ten thousand cryptocurrencies in existence. It is noteworthy to mention that some of these have little to no trading volume, and many die off quickly. Nevertheless, the number of digital ledger transactions is formidable, as more people and businesses are shifting towards accepting this new reality. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the offer of crypto gaming sites is now vast, and their number is ever-increasing. Betting on sports and games of chance is a super popular pastime in every region on Earth. Hence, more governments seek to plug budget shortfalls by legalizing this pastime and filling their coffers through a new revenue stream.
The History of Crypto Casinos
The online gambling sphere sensed the potential of cryptocurrencies early, as the first sites that offered gambling via digital money showed up on the World Wide Web in 2011. These were dice sites that featured provably fair algorithms that let players verify the randomness of each result. These algorithms are software that gets explained in every quality online casino guide out there. They let users reset the seed figure used by a game’s random number generator to produce game outcomes.
For years, simple, provably fair games were cryptogam bling mainstays. It wasn’t until the mid-2010s when regulators such as the UK Gambling Commission saw that it was in the best interest of this sector to recognize cryptocurrencies as equivalents to fiat money. Despite that occurrence, there were few sites where gaming enthusiasts could play slots. Those began appearing in droves in 2019. Today, there are hundreds of internet platforms that cater to crypto users only.
The Benefits of Crypto Gambling
In virtually all territories, no one controls blockchain transactions. That means that there is no government involvement in coin-based financial transfers. Institutions such as banks do not have insight into who is moving what funds where. So winnings do not get taxed. All blockchain transactions are anonymous, and they feature fees that can fluctuate depending on each networks’ strain. These mentioned aspects favor both operators and players. The first can facilitate faster processing times when concerning withdrawals, and gamblers can not only get their winnings swifter, but they also do not have to pay many sizable fees when asking to remove funds from their casino balance. The transfer fees involved in these transfers are also often dramatically less than those provided by credit/debit card options and e-wallets.
Anonymity and speed aside, crypto gambling also offers security and convenience. When using Bitcoin or altcoins at exclusive crypto gambling sites, users rarely worry about restricted games. At some platforms, they also do not have to go through KYC procedures. These can be a substantial hassle as they entail supplying documentation that proves their identity. Although, almost all higher-end crypto gaming/betting platforms implement Know Your Customer policies. Multiple regulators mandate this, as well as compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Metaverse Casinos
Virtual shared spaces known as metaverses are now all the rage. They started to gain steam around 2017, quickly morphing into such a pop-culture phenomenon that Facebook saw fit to enter this arena and rebrand itself around a concept already established in virtual worlds like Somnium Space and Decentraland. The latter is home to several token-based (ERC-20) casinos.
Metaverse casinos are gaming establishments that mimic real-world ones, featuring traditional table games and novel ones unique only to them. For example, a video game pioneer launched an Atari casino in Decentraland in the first half of 2021. There, members can play roulette online and also gamble on novel Atari-inspired products. The Atari token is an ECR-20 one, existing on the Etherum blockchain. However, Atari’s Decentraland spot also allows the use of Decentral Games’ native token ($DG), the metaverse’s fungible one – Mana, and Dai. Again, all of these are ERC-20 tokens. All metaverses utilize the Ethereum blockchain. Its cryptocurrency, Ether, may soon overtake Bitcoin to become the world’s dominant one. Many industry veterans consider these metaverse casinos as game changes, as they provide social aspect that is currently unavailable at traditional online casinos.
