In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Stephanie Raquel, Johnny Mayo of Forbes Asia 30 under 30 Finance & VC discusses how the gambling industry is re-inventing itself with the help of the digital currency technology.
Bitcoin has come a long way since it is conceptualized and created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Once considered by economists as speculative bubble, the cryptocurrency is now slowly being embraced by more and more business leaders and financially politicians as a viable alternative commodity.
One of the business groups that has accepted bitcoin with open arms is the gambling industry. Johnny Mayo of Forbes Asia 30 under 30 Finance & VC said bitcoin has helped the gambling industry revolutionize itself, particularly in terms of digital payments.
Without bitcoin, Mayo said that opportunities for micro transactions will not be discovered.
“I think, there’s a few different variables here but I think the largest would be now we have the first opportunity for micro transactions. We have the ability to be able to split a value of a percent. Using current traditional payment system, you can’t do that,” Mayo told CalvinAyre.com. “You can’t send to send to each other and it makes certain ideas impossible from the get go. That for me, I’d say is probably the bigger things with bitcoin and gaming is the micro transaction element.”
On the issue of regulation, Mayo said that regulating bitcoin is really not a bad thing as long as it will immediately come into place. He also pointed out that the biggest difficulty of regulation at the moment, particularly in developing nations, is the educational curb.
The good news, according to Mayo, is that there are developing nations – such as the Philippines and Malaysia – that are now starting to catch up with the others countries that are leading the way.
“There’s such a lot to take in, there’s such a lot to take in, there’s such a lot learn with bitcoin and block chain, and regulators are already quite have a number of new technologies that they haven’t to get to grips with and familiarize themselves with,” he explained. “ It’s definitely happening now, there’s definitely a lot of conversations in a lot of countries, we are all aware of bitcoin, blockchain, and the potential implications, and I think over the next or so now we are going to see more and more headlines like we’ve already seen in places like Japan, HongKong, Singapore, that are bit more established, that probably have bit more resources to be able to get a head around and get their teeth into this matters.”
He believes that bitcoin will become a great equalizer for those in the developing nations who have no access in traditional financial services.
“It’s hugely important. One of the problems that developing nations have, especially here in the Philippines is access to traditional financial services,” he said. “Part of the reason for that might be… mainly comes down to things like regulations, it comes down to KYC elements, of knowing your customer. And because a lot of the unbanked that are present here in Asia don’t have access of again not only the traditional means of banking and finance but also KYC requirements that we take for granted, bitcoin becomes a great equalizer for that.”
