NewsSIGMA 2019

SIGMA iGaming Conference 2019 in Malta already passed and people are still talking about what fantastic and valuable experience it was for the iGaming and BSV enthusiasts from the industry.

Good news is that finally iGaming started to welcome Blockchain technology and Bitcoin for that matter. George Payne of crypto payment processor Gatepay and Eduardo Aguilera of the crypto gaming company Coingaming group stated that there is no reasoning behind fear from these new technologies and new way of embracing the near future.

They were both attending the afternoon discussion panel on “Cryptocurrency Payment Integration for iGaming Operators”.

Other massive highlights from the event were the attendance of Jimmy Nguyen, the founding president of the Bitcoin Association and Dr. Craig Wright, chief scientist of the fintech company nChain. They both flew all the way to Malta in order to persuade and talk the online gambling industry into BSV.

Wright attended the “A Bitcoin Vision for iGaming” and “The Future of iGaming & Blockchain” panel and Nguyen set the tone to all panels, discussions and talks on Blockchain and Bitcoin SV for three straight hours. He commented:

“I’m trying to find a way to bridge those two universes,”

Gaming conferences do not lack discussion of Blockchain but it usually goes around cryptocurrencies, and this is where Craig and Jimmy stepped in to bring BSV’s importance to light. To Jimmy transactions on other Blockchains are way slower, expensive and non-regulation-friendly as opposed to the BSV Blockchain.

Dr. Craig Wright explained how games can have their licenses built on Blockchain, so they can be more regulation-friendly.

Craig made another very good point of Bitcoin completely removing casino auditors by making transactions transparent. This way the BSV system eliminates all stress from auditor visits, as he recalls his previous experience in the gaming industry before Bitcoin.

Chloe Tartan of nChain who spoke on the “Setting the standard: use of tokens in iGaming” discussion said that Blockchain creates a “provably fair online era.” It becomes harder for casinos to alter outcomes, because players can see the outcomes bets are placed against. She also stated that she has confidence in the iGaming and BSV relationship to turn into real business ideas and projects.

She said:

“I had a lot of people come up to me after my talk. People were asking ‘how can I do this?’—wanting to have some actual steps towards integrating blockchain into their system.”

Another speaker at the event was Matt Dickson of the real money gaming company Bitboss who took over the “Blockchain Application for iGaming” discussion with a different approach to iGaming and BSV. He said that the only connection between customers and casinos is Blockchain, and that tokenized smart contracts who act as remote game servers, can control everything on the gaming platform. To him “the [blockchain] wallet is the gaming platform.” and even though the technology has so many use cases within gaming, people will need solid education as new technologies are always hard to adopt.

Michael Lee of the iGaming company Genesis agreed that BSV is welcome and all APIs and services on BSV are well received within the gaming industry.

At some point at the conference, it was time to switch from iGaming to esports.

Jimmy chaired the “Esports: Advancements with Blockchain Technology” panel. One of the speakers on the panel Oron Barber, CEO and co-founder of the crypto and Blockchain digital marketing agency CoinPoint Group stated his beliefs that “Everything [blockchain] can bring to iGaming, it can bring to esports,”.

And although Chris Kissack of the esports company SMP Esports and Stephen Arnold of the video game company Fracture Labs admitted that even though esports might be reluctant to adopt common tokens for players for exchange between games, there could be other use cases like purchasing virtual items or betting on games.

At the end of conference dinner, Jimmy stated that in recent years the gaming industry is slowly turning to BSV “especially as it realizes all the constraints, problems and limitations of other blockchain projects.”

Bitcoin and iGaming might be different but they have all tech-savvy people behind them in common- people who want to be part of a cutting-edge technology.

Jimmy Nguyen commented that the crypto world has become “too techie”, while iGaming is only “business, business, business: how to make money, how to attract players—and that’s refreshing in some respects.”

His predictions about 2020 do not surprise anyone, as for him “2020 is going to be a year with some big wins for BSV, including in iGaming.”