CoinSpectator, Author at CoinSpectator Blog

A New Model for Applying Blockchain Technology to the Global Supply Chain

One of the most important things to understand about global supply chain management is the inherent combination of complexity and opportunity.

Today, we will examine these themes and strive to explain how they have come about and where they may lead. Let’s start with a simple thought experiment that will serve us well as an example.

The Global Ham Sandwich

Imagine you want to make a ham and swiss on rye with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Only, this time, you decide you are going to make this sandwich out of the best ingredients (on a quality per unit cost basis) in the whole world. To do that, you need to evaluate the world’s ham market, using reputation, competitor analysis, focus group testing, and your own taste buds, to find the best ham in the world at a good bargain price. Let’s say, after months of research, you find your ideal supplier in Chile.

This process repeats for all the ingredients: the rye seeds, yeast, sugar, salt, lettuce, milk, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus helveticus, Propionibacterium shermanii, tomato, egg yolk, lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard.

Now, because many of these products will cross borders and confront market-specific regulatory restrictions and consumer protections, you will be dealing with red tape and paperwork until your eyes start bleeding.

Finally, if you plan on selling these sandwiches, you will quickly find that the premium mustard from that little village in Turkey doesn’t taste anything like it did when you visited the mustard farm. In fact, it tastes just like the generic mustard sold at Walmart. That introduces you to the most aggravating and expensive feature of the process: visibility into your supply chain. This is best summarized by the question: How do you know if you are getting what you paid for from your supply chain?

Never mind the fact that, ironically, the Ham Sandwich supply chain is actually one of the most complicated you could dream up. The big point here is that it’s all about execution. If you can make it work for you, the shift from a local sourcing to a global supply chain can decrease costs, increase quality, and ramp both growth and margin per unit for most industries.

But the costs involved in making that transformation can be confusing and daunting, as well as self-destructive if not managed properly.

An Easier Way

However, in the age of blockchain technology, there is an easier way: new technologies built on the blockchain are being developed to massively streamline and simplify this process. One emerging example is VOLUM, a blockchain-driven technology platform catering to small and mid-size businesses looking for a global-logistics-in-a-box solution to harness the power of the global supply chain production model.

The VOLUM platform operates as a comprehensive control center for supply chain and logistics management operations. Companies who use this platform will be able to carry out a wide range of blockchain transactions including: Payments, Rewards, Purchase Orders, Legal Contracts, Regulatory Compliance, Taxation, Shipment Management, Letters of Origin, Customs Documents, Inputs/Outputs and Inventory Ordering, Delivery/Parcel Tracking, IoT Monitoring and Reporting, Big Data Analytics, and Inputs and End-Product Tracking/Traceability.

All transactions on the VOLUM platform will utilize the VLM utility token, which will launch on May 4.

The top cryptocurrencies to invest in 2019

We think these altcoins should be part of your 2019 investment portfolio

Sia

The cloud storage industry is currently dominated by DropBox, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. These companies have taken the lion’s share of customers in the file hosting space however this is very likely to change. A small and fairly unknown blockchain startup going by the name of Sia aims to end this monopoly by redefining the technology and processes behind cloud storage.

The current methods of storage rely on massive data centres and server farms to both store and retrieve data. This centralised approach creates a number of issues. For example:

Control – One company having full control over your data.

Ownership – Who owns your data and how will they use it, sell it and profit off of it.

Security – Centralisation means bugs, malpractice and hackers can target very specific companies and infrastructure. In fact DropBox lost 68 customer million passwords not so long ago and for a short period of time and any user could access the data of other users at will.

Scalability – Each organisation needs to operate massive data centres to fulfill the storage and processing needs.

As these companies become even bigger the issues above become compounded.

The blockchain technology behind Sia is completely new for the industry and takes a more decentralised approach to solve the issues above.

When a customer uploads a file to the network it is automatically encrypted and split up into hundreds of tiny pieces. Only the uploader has the private keys to decrypt and view this data. All these encrypted pieces of data are then uploaded across many hosts and duplicated for impeccable redundancy.

With Sia storage is no longer controlled or owned by a company. Instead anyone can become a file hoster by leasing spare unused hard drive space to store encrypted data. File hosters and uploaders create a sort of digital handshake called a ‘smart contract’ which manages the storing of data between the two parties and pays the renter for the hard drive being used by the uploader.

With Sia clearly solving very real storage issues and making great progress with the project we believe it is a great time to invest in the project.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 113,000 Sia.

Ripple

Ripple takes blockchain technology and applies it to the traditional banking sector, resulting in trustworthy, verified, scalable, instant and cheap banking transactions.

For example the current Faster Payments banking service is an initiative between several banks to reduce the time of transfers between registered bank accounts. However transfers outside of that scheme take much longer and are routed through third party intermediaries. This process is not only risky but also labour and time intensive. Ripple solves these problems.

At the time of writing over 100 banks across the globe are trialling Ripple’s blockchain technology. Some of these banks include Santander, UniCredit and most recently the world’s largest Islamic bank, Al Rajhi Bank.

We think the technology behind Ripple will likely become the financial industry standard in the not too distant future.

Ripple has been within the top ten 24 hour volume across all cryptocurrencies and assets for several months now and it’s XRP currency has reached highs of $0.40.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 5,400 Ripple.

Stratis

The Microsoft backed Stratis platform is known as the C# equivalent to Ethereum. It enables programmers to produce decentralised, smart contract based apps very quickly and easily using a tried and tested programming language that has stood the test of time.

This opens it up to an already massive developer base with little to no additional learning required, giving it a clear edge over Ethereum.

Stratis is also poised to release its long awaited TumbleBit service and smart contracts in Q3 of this year and is developing the “Breeze Wallet”, a wallet feature that aims to boost privacy of both Bitcoin and Stratis users.

In the last month Stratis saw significant highs followed by a very quick drop. The coin reached all time highs of $11 but currently trades at $3. This is an ideal opportunity to buy in whilst the price is still low.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 160 Stratis.

Golem

Golem is on track to becoming the world’s first decentralised supercomputer. It utilizes the Ethereum blockchain to harness the unused/ idle power of millions of connected resources and turns it into sellable computing power.

Many companies and individuals require a service like this and currently have resort to small scale farms that can take days to process/ render and cost a small fortune.

For example games developers, film studios, data mining operations and medical researchers have to use vast amounts of processing power to complete very specific tasks. With Golem all these companies will have an always accessible, affordable supercomputer at their fingertips.

With its vast processing power Golem can also be used for making predictions across different industries such as betting, stock markets and even environmental changes.

Anyone with a computer can lease their unused processing power and in return get paid in GNT tokens. These tokens can be re-used, transferred to an exchange for trading or sold for more traditional currencies such as USD/GBP.

When taking a step back and assessing Golems end goal it offers a very unique investment opportunity not seen with any other project. It has many real world, life changing uses and the possibilities are endless.

Sitting at just $0.23 cents Golem is criminally cheap right now.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 3,500 Golem.

Monero

Monero is somewhat of a crypto veteran. The coin doesn’t mince its words and does one thing, albeit extremely well. It is currently the most secure and private coin on the market.

Anyone looking to make a safe long term investment would be wise to invest in it. The coin is seen as the ‘gold standard’ for privacy conscious users looking to stay permanently in the shadows. In fact Monero is in the top 5 most used cryptocurrencies for day to day purchases and traded across the Dark Web making it one of the few coins that is actually used as a currency.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 24 Monero.

Verge

Verge is an interesting (and possibly controversial) entry.

Like Monero it is aimed at users who take privacy seriously and combines Tor and i2p technologies to increase blockchain anonymity.

The project has one of the most active communities with a huge development team regularly ticking off new and exciting features on the roadmap. In June alone Seven major new features were pushed live.

Everything from Tor based Android wallets to RSK Smart Contracts are planned for July making this coin one to watch, especially at its current price. Despite recent price volatility the project is moving at a very quick pace and we believe this will be reflected in its price very soon.

So that’s it! There are many other projects we would have liked to add and others that ‘sound great’ (ICO frenzy anyone!!). As these projects mature and show their progress they will also be assessed and our verdicts shared. Good luck.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 324,000 Verge.

Zichain announces partnerships with BitGo and Sum&Substance

Zichain has entered into strategic partnerships with two of the leading service providers – BitGo and Sum&Substance. The alliance is meant to reinforce the company’s brokerage platform and offer a standard-setting new level of quality to its users.

BitGo is a global leader in security, compliance, and custodial solutions for blockchain-based currencies. The company is backed by Goldman Sachs and is trusted by some of the most prominent companies in the industry. Zichain has consistently put great value in security – by joining forces with BitGo, it can offer Zichain users an unprecedented level of protection for their funds and personal data.

