One of the largest online poker sites Americas Cardroom is going to add support for a massive list of altcoins and tokens. One the one hand one might ask if anyone even uses these coins/tokens for anything at all and on the other hand with this action they have suddenly given over 60 projects real life utility. Let`s take a look at what this means for the coins that are now accepted and for crypto projects that are working on decentral solutions for betting as well as existing bitcoin casinos.

Nobody uses Shitcoins

Use Case: Speculation

A common mantra is that nobody uses altcoins or tokens for anything besides “speculation, trading or day trading”. Speculation in itself is a utility as crypto allows nearly anyone to speculate regardless of geographical location, age or bankroll. Nearly all of the restrictions of the traditional financial markets do not apply. Is the killer app of crypto the facilitation of mostly unregulated speculation instruments that can be traded 247 365? So far the answer is a clear YES. The main thing that is fueling the crypto hype is those GAINZ and not any kind of anonymous master node ring signature smart contract to save the world.

Use Case: ICO

This could be put in the speculation section but it deserves its own section considering the ICO wave that we are still in. What is the number one smart contract used on the Ethereum network? Is it a smart contract to help the unbanked of the world get access to financial services? Is it a decentral government that is taking new steps to break the capitalism vs. communism dichotomy? Maybe it is a smart contract that helps whistleblowers submit leaks anonymously? No, No and No. The two smart contracts used on Ethereum are related to ICOs. The first one creates a token and the second works as a type of ICO vending machine. You send it ETH and it spits out tokens to the address you sent the ETH from. This goes for other platforms too. Waves Project, Counterparty pretty much any crypto that allows the creation of tokens has its main utility in the creation of ICOs.

Use Case: Buy Stuff

There is some truth to the statement that “nobody uses shitcoins”. Take a look at the block explorer of any of the top 100 coins listed at coinmarketcap and check for yourself. The amount of daily transactions doesn´t look like anyone is using these coins to buy coffee, pay for anything online or anything besides sending coins from one exchange to another. Of course, we can not say what each transaction is being used for, but we can guess that there are not many frappuccinos being bought with shitcoins. That could change in the future, but for now, the reality is that they are not being used.

Hey, all these points are true for bitcoin too, you just hate altcoins!

That is not true anymore. Bitcoin is being used to buy stuff, maybe not mocha frappuccinos but it is being used. No, I do not hate altcoins, pepecash is an altcoin, just keep that in mind. Bitcoin is being used for speculation, no doubt. It is also accepted at a wide range of sportsbooks and online poker rooms. These are not bitcoin casinos but the older offshore style casinos. This has led to the next step.

Who is the innovator now?

In the bold move to accept this massive list of altcoins and tokens, Americas Cardroom takes more crypto than any other bitcoin casino. If people really wanted to use crypto you would think that the crypto world and bitcoin casinos would have already started to accept massive lists of altcoins. Check out this list that Americas Cardroom is going to accept:

