Gaming

South Korean PC Gaming Rooms Rely on Crypto Mining to Profit During the Coronavirus Pandemic

25/02/2021 by Idelto Editor

South Korean PC Gaming Rooms Operators Rely on Crypto Mining to Profit During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has significantly hit several entertainment routines of the people worldwide, and South Korea is not an exception. PC gaming rooms had to shut down in the country, but their owners found a way to make profits during the lockdown by participating in crypto mining.

A PC Bang Owner Made Over $3,000 Worth of Ethereum in Two Weeks

According to Chosun, operators of the “PC bangs,” a common term used for the PC gaming rooms in South Korea, leverages their computers to take advantage of the pandemic-driven restrictions.

In fact, owners don’t have certainties on whether or not they can re-open their businesses, and that’s why crypto mining is now an alternative to deal with right now. Some PC bang owners in Seoul are mining ether (ETH) by relying on highly-equipped computers with top-notch graphic cards.

A 34-years-old man named Kim stated that the number of customers reduced significantly due to the pandemic, and his PC bang couldn’t be sustainable with such a situation. He’s now mining ETH with almost 36 computers.

In just two weeks, Kim claimed he earned over 3.5 million won ($3,153), given in the context in the coldest month of the year because of the winter’s peak. PC bang operator praised the current weather conditions, as he saves heating costs by mining cryptos at the same time.

Mining Remains Alive as PC Bang Owners Await a Green Light to Re-Open

Moreover, in South Korea, Chosun states that a PC gaming room’s electricity service is not charged for home use but with regular prices.

But the report states that the crypto mining fever across PC bangs might not last too long, as graphic card prices keep increasing.

However, some of the operators are confident in the current crypto bull-run, as there’s no deadline set to re-open doors for businesses like theirs. Recently, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun stated that although vaccinations have been slower, the government expects to achieve herd immunity by the autumn.

What do you think about this maneuver made by the PC gaming room owners? Let us know in the comments section below.

Bitcoin’s Killer Application: “Skin In The Game”

05/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin has soared in 2020 and everyone is talking about the price. But I want to talk about how Bitcoin is actually being used and the new capabilities it enables.

Sure, bitcoin is the hardest form of money that exists and the best store of value. But it is also the most practical form of digital value that we have, as it is global, interoperable and programmable. So, what other use cases does Bitcoin enable? And what are the revolutionary new capabilities that people didn’t even know they needed Bitcoin for?

The team at ZEBEDEE had a very simple idea. The purest form of global, digital economies are video games, but they lack a purely global and digital form of transactional value. So why not take an existing popular game and integrate Bitcoin as the value transfer protocol. The question we wanted to answer is: Does this add a new dimension to the gameplay that dramatically increases enjoyment and engagement?

On December 27, 2020, we demonstrated this concept live at MintGox in front of an online audience of over 5,000 viewers. We successfully infused bitcoin into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), a multiplayer first-person shooter video game with 28 million monthly active users. And with that, the first public reveal of ZEBEDEE’s newest product, Infuse, will bring Bitcoin to the world’s most popular games. The results are here to see:

Watch the first ever game of @CSGO infused with #LightningNetwork for in-game $btc rewards: https://t.co/TcUsc8pwKp pic.twitter.com/6dkoDqNW0h

— Magic Internet Gathering (@MintGox) December 27, 2020

View the Twitch stream of the event.

In this simple integration, players pay a bitcoin invoice to stake themselves into a match prize pool and then fight it out to win the lion’s share of the pot by the end of the game. This “skin in the game” totally transforms the experience and depth of engagement.

When you see it, you get that “holy shit!” moment — the realization that something big has just been born. CS:GO is one of those games that you can mindlessly play for hours. But wait until you see what happens when you have some real skin in the game that persists outside of the game, instead of just playing for a score. CS:GO tournaments are huge, but now everyone can play to earn, not just the l33t gamers.

This is it. Forget CBDCs and dreams of replacing existing inter-bank settlement layers. Bitcoin is the native settlement layer for the new virtual economy.

Back To The Future: Reintroducing Value Into Games

As my co-founder @Mandelduck has previously written, historically, gaming always included a concept of “skin in the game” to make things more engaging.

