How Digital Currencies Are Changing the Way We Gamble

Digital currencies have revolutionized the gaming industry. It might have been a tough year for crypto, following five years of seismic growth, but adoption and daily usage continue to increase at pace. The gaming community still passionately believes in the power of blockchain-based services, and this is translating rapidly to everyone within it.

People like me who grew up playing online games like CSGO, Diablo II, and World of Warcraft have always been at home in a world that is experienced exclusively online. Using digital currencies, participating in online collaborative projects, and finding creative ways to play with new game dynamics are just parts of a culture we've been helping to create since we were jamming the phone lines with dial up internet.

We shouldn't be surprised or shocked by crypto's popularity. For people like us, gamers, geeks, people who grew up in Discord servers and livestreams, a digital currency just makes sense. We don't love crypto because we just want to be Bitcoin billionaires, we use it because it's the lifeblood of the world we're creating.

Interest in the world of gaming exploded during the pandemic, and digital currencies have formed an inevitable part of that. A sudden influx of interest in the weird, fun, endlessly creative online world that people like my friends and I were building has supercharged our ability to innovate.

Previously working as part of the Web3 ecosystem for gaming and NFT company WAX, I was able to see first-hand how crypto can power a business as well as the online gaming community. Evangelizing the virtues of exciting concepts like a delegated proof of stake blockchain, which rewards users for building the community and also gives them a vote on its future, taught me about blockchain democracy and what governance could look like in a Web3 world. Using my experience at this company has made me the kangaroo handler I am today - tough, innovative, and ready for whatever comes my way - and it has also opened my eyes to a new path for gaming & technology.

Online gaming now finds itself at the forefront of a revolution. The pandemic was instrumental in changing perceptions of gamers. Before, people made fun of us as geeks and nerds. We're still geeks and nerds, but for a couple of years trapped inside our houses, everyone else was a geek and a nerd, and got a window into our world. Mainstream culture came to realize the value of online entertainment: as gamers, we are the power-users who helped onboard the mainstream into a new world of digital communities.

During this time, an almost invisible consumer class became one of the most influential groups for brand and product discovery. Content creators who had quietly come of age in the blind spot of mainstream advertising experienced a surge in viewership and influence, and we've witnessed a surge in demand for cryptocurrencies, online betting, iGaming, as well as the innovation that powers them.

This explosion in popularity has enabled a new generation of gamers to access the gambling sphere with more ease, confidence, and security than ever before. Online casinos designed and built in the early days of the Internet, aren't relevant for today's digital savvy audience either, that's where casinos accepting crypto come in.

Casinos accepting crypto are the internet's answer to the needs of the modern consumer, and their uptake shows no sign of slowing, with dramatic growth year-on-year, every year. Indeed, the global crypto-gambling industry is set to reach a $93 billion valuation by 2024, showing that the space is transforming from a small niche of the wider casino community to a pioneer in the crypto, tech, and gaming space.

The adaptive nature of the gaming community proves that crypto is not solely for trading coins: it is a facilitator through which pioneers, including crypto-companies, are driving forward industry-shaping innovations and transforming the online experience.

Crypto is still early, and it's still full of risk. My heart goes out to everyone who lost money in the recent crypto market downturn. The worst part of bull markets in crypto is that everyone starts looking like a genius and people get taken advantage of. In 2017, it was Ethereum alt-coins, in 2021 it was non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Speculation isn't synonymous with crypto, but it will take time for everyone to see that. Be patient, and focus on learning the tech - not on the exchanges.

If you just discovered crypto over the last 24 months, welcome to "crypto winter". It's a rite of passage, and for many of us, it's a welcome change of season from the chaos that happens in bull runs. But with all the benefits they bring, digital currencies are becoming the new normal, and rightly so – at Roobet, we wholeheartedly believe that digital currencies are the inevitable future.

Cycles come and go, but blockchain tech continues to weather collapses and becomes even more battle-hardened through every bubble and pop. The betting industry is ripe for disruption, and with cryptocurrency's payments revolution underway, we're confident that Roobet can make a meaningful contribution to this space by improving the online gambling experience.