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The Ways Bitcoin Can Be Used While Gaming

16 March 2023 15:36, UTC

Cryptocurrencies have firmly entered the mainstream consciousness at this point. Almost everyone knows what a Bitcoin is now and the days when crypto was an obscure niche interest among internet sub-groups have long since passed.

It is now something that people all around the world are looking into. Both individuals and businesses are showing serious interest in Bitcoin and other crypto coins.

In some ways, their rise to prominence echoes that of online gaming. Visiting Jackpotjoy and other big gaming websites to play the online bingo games is another thing that more and more people are doing all the time.

Given the fact that both are entirely digital developments, links between crypto and gaming were bound to be forged. That is now happening and here we will explore how bitcoin can be used when playing online games.

Bitcoin Gaming Uses

There are essentially two ways in which cryptocurrencies can be used in gaming. They are the following:

  • Conducting financial transactions

  • Play-to-Earn (P2E) crypto gaming

We are going to take a look at each of them.

Conducting Financial Transactions

Of the two potential uses for crypto in gaming, this is the one that more people are aware of. Bitcoin and other crypto coins can be used as a means of both depositing money at gaming sites like casinos and of withdrawing any winnings from those sites.

It is an option that a lot of gamers are very keen to embrace. That is partly because they are a section of the global populace that is naturally drawn to cutting edge tech developments, but there are other sound reasons why many of them like the idea of crypto transactions.

The biggest of those is that they address many of the security concerns that gamers have about online financial transfers. Even the most secure, encrypted forms of traditional currency transactions still require people to put their personal financial information on the internet.

For a long time gamers accepted that because there was no alternative. However the blockchain technology behind Bitcoin means that transactions can take place without the need for such information to be shared.

That makes it easy to understand why people who play games online would want to use cryptocurrencies. It is an issue that is most relevant in relation to real-money games like casino ones and bingo, because they are the ones that involve financial transactions.

Of course, the ability of people who play those games to use Bitcoin and similar currencies is determined by the casino bingo sites. They have to be willing to add crypto options to their available payment methods for it to be viable.

These sites have become successful and stayed so by responding to consumer demand though. If people want to be able to make deposits and receive any winnings using crypto coins, it is not in the interests of the sites to deny them that.

Therefore we are already starting to see more online bingo and casino sites providing the choice of crypto transactions. It is not just a matter of meeting demand though, the greater security such transactions offer benefits the sites as well.

No online casino or bingo provider wants to take risks with customer personal and bank data. By eliminating the need for players to provide such information, Bitcoin relieves the sites of the responsibility for ensuring the security of it.

Play-to-Earn (P2E) Crypto Gaming

Crypto is not only about reducing data security risks within the gaming world. It is also impacting on the actual games themselves.

The emergence of Play-to-Earn Games (P2E) is the clearest example of that. These first appeared two years ago, in the shape of Axie Infinity, a P2E NFT title that took much of the Far East by storm that summer.

The world created by this game is one in which the players are not just able to assume the roles of particular characters for the duration of the game, but actually purchase those characters. They can also buy in-game items like weapons and these things can then be sold for real money at markets that exist within the game.

That makes it a complex mixture of the virtual and the actual and arguably it has just as much potential to transform the world of gaming as something like Virtual Reality. Enabling players to earn hard cash from playing a game also puts it on a par with online bingo and casino games and could broaden the appeal of gaming still further.

Crypto is what fuels that money-making aspect of P2E gaming, because all purchases and sales take place using gaming tokens that are derivatives of the Ethereum crypto coin. Therefore it is not Bitcoin that is being used at the moment, but if P2E games really start to become a mainstream concern, it is hard to imagine that we will not see versions of them that utilise Bitcoin tokens in the future.

At root, P2E gaming takes the virtual objects that people have to acquire during video game-play that have always been worthless outside of that context and assigns real-money value to them. It is a major crypto gaming development, although there is some dispute over whether it is here to stay.

From making transactions totally secure to allowing people to earn money from in-game purchases, crypto is opening up new horizons in gaming.