For the longest time, we’ve been hearing pundits in the cryptocurrency space talk about crypto winter, and how it’s painting a gloomy future for the industry. That may be the case for cryptocurrency, but the same cannot be said for its underlying technology — blockchain.
Ron Segev, technology, iGaming and DLT lawyer at Segev LLP, tells CalvinAyre.com’s Stephanie Tower how, with the current bear market, people are “rediscovering blockchain tech and realizