Nearly three billion people identify as gamers. More than 100 million of them own bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. Gamers are expected to continue buying crypto in the coming years.
But why is this happening? Why are gamers in love with digital currencies? Put simply, and there’s an intersection between crypto and gaming that benefits both industries.
In this article, we’ll focus on the role gaming has played in spearheading the growth of cryptocurrencies. Let’s get started.
1. Buying Crypto as an Investment
As mentioned, gamers love crypto. In fact, gaming fans have been buying bitcoin since its invention. In the beginning, people purchased digital currency for speculative investment.
The move paid off. Bitcoin rose from less than a dollar in 2010 to more than $69000 during its peak in 2021. Gamers who purchased the coin while it was cheap and held their coins earned tremendous returns from their investment.
Although gamers still buy crypto for speculative reasons, they have a lot more use cases for it. Some people buy Bitcoin to use it to buy video games and skins. Others use it to purchase gaming accessories like keyboards, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and motherboards.
With that in mind, the number of gamers who own crypto is unknown. That’s because up to one-third of the world plays online games. And a large percentage of this population also invests in digital currencies.
2. Using Crypto for Payments
Gaming was one of the first industries to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. For example, Microsoft first adopted Bitcoin in 2014, allowing its customers to purchase software and consoles using digital currency.
Around the same time, gambling sites also adopted Bitcoin for deposits. Many of them also accepted altcoins like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. To promote Bitcoin payments to a wider audience, casinos also began to offer bonuses to everyone who deposited through crypto.
To date, you can earn a bonus by depositing funds to a casino through Bitcoin or an altcoin. The best Cryptogamblers crypto casinos match your first deposit 100% for a maximum of up to 5 BTC.
When you think about it, 5 Bitcoins is a lot of money to get as a reward. If 1BTC costs $20,000, a 5BTC bonus will be worth $100,000. Even if you only won 1BTC back by gambling the bonus, it’s a great profit.
3. Playing Crypto Games
Some cryptocurrencies like Axie Infinity, Decentraland, and The Sandbox would never have succeeded without the support of gamers. In all fairness, all the games mentioned above pay you to play them.
As such, gamers love playing crypto games. To expound further, crypto games award players tokens for completing simple missions. For example, Axie Infinity pays you SLP tokens or Axie coins.
Many crypto games also feature marketplaces where you can buy and sell different digital assets. Some of these assets—mostly land—cost thousands of dollars.
In other words, crypto has created a platform where gamers can make money doing what they love. In turn, gamers have embraced these projects, thereby helping in the growth of Bitcoin and related projects.
4. Mining Crypto
This is an open secret. Mining crypto requires the use of powerful Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). But guess what? Nearly every gamer owns a GPU or a desktop with a GPU.
Mining crypto involves verifying transactions made in the blockchain. For the uninitiated, blockchain is a decentralized public ledger that stores crypto payments.
You need to solve a complex math problem to verify a genuine transaction. GPUs can solve these math equations faster than CPU computers. Against that backdrop, you need GPUs to mine coins like Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Monero.
Mining crypto used to be extremely profitable back when many coins used the proof of work systems. But as more cryptocurrencies resolve to use Proof of Stake, it’s becoming harder to find good crypto to mine.
5. Creating Awareness about Crypto
Many YouTubers and Twitch streamers who create video game content talk about crypto regularly. They’ve been doing it for years. In the early years of crypto, YouTubers touted Bitcoin as the future of payments.
They also encouraged their fans to own Bitcoin for speculative reasons. Over time, it became easier to advocate for crypto because more online merchants supported it.
For example, Overstock adopted Bitcoin in 2014. In doing so, Overstock made it easy for gamers to purchase their gaming accessories using the cryptocurrency. Microsoft and other gaming brands soon followed suit.
These days, YouTube and Twitch streamers don’t need to convince their fans to purchase crypto. However, they regularly talk about different crypto projects that can benefit gamers. Think of the play-to-earn crypto games we mentioned above.
6. Embracing GameFi
When you think about it, the relationship between gaming and crypto is symbiotic. Crypto creates something that can benefit gamers. In response, gamers help popularize the product.
GameFi is an excellent example. It refers to the monetization of gaming to benefit average gamers rather than corporate developers. In GameFi, video game players get a chance to own in-game products like weapons, characters, and skins.
You can trade or sell your in-game product for tokens you could later exchange for money. Think of the Axie Infinity and Decentraland games we mentioned above. They don’t just pay you to complete missions.
When you buy or create an Axie character in Axie Infinity, you can sell it for hundreds or thousands of dollars. Likewise, you can sell your virtual real estate property in Decentraland and other similar games.
7. Providing Liquidity
Unlike regular crypto investors, games like to use their crypto. If they earn Bitcoin at a game, they usually sell it through a crypto exchange. This simple activity of selling crypto helps provide liquidity to other bitcoin traders.
Liquidity helps keep the price of Bitcoin and altcoins stable. It’s true—crypto is generally more volatile than other markets. But its prices remain stable every time there’s liquidity to trade these coins.
Of course, gamers are not the only bunch that provides liquidity to the crypto industry. However, they play a part in it.
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