Gambling is no longer merely about placing 10 dollars on a horse and wishing for a favorable outcome. With innovative iGaming offerings such as Bitblox, you can now strategically bet on whether Bitcoin’s value will increase or decrease during three successive 20-second periods within a single minute through a platform that features real-time market information. 

Brandt, your firm offers games that predict outcomes based on skills. Could you clarify what these are and what motivated you to develop them? 

Skill-based prediction games are fundamentally a type of wagering where the result of each round is determined by factors other than a random number generator (RNG). In our situation, participants are trying to accurately predict the price fluctuations of the real Bitcoin market, so their success relies on authentic real-world information instead of mere luck. 

I would argue that Bitblox games occupy an ideal balance between games of chance and games of skill, since players do not require any previous understanding of the crypto markets to place bets on them – and I believe that was the true motivation for what we intended to develop. 

Instead of adjusting a current RNG-based format such as slots or table games, we aimed to launch a completely new category in the iGaming sector, which needed to attract both seasoned gamblers and casual participants equally, and I believe our distinctive format has achieved that. 

These games are created for a younger audience that is knowledgeable about technology. Do you believe this demographic is deterred by more conventional gambling games? Is it due to their preference for a component of making decisions? A distinct form of engagement and feeling of reward? 

I believe this is a very intriguing question, and it’s one we are certainly learning more about as we adjust our products monthly. I wouldn't claim that the younger demographic is "turned off" by traditional gambling formats, as developers focused on slots and casino games are indeed creating their products for this audience as well. 

What I would argue, though, is that there is certainly information available indicating that these younger, more technologically adept players prefer games where they take a more active part in determining the result of each betting round. I believe for many of them, having some degree of influence or control over their chances of winning or losing is much more captivating than just being a bystander to random number generation. Examining Bitblox games in particular, allowing players to leverage their own market insights to guide their wagers enhances the attraction further. 

Is there genuinely expertise in forecasting crypto changes over such a brief time frame? 

Everyone is aware that the Bitcoin market – especially in a brief timeframe – can be extremely volatile, yet truly, this seeming “unpredictability” is a major reason for the widespread attraction of our games.

"When you zoom out and take a longer-term view of the Bitcoin price, there are definite macro trends that can also be used to inform predictions in the short term, and we give bettors all the tools they need to do this through our live price feed.

With that in mind, when attempting to forecast the movement of Bitcoin price within a 20 or 60-second timeframe, the market's natural volatility leads to significant fluctuations – which implies that casual participants are not excluded, as they can rely on intuition or choose the option with the highest payout. In this regard, I would argue that skill is indeed a factor in Bitblox games, but it’s not to the extent that players unfamiliar with crypto are left out. 

What benefits do these kinds of games offer to operators? 

In my opinion, the key benefit that Bitblox games provide to operators is their unique combination of chance-based games and skill-based games (SBGs), which attracts a wide range of players. 

We've previously encountered a scenario with one partner who initially placed our games in the crash/instant win category, which unexpectedly drew significant traffic from players who typically only wager on sports. When they "fixed" this by transferring them to the sportsbook, they observed the same phenomenon occurring in reverse. Ultimately, they simply placed them on the homepage and enjoyed the advantages of both scenarios. 

This certainly indicates the extent to which our games can capture an audience, and when considering that betting rounds are consistently brief throughout all our titles, along with each offering numerous chances for wagering, you have a product that truly caters to the quick-paced tastes of contemporary gambling enthusiasts while giving operators plenty of user engagement and a steady profit margin. 

The US elections demonstrated the significant popularity of prediction markets. Do you believe that a more decentralized combination of betting and trading might represent the future of gambling? 

I wouldn't specifically claim it will be decentralized or not, but I believe we will continue to witness a blending of trading and gambling as time progresses. I can envision a future where markets exist for virtually everything, eliminating the need for a single, definitive gambling platform or trading platform.

"Instead, you’ll have one place where you can do all your trading – whether that’s financial or crypto-related – all your casino activities, all of your sports betting, and also make predictions on any market you can think of. That’s definitely the current direction of travel, but the big challenge is that there’s a very different regulatory framework for both of those things at the moment and, unless there’s some harmony between the two systems, that’s a big blocker to this sort of hybridization happening.

There’s another situation where individuals from traditional finance observe the gambling markets and conclude, “trading markets are far more efficient – the margins are slimmer compared to all this gambling where profits are made,” suggesting that traders could potentially dominate gambling sites. 

What is your perspective on the evolution of the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency gambling, in both the short term and long term? Might we witness the regulation of crypto payment systems and blockchain-driven games in the US someday, for instance? 

I believe that utilizing cryptocurrency as a payment method for gaming and having the web3 environment actually support them are two fundamentally different concepts. 

It’s evident that crypto casinos have emerged, allowing users to gamble with various cryptocurrencies, whether stablecoins like USDT or tokens like Bitcoin and Ether, indicating that this has become quite established in the gambling industry.

"On top of that, the election of Trump, who is a very pro-crypto advocate, and his assertion that he wants the US to become a world leader in the space, will hopefully be positive for crypto and crypto markets in general.

In web3, it varies slightly. It remains unproven if web3 can rapidly provide the types of features necessary to compete with traditional “centralized stack” games such as slots. We're not quite there yet, but having participated in web3 projects previously, I wouldn't dismiss the potential it holds once the blockchain's speed and bandwidth align with other technologies. 

What are your forecasts for cryptocurrency in 2025? 

I’ve maintained for a while that I don’t believe crypto is going to disappear, and the occurrences in the last year have definitely not altered my view on this. In the United States, specifically, the present government has expressed strong support for cryptocurrencies and has even detailed proposals on how Bitcoin might become a more important component of the US strategic reserve. 

Additionally, the recent bull market and Bitcoin's price hitting an all-time peak have clearly garnered extensive media attention, which has further highlighted the industry and increased public interest in cryptocurrencies overall. 

I believe all of this creates an ideal environment for additional crypto expansion in 2025 – and although I won’t predict what that might imply for prices, it seems reasonable to assert we’ll witness increased adoption from companies and more regulation as well.