Sum & Substance is a leading developer of remote verification and KYC/AML solutions with unparalleled expertise in its field. Zichain’s adherence to the best business practices has earned it the trust of European financial regulators. The company is licensed in the EU as a full-fledged financial institution. By partnering with Sum & Substance, it aims to enhance its users’ confidence by offering a quick and convenient KYC process. The whole verification procedure would now take 15-30 minutes, making it easy for new clients to start using ZiChange.

Zichain’s CEO, Mr. Khachatur Gukasyan, said:

“At Zichain, we adhere to the highest quality standards while developing our products – and we expect the same attitude from our partners. We have chosen BitGo and Sum&Substance because they are the best at what they do – and we will settle for nothing but the best for our clients”.

About Zichain. Zichain is leading provider of cutting-edge solutions for the digital asset industry that has assembled an international team of expert developers and finance professionals striving to raise the standards of the digital asset industry. Adhering to the principle of creating an ecosystem of products rather than narrow standalone tools, Zichain offers a range of interconnected product modules making it a new type of financial institution, ready for the upcoming era of the digital economy.

For further information, please, contact: [email protected]

ABBC Coin – Official Announcement

Beloved Community Members and Supporters,

I am proud to announce that our year-long trademark lawsuit with Alibaba has finally come to an end with mutual understanding. ABBC Foundation and the Alibaba Group have negotiated a settlement that will be mutually beneficial for both of our organizations and are ecstatic with the outcome. What started off as a feud, looks like will end as a blessing. The settlement allows us and Alibaba.com to move forward in our respective plans to truly revolutionize the way business is conducted in the ever-growing connected world.

I am thrilled to announce and share ABBC Foundation’s latest developments in exchange listings, platform development, marketing, and partnerships.

Exchange Listings: A couple weeks ago we publicly announced that the ABBC Coin will be listing on 13 new exchanges. The number was not an exaggeration, as we have finalized and signed contracts with more than 10 additional unannounced exchanges for listing. We are confident that as we continue to cooperate in the announcement of listing dates and trading details, our supporters will be more than satisfied with the dramatic increase in trading volume on some of the world’s most respected exchanges. This is not an easy feat, and is only achievable by projects with truly promising futures in which the exchanges are able to see as well.
Platform Development: Despite the long lawsuit, our team has been making great progress in development. We have received over $1.2 billion through various financial partners to pour into the dream platform that we have envisioned from the start. Coin Shopping Mall (CSM) has now been in development for over a year, and will soon be ready to launch in a few months. This platform aims to revolutionize the future of eCommerce and online-shopping, and it is apparent that our partners believe in the vision as well, as they have been blessing us with adamant support. Our global network of financial partners will be unveiled when we are fully established and ready to launch.
The shopping mall will accept cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as a variety of other coins, the same way that current online retailers accept fiat currency. We believe that with our new wallet and staking and rewards system, which will be detailed more later, will truly push our platform to new heights. ABBC Coin holders will have the opportunity to generate real revenue and the platform will give a chance for a world with less income inequality.
Partnerships & eCommerce Integrations: Other than our impressive list of financial supporters and our exchange partners, we are in the process of integrating the Coin Shopping Mall with many of the world’s most renowned online shopping malls including Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, Coupang Mall, and more. Our goal is to have at least 25 online retailers integrated into our platform at launch. We are confident that more and more retailers will want to be integrated into our platform as we grow.
S. Expansion: We are currently in the process of launching an R&D (research and development) facility in the United States, in accordance with local and federal laws. This state-of-the-art facility will hopefully attract the world’s top talents in a variety of fields, not only limited to blockchain development.

We thank all our supporters and followers for your ongoing interest in ABBC Coin and ABBC Foundation’s ambitious projects. We can not be more excited about the future, and from the bottom of our hearts, the ABBC team and I pledge to work tirelessly until we succeed in revolutionizing the online shopping experience and making the economic playing field a fairer and more equal place. I hope that you stay tuned as we will continue to release more details as they are ready.

Alibabacoin now belongs to Alibaba Group Holding Limited, China

It was an inevitable ending to the rumors and speculations about the two companies both using the name Alibaba. These two companies namely Alibaba Group and Alibabacoin Foundation which now calls themselves ABBC Foundation has gone through a series of battles regarding the rights for Alibabacoin.

Last year, a new company based in Belarus and Dubai made a website called alibabacoinfoundation.com and conducted an ICO that accepted investment for developing Alibabacoin. They argued that Alibaba is a common and native name in the Middle East. While that’s true, Alibaba Group filed a lawsuit based in the US, fighting for the trademark of Alibabacoin.

