Blockchain has become something of a global phenomenon, and is a major talking point across many sectors worldwide.

Could the technology be set to disrupt the betting market though? And could it prove to be an improvement, and perhaps solution, for the industry?

Eugene Malahov, CMO of Proof of Toss, a betting project on blockchain, and partner of To The Moon Lab, spoke at last week’s Betting on Football conference about the technology being ‘a true game changer.’

Stating a belief that “blockchain has to go through the dot.com bubble phase in order for it to firmly secure its position as a globally accepted technology,” Malahov added: “the media is often comparing cryptocurrencies with the dot.com bubble and referring to it as if it were a bad thing. I do recognize that people got hurt by the dot.com bubble but let’s take a look at what we have as a result of that today.

“Can you imagine the world today without Google, Amazon, Ebay, YouTube, and this list is endless. Would the World Wide Web be what it is today, if it did not go through the rapid growth phase in the late nineties. I think not.

“For that reason alone, blockchain today, is in desperate need of mass adaptation, which can only be brought by implementing it into mass market products. One of which, happens to be gaming.”

Facts and figures highlight the early adoption stage, with less than 1% of the world’s population engaged in cryptocurrency in some level.

Estimations suggest there are between 2.9m and 5.8m active users of cryptocurrency, around 5.8m-11.5m active wallets and a little over 2000 people working full time within the cryptocurrency industry.

Malahov stated a belief that “we are standing at the forefront of blockchain technology,” before discussing the benefits garnered by the use of the technology with Proof of Toss: “The betting protocol of Proof of Toss is basically the representation of the scope of our projects coverage. We cover betting from the ground up. With our open source solution we provide professional betting operators with the infrastructure they need to implement blockchain technologies into their existing business models.

“The open source platform allows integration with API’s of sports book providers, which makes it possible for live betting on blockchain.

“Our peer-to-peer solution on the other hand is represented as a fully functional and decentralised platform that is good for any type of event. With the decentralised solution you can create a bet of any type and size be it a local football league, new class president election or the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

“When it comes to betting, no matter what sort of platform you are using, there is a certain level of trust that has to be placed into the service provider. With blockchain that trust is always backed by smart contracts that are always visible and cannot be changed once published.

"We are also placing a lot of trust in our community. We have developed a distributed crowd judging mechanism that facilitates conflict resolutions and determines results for peer-to-peer betting.”

Totally Gaming says: Blockchain is certainly a huge talking point on a global scale, with its implementation and usefulness within the gambling industry being long debated by stakeholders. It’s interesting to hear the benefits that going through a dot.com esque bubble could have on this technology, and if such related, long term benefits come to fruition as a result.