What impact is crypto having on eSports?

Esports is a massively growing phenomenon and it’s thanks to many different factors. If you had told someone a decade ago that national sports stadiums would sell out to see tens of thousands of people watching two teams play a video game, they wouldn’t have believed you. And it’s got to the point now where people will place bets on online sportsbooks on esports in the same way they would on a football match or a horse race.

In particular, cryptocurrency and the technology behind it have driven the creation of crypto casinos and crypto sportsbooks where you can bet on esports here using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum. Today, however, we’re going to look at the wider influence that crypto has had on the esports industry, the use cases and applications it has in the industry at the moment and what developments we can expect to see in the future and what influence this will have on the esports industry.

Use cases of crypto in eSports

So what uses can crypto have in the world of esports? Well, this also applies to sports in general, and it relates to the technology that underlies NFTs. So if you buy a piece of digital artwork online through cryptocurrency, it has a token attached to it that verifies it’s legitimate. And so if someone goes ahead and copies that image and saves it, even though they look the same, there’s an easy way to tell which has been legitimately bought and which hasn’t. And so how does this apply to eSports?

Well, a lot of the big esports teams now have huge followings and have a lot of merchandise that they sell, as well as tickets to events. If both of these were to be sold by cryptocurrency only, if they released a limited batch of, let’s say, 100 team shirts, each person who bought that shirt would be able to prove they have that limited edition. Essentially, verifying that the memorabilia is legitimate, which of course can be hugely helpful in many industries, also helps to prevent the black market of any individual items and will prevent people from being scammed out of their hard-earned money for fakes.

Betting on eSports with crypto

As we have mentioned already, there are many crypto casinos, and in fact, they are most likely the fastest-growing type of online casino at the moment. Many bettors are driven towards crypto casinos and online crypto sportsbooks due to the fact that blockchain means that the bookmaker or casino is being held fully accountable so that they know they are having a fair and enjoyable experience.

And so if someone wants to place a bet on their favourite esports team, they can go online and do this with their cryptocurrency. Using crypto to make and place bets is a lot faster than traditional payment methods. And more importantly, if you win a bet after backing your favourite esports team, withdrawals are almost instant.

In Summary

Cryptocurrency is still in its infancy in the grand scheme of things and there are a lot of developments we will see in the future in relation to eSports and the world in general. As it starts to become more widely adopted, we will start to see more applications for it, and the future does indeed look very exciting. There are other areas that we’ve not covered today within esports that could utilise crypto, such as gaming itself, ownership structures, training, salaries, and much more. Both the industries of esports and crypto are still in their growing stages so it will be interesting to see what the future brings.