This lawsuit went on for a long time and has been on the headlines for a while. But everything comes to an end. The two companies are now going for a “worldwide settlement” as they recently mentioned in an announcement. In the announcement, it was said that Alibabacoin will belong to Alibaba Group exclusively and will not be used anymore by ABBC Foundation. This means that Alibaba Group now controls and owns “Alibabacoin”.

This move is perceived and interpreted by many as a positive step toward a developing and more amiable relationship between the two companies. It’s not a secret that Alibaba.com is one of the biggest e-commerce players in the world. On the other hand, ABBC Foundation expressed their interest on collaborating with online shopping malls. In an article published in CCN, ABBC Foundation announced a future goal that ABBC will be used in large internet shopping malls around the world. In the announcement, it was mentioned that “Jason Daniel Paul Philip, CEO of ABBC Foundation…announced that ABBC can be used as payment in 30 different most famous shopping malls around the world.”

If it ends well with these two companies, they may be able to come into an understanding of mutual benefit involved should they decide to collaborate in the future. While there is no confirmed news of collaboration, there is a distinct possibility of this future developments now that “Alibabacoin” belongs to Alibaba Group.

Go Global with Cryptocurrency Accounting Platform

Recap, a privacy-focused accounting software platform for cryptocurrency has secured a sizeable grant from Innovate UK to help launch its services worldwide.

Recap has been granted £135,136 as a winner of the Transforming accountancy, insurance and legal services with AI and data competition. The funding was provided through the Government’s modern industrial strategy by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation.

Recap is an encrypted, bespoke platform which allows those with complex cryptocurrency portfolios to track, manage and strategise by bringing all the information into one platform. One of its key features is to track the large numbers of taxable transactions many investors in cryptocurrencies incur, sometimes on a per second basis.

Co-founder and Director Daniel Howitt said: “It’s exciting times here at Recap, we have an ambitious backlog of work to deliver by March. The US tax deadline for the 2018 tax year closes mid-April. We want Recap to be available way ahead of this deadline, meaning we need to internationalise the product, design and build a US capital gains tax engine and also fully monetise the product so we can start collecting annual subscription revenue.

“The US launch comes off the back of our successful private beta launch to early adopters in the UK.”

The fintech start-up, based in the East Midlands and founded by Directors Daniel Howitt and Ben Shepheard and is the first platform of its kind in the UK and is supported by software experts Selenity and chartered accountants Wright Vigar.

Daniel added: “Our seed raise of £150,000 will allow us to meet the match funding requirement of our £135,000 grant to give us £280,000 investment.

“These funds will allow us to develop our transaction matching IP, release our 1.0.0 version of the product and actively market the platform in the UK and US.

Recap is currently raising a £150,000 seed round led by a cryptocurrency investor and customer of Recap.

To find out more, visit the website here: www.recap.io

Have you heard about Cryptowisser?

Cryptowisser is determined to make the cryptocurrency space available to everyone. No longer shall only tech-savvy young men be able to benefit from all that the cryptocurrency world has to offer.

Cryptowisser has created the largest Cryptocurrency Exchange List in the world. The list includes more than 360 exchanges with information on fees, deposit methods, supported cryptocurrencies, security and user scores. The second biggest list in the world is the one compiled by coinmarketcap.com (220 exchanges), but that list provides far less information on the listed exchanges.

Furthermore, Cryptowisser has developed a matching tool called the Exchange Finder. That tool guides experienced and inexperienced persons to which cryptocurrency exchange is the best one for them. This is a necessary tool seeing as the first step if you want to trade crypto is to pick the cryptocurrency exchange that is the right one for you. In the Exchange Finder, the investor answers six questions on his/her preferences. Then, the investor is matched with the available alternatives on the market. The tool has been very successful and appreciated by the crypto community so far.

Investors that wish to read up on a specific exchange will be delighted to know that the company has also prepared comprehensive individual reviews on all of the exchanges in their Cryptocurrency Exchange List. The list of reviews includes, but is not limited to, the following:

You might be surprised to know how different the fees are between different exchanges. Whereas there are exchanges that don’t charge any fees whatsoever (and make their revenue solely from listing fees and advertising), there are other exchanges that charge as much as 20% per trade! The global industry average for centralized exchanges is 0.25% per trade.

In addition to providing objective info on exchanges to the market, Cryptowisser also has a list of cryptocurrency wallets, a list of cryptocurrency debit cards, a list of cryptocurrency merchants and – last but not least – a list of cryptocurrency casinos.

The site aims to be a one-stop-shop for people looking for cryptocurrency services and as a step in that direction, the company is also working on creating a cryptocurrency list. The cryptocurrency list will include information on price, tech, launch year, and much more on each cryptocurrency out there.

Stay tuned!

From Centralised Slots to Decentralised Kitties: The Evolution of Online Gaming

The online gaming industry is one of the biggest success stories of the last two decades. Starting out at nothing more than a handful of rudimentary sites at the end of the nineties, online casino gaming alone is now worth upwards of $51 billion/£39.5 billion. Naturally, as the industry has become more lucrative, technology, tastes and gaming options have evolved. Indeed, when you compare early online gaming to today’s emerging blockchain-based creations, things have changed markedly.

Building the Foundations of Online Gaming

“Equations in my dreams” (Public Domain) by tcctrain

If we go back to 1999, Playtech was one of the first developers to harness the power of random number generator (RNG) software. Following the example set by Microgaming in 19995, Playtech’s developers found that complex algorithms could recreate random scenarios. With technology able to ensure a fair result, the company set about developing some of the earliest online casino games. Two decades later, this technology still forms the basis of all online casino games. Whatever title you select inside https://games.paddypower.com/c/slots, the underlying RNG technology will be the same as it was back in 1999. Yes, it will have been refined. However, the fundamental principles are still in place, meaning that everything from Electric Tiger to Gold Frenzy are fair.

From this base, online gaming has cherrypicked ideas and innovations from across the gaming industry at large. For example, almost all online bingo sites now have chat facilities, emojis and more. Essentially borrowing from https://www.facebook.com/games/, bingo sites now offer the same social experience as Words with Friends or 8 Ball Pool. Beyond socialisation features, live streams have become popular. Taking inspiration from https://www.twitch.tv/ and other streaming platforms, developers have been able to create live gaming experience. By combining webcams with RFID technology, players can now interact with real dealers hosting real games inside specially designed studios.

Can Blockchains Decentralise Casino Gaming?

“ETC Wallpaper – No Cryptokitties” (Public Domain) by EthereumClassic

The question is, how will online gaming evolve with the help of blockchain technology? Visit https://www.cryptokitties.co/ and you’ll start to get an insight into the direction blockchain gaming is going. Although an early attempt to utilise decentralised technology for recreational purposes, Axiom Zen’s Cryptokitties has one interesting feature that could be used to improve player safety. As part of the game, each Cryptokitty is represented by a non-fungible ERC-721 token. This allows ownership of the virtual cat to be tracked via Ethereum’s smart contract system. Applying this idea to online gaming, developers could use it to track player IDs. On the one hand, this would reduce the risk of fraud as it would be easier to track and control transactions between players and between players and the casino. Additionally, this technology could be used to create a multifaceted casino ecosystem.

In today’s online gaming community, players have to create individual accounts. By tracking players in the same way Cryptokitties are tracked, it could be possible to bridge the gaps. In other words, players would create a central account which could then be used to access multiple sites. As it stands, many of the leading brands are part of a larger network. Therefore, with this technology, it could be possible to link players across all sites within the network. By marking each account with an ERC-721 token, everything from a player’s personal details to their account balance and playing preferences would become decentralised (i.e. not held by one site). While this would require cooperation and communication between casino brands, the fact networks already exist suggests it could work. Indeed, if online casinos were able to take something from Cryptokitties, it would give players more flexibility, choice and, ultimately, provide a more entertaining experience.

Here’s How Cryptocurrencies Could Change the Gaming Landscape

Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain have started to change many aspects of our lives and entertainment in recent years. However, one area that appears to have been slower than others in adopting this approach is that of gaming.

At first glance, there are a lot of areas of crossover between cryptos and gaming. Some people have even suggested that gaming paved the way for these coins to appear as per https://medium.com/singulardtv/how-video-games-helped-pave-the-way-for-cryptocurrency-f930521eef55. Yet, the expected surge in this area hasn’t appeared so far. In what ways could these industries come together in the future to change the gaming landscape?

“a gamer of XboX” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by AleZZitO1

Gaming ICOs Being Launched

There is work being done on numerous new decentralised gaming solutions. These are projects that use the blockchain and introduce their own cryptocurrencies that users can typically earn, buy or exchange.