1ST 1st Blood

ANT Aragon

BAT Basic Attention Token

BCH Bitcoin Cash

BTC Bitcoin

BCY Bitcrystals

BLK Blackcoin

BNT Bancor

BTS BitShares

CLAM Clams

CVC Civic

DASH Dash

DCR Decred

DGB Digibyte

DGD DigixDao

DOGE Dogecoin

EDG Edgeless

EMC Emercoin

EOS EOS

ETH Ether

ETC Ether Classic

FCT Factoids

FUN FunFair

GAME GameCredits

GNO Gnosis

GNT Golem

GUP Matchpool

ICN Iconomi

KMD Komodo

LBC LBRY Credits

LSK Lisk

LTC Litecoin

MAID Maidsafe

MLN Melon

MSCN Mastercoin

MONA Monacoin

MTL Metal Pay

NMC Namecoin

NMR Numeraire

NVC Novacoin

PAY TenX Token

USNBT Nubits

NXT Nxt

OMG OmiseGO

POT Potcoin

PPC Peercoin

QTUM Qtum

RDD Reddcoin

REP Augur

RLC iExec

SC Siacoin

SJCX StorjcoinX

SNGLS SingularDTV

SNT Status

START Startcoin

STEEM Steem

SWT SwarmCity

TKN TokenCard

USDT TetherUSD

VRC Vericoin

VTC Vertcoin

VOX Voxels

TRST WeTrust

WAVES Waves

WINGS Wings

XCP Counterparty

XMR Monero

XRP Ripple

ZRX 0x

ZEC Zcash

Why do I need to use any of these when I can use bitcoin? You have things that make sense like Monero, you might want a transaction to an online casino to remain private, Tether might be an easier way to move USD value around and Dogecoin might have the lowest network fees. We do not know right now if there will be a spread for using one of the coins on this massive list. If there is not then you could see if one of these might catch on, but most likely they will have to add some kind of fee in order to transfer back to bitcoin or USD and the reason to use any of these suddenly goes away when you have to pay an extra 0.2–0.5% for using it. That is maybe one good reason that most bitcoin casinos do not take massive lists of altcoins. They are in the casino business and not trying to be an altcoin exchange.

“I don´t care I am going to use the new decentral betting platform being created by (enter project name) it will revolutionize prediction markets and disrupt online casinos and sportsbooks. It will also take every crypto token”

That is great if you want to do that. I just do not know how long you will be waiting. Let´s take a real quick look at some of these projects. Before I start talking about any of them just keep in mind — I want them to work — All of the below named projects can in theory could accept a wide range of tokens and still remain decentral.

Augur- A long time ago, many crypto years ago there was an ICO. They raised crazy amounts and the token REP made some mega gainz. I want to predict, I want to bet, go full yolo. Denied, it still isn’t live, you will just have to wait to use this project that is a splitter group fork of hivemind/truthcoin. I asked Mr. Krug in early 2015 if buying and selling REP (Reputation) could be gamed. Too bad we still have not been able to find out, since it still is not live.

Gnosis- Well they managed to raise some funds, quickly in their ICO. Can I bet on the platform now? Does it take that mega list of coins? How do you use this thing? Does anyone know?

Counterparty- Yes that is correct. The old 2014 bitcoin layer that helps people spam the network with pepecards. You can, in fact, bet peer to peer using this platform. It is not that easy to use and has high fees compared to any centralized sportsbook.

No, wait there is a new project that will do it better!

Maybe, but right now we have an example of an online casino taking more crypto than the pure bitcoin casinos. If one of the new projects does, in fact, do something better. Takes, even more, coins, has some kind of head to head games, offers strange bets and it catches on. Guess what will happen, the “traditional” online casinos will just copy it. So if that new ICO project really does come up with something, for the most part, it will be able to be implemented in any online casino. Sure the online casino won´t have masternodes or vesting periods for the founder’s tokens, they don´t need those.

Some projects I am involved with include:

Monsterbyte, who has been offering bitcoin sports betting and provably fair casino games since 2013 will be expanding and adding support for some altcoins in the near future.

ERT eSports Reward Token, the project wants to build a portal, sports book and brick and mortar university dedicated to eSports and you will be able to use their token ERT to bet and reward content creators. The sportsbook will be fully licensed and compliant with regulations.

Degenbet, sports betting blog and information source. I post my own picks, review sites and write about current betting markets.

Other interesting related projects include:

Wagerr — creating a decentral betting platform with a decentral oracle system. How they will stop oracle bribery and massive slippage when going in and out of the native wgr token goes to be seen. What is good is that they have not decided to take over the world in one go, but to concentrate on sports betting.

Dao Casino — They are trying to solve the issue creating random numbers in a decentral way. Calling it “Equally Unpredictable Randomness”

Edgeless, FunFair and 5000 dice projects the list goes on and on.

Do these projects need to accept 69 different coins/tokens or are they fine just accepting bitcoin? Will the ability to use Potcoin, Novacoin and Factoids at an online poker room increse their use or just another pumpy news event? Just imagine the Novacoin pump if BTC-E was still around at the annoucement that they are now accepted at a real online poker room!