But as we evolved into the digital age, this dimension was lost, only to be replaced by meaningless in-game gold:

“There is a strong historical precedent to argue that value transfer has always been an integral part of what makes games fun to play,” he wrote. “But, whereas games have evolved into the digital age, the medium of value transfer between players has not. This leaves an enormous hole in the modern gaming experience.

“Value transfer was therefore limited to in-app purchases, loot boxes, in game ads etc which arguably had a detrimental effect on gameplay.

“With Bitcoin and the Lightning Network we now have a global currency that is both peer-to-peer and interoperable between games — analogous to the usage of gold or silver in early games.”

Levelling Up The Gaming Industry

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. People play games because they are fun, not because they are on a blockchain. When it comes to gaming, most cutting-edge crypto innovation is putting the cart before the horse by focusing on decentralized, censorship-resistant game mechanics and in-game asset ownership.

Making a successful game is hard and competitive; blockchain games face a lot of challenges and can focus on the wrong incentives. The low hanging fruit is to give already great games and great game developers an additional tool: the ability to programmably integrate the largest store of digital value into their games.

This is a straightforward way for video games to unlock an enormous amount of potential for new types of economics, player engagement and creativity. We have already demonstrated this through new types of activities that were not previously possible in a time before programmable Bitcoin interactions:

Breaking the fourth wall: Audience members can participate in esports events, directly interacting with the game using sats to pay for power ups or bounty increases. The blurring of the line between players and audience is something I really hope will be a revolutionary moment in gaming.
New revenue models: At the last MintGox tournament, we recorded more than 10,000 Lightning transactions. With that amount of value activity flowing through games come new ways for game developers to harvest the real economic activity they are creating.
Better ad integrations: In-game advertisements can more directly reach players. For example, players interact directly with a brand by picking up corporate-branded Bitcoin power ups throughout a map.
Microtransactions: Not only top placers can win prizes, as Bitcoin payouts make microprizes possible, creating yet another avenue for micro earning.

How Will This Play Out In 2021?

I know that 2021 will be the year that everyone on earth realizes they need a piece of Bitcoin. But, not everyone is a trader or investor, or even has the spare cash to stack sats. Gaming is the way emerging generations will onboard onto Bitcoin and stack sats through their own skills.

My team at ZEBEDEE will be doing its part to support this. Firstly, by not only hosting more CS:GO Bitcoin servers, but also striving to infuse Bitcoin into any open game that we can get our hands on.

I also expect to see game devs realize that they can make their own games more engaging and profitable by integrating Bitcoin into their game mechanics. We’re here to support that with the tools to make that happen and a rapidly growing audience of gamers eager to start pwning.

This is a guest post by Simon Cowell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

The post Bitcoin’s Killer Application: “Skin In The Game” appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Survey: There Is ‘Significant Room’ for the NFT Market to Grow Despite Widespread Lack of Knowledge Among People

19/12/2020 by Idelto Editor

A survey about non-fungible token (NFT) trends on crypto users revealed that 47% of correspondents had heard of NFT, and among these, 63% of them had only a basic understanding about it, while 57% of them had never used them.

Survey Reveals Common User Has Just a Basic Understanding of NFT Market

According to a research conducted by crypto exchange Crypto.com, surveying 29,574 of its users, collectibles (47%) and gaming (33%) are the most commonly used NFT types.

Nearly half of the respondents, corresponding to 49%, sought financial gain by investing in NFT, said the study. In contrast, the most popular marketplace among the respondents is OpenSea, as 54% of the surveyed people revealed it.

But the interest in respondents is not limited to NFTs, as the survey showed that a majority of them (74) admitted to having used decentralized finance (defi) products. Moreover, the study pointed out that most of the respondents agreed that NFTs “are the next trending topic after DeFi,” and that NFTs “are a useful innovation.”

Speaking with news.Bitcoin.com, Eric Anziani, COO of Crypto.com, commented on the motivations behind the research:

While the crypto world has been focused on decentralized finance and Bitcoin all-time-highs, non-fungible tokens have quietly gained serious traction in 2020; nearly $8M was traded in the NFT market in the past month following steady growth over the past year. However, there is limited research into NFTs’ awareness, how people are using them, and roadblocks to adoption.

There Is ‘Significant Room’ for the NFT Market to Grow

Anziani said that their research involving nearly 30,000 users reveals that though almost half hadn’t heard of NFTs, and also indicates “significant room for the market to grow in 2021 as people begin to see NFTs’ potential value and utility.”

On other figures revealed by the survey, 48% of respondents indicated that real-world non-fungible assets tokenization would be the “most beneficial aspect for NFT.” Also, 61% of respondents raised concerns on the “newness of the technology” who had heard of NFT, said the research.

In the latest NFT landscape developments, an artist who calls himself ‘Beeple’ raised $3.5 million during his latest non-fungible token art collection auction.

What are your thoughts on the survey’s findings? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Survey: There Is ‘Significant Room’ for the NFT Market to Grow Despite Widespread Lack of Knowledge Among People appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Video: Lightning Network And Gaming With MintGox

03/12/2020 by Idelto Editor

Listen To This Episode:

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On this episode of the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast, CK sits down with the team behind the MintGox Lightning-enabled gaming initiatives. Desiree Dickerson of Lightning Labs, Simon Cowell and his colleague at ZebeDee Christian Moss take turns discussing why Bitcoin and Lightning are such game changers for the future of human commerce in general, and gaming specifically.

One of the key points of the conversation revolves around how it is necessary for folks to onboard onto Bitcoin without permission, and to onboard directly onto the Lightning Network where they can transact with small amounts.

As discussed on this episode, the group thinks that micro payments enabled by Lightning opens up a completely new paradigm in the way value and services will be exchanges.

Lastly, the group covered how the most meaningful activities in the world are being uploaded to the web. It discussed how this really favors both Bitcoin and gaming as the world goes digital.

The post Video: Lightning Network And Gaming With MintGox appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

BCH Collectibles: RPG Blockchain Game Built on Bitcoin Cash Completes Flipstarter Campaign

16/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

In the near future, a non-fungible token collectible game is coming to the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. The project dubbed “Enter the Sphere” aims to bring its NFT collectible universe to Bitcoin Cash by leveraging the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP). Last week the team behind the project successfully raised 101 BCH ($24k) in order to kickstart the NFT experience.

Last year a number of software engineers invoked the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) which allows the creation of permissionless tokens on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network. Since then, over 15,500 tokens have been created and a number of SLP tokens have amassed real-world value.

Now that the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) upgrade is over and behind the community, proponents and developers can get back to building innovative onchain projects. One particular project called “Enter the Sphere” or the Sphere for short, plans to introduce non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles to the BCH chain.

“The Sphere is a collectible RPG card game built on SLP NFT technology, where entrants battle to ascend The Tower and sit on The Throne,” explains the team’s recently completed Flipstarter business plan. “Only one player or team wins every cycle with the prize.”

The developers note that they wanted to bring the “first polished use-case for NFTs to Bitcoin Cash” and initiated the Flipstarter funding program to get started.

The Flipstarter plan shows that roughly seven days ago the developers completed the funding of 101 BCH ($24k) which stemmed from a myriad of BCH enthusiasts who donated.

According to the game summary, the Sphere will be a role-playing game (RPG) fighting game but also have battle royale and poker mechanics. In addition to the Flipstarter business plan the team also has a formal Telegram channel as well.

Three weeks ago, the cofounder of the Spice token and a director of the SLP Foundation, Joey_B_Wong, wrote a comprehensive summary of the Sphere game and experience. The editorial written on the read.cash blogging platform discusses the Sphere’s core game and shows a video example as well.

The three-minute video gives a unique visual perspective of the Sphere game built on Bitcoin Cash and things to come. According to Wong’s blog post, the game will also introduce a new token called ORB, an SLP token that will “play a big role in the ecosystem.”

Wong also said that the ORB token will work “synergistically with Spice which is an already well-adopted token.” The blog post which was published three weeks ago says that the team hopes to have the pre-alpha version of the game ready by Christmas.

At the moment the Sphere game developers are looking for playtesters and feedback. The Spice token cofounder also said that the game will allow gamers to deposit and withdraw tokens as well as let players buy and sell unique items and avatars.

What do you think about the RPG “Enter the Sphere” and bringing NFT collectibles to Bitcoin Cash? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post BCH Collectibles: RPG Blockchain Game Built on Bitcoin Cash Completes Flipstarter Campaign appeared first on Bitcoin News.