Among the biggest and most talked about ICOs of this type is Bountie, with full details on it to be found at https://www.bountie.io/tokensale/. This is a platform that promises to use AI and IoT in order to modernise the world of gaming.

Another project of this type is called ALAX. In this case, the idea is that players in developing countries can play on their mobile devices even if they don’t have access to traditional banking facilities. The platform uses their own ALX token to monetise gaming, as described on their site, https://alax.io/tokens/.

Unless an ICO offers something new and useful, the fact that it is decentralised isn’t going to be enough. Let’s not forget that over half of all ICOS fail in the first few months too, according to the Boston College research at https://www.coindesk.com/over-half-of-icos-fail-within-4-months-suggests-us-study. So, there is no guarantee that these new platforms will succeed. Many gamers are happy to play in the ways that are currently available to them.

Indeed, among the most popular gaming options gaining ground right now are online casinos. These are websites where numerous casino games are brought together. For example, at https://casino.betfair.com/c/slots we can see dozens of slots ranging from Hot Gems to Grease and from Big Bear to Captain’s Treasure.

Playing with Digital Currencies

Another possibility is that players start to use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to fund their games online. This may seem like a natural progression, since many gamers are now used to using in-game tokens and currencies.

However, perhaps the volatility of virtual currencies will play a big part in how widespread this becomes. Since these coins can gain or lose value very rapidly, anyone who pays using them is essentially making an investment rather than simply exchanging tokens.

It seems fair to say more stable cryptocurrency prices are likely to encourage more gamers to use these coins. There are certainly some good reasons for thinking this is a good idea. For example, it allows for virtually anonymous spending and means that no link to a bank account or credit card is needed.

It wouldn’t be a big surprise if the future were to bring a closer relationship between gaming and cryptocurrencies. Having said that, it would appear that we are still waiting for the perfect combination of these technologies that allows gamers to use cryptos to their full potential.

Could Online Gaming Aid the Growth of Cryptocurrencies?

The growth of cryptocurrencies has been a source of many headlines in the last few years. Yet, research by Finder shows that only 8% of Americans have invested in these digital currencies. What is needed to help them to truly break into the mainstream?

One suggestion is that online gaming could be the key. Could gamers around the world give Bitcoin, Ethereum and other coins the boost they need to move to the next level of popularity?

“Young gamer playing video game wearing h” (CC BY 2.0) by nodstrum

Gamers Are Comfortable with Virtual Money

Perhaps the most important factor here is that gamers were comfortable dealing with virtual money long before most other people had even considered the idea. This has been an important part of many games for some time, but it is the Mesos used in MapleStory from Nexon that are widely credited as being the first gaming currency to really take off.

The most popular games now have giant economies spring up around them. Gamers are happy to spend their fiat money on virtual tokens that can only be used in a certain game. This concept has seen the gold mining industry in World of Warcraft pass the “$2 billion mark”, while in-game revenue in FarmVille is now over $1 billion.

Non-gamers tend to need to make a mental shift to value digital money as much as the paper currency they can hold in their hand, whereas gamers already understand that digital tokens can be just as valuable to them.

The global gaming industry is continuing to grow at an impressive rate. According to a forecast from analysts Newzoo, the $134.9 billion market value in 2018 was a 10.9% increase on the figure achieved in 2017. As more new gamers appear, the concept of cryptocurrencies is likely to be more widely accepted.

Players Spend These Currencies to Buy Games or to Play

It is still a fairly common assumption that Bitcoin can only really be used by gamers. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that some people have failed to invest in cryptocurrencies so far because they believe it is of no use unless they play games.

While there are now many other ways of spending Bitcoin, it is true that gamers can spend or earn these coins more easily than other people. On many sites, it is possible to buy games and there are games where you use virtual coins as you play. Steam has stopped accepting this currency but others, such as MMOGA and Microsoft, let you shop with virtual coins.

A case where future progress is expected is in internet casinos, where Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals make sense. At the moment, there is a limited number of Bitcoin casinos. The big-name casinos, the ones with dozens of slots, table games and live dealer lobbies, such as Paddy Power, have so far tended to stick to traditional payment methods.

If acceptance of cryptocurrencies goes mainstream, with gaming sites like this beginning to adopt them, the demand for them will greatly increase. People will also become more trusting of cryptocurrencies if they begin to use them on a regular basis for something that gives them a lot of pleasure.

Indeed, the world of gaming is still closely linked to cryptocurrencies. There is a good chance that any major growth in the future will be linked to gamers and how they spend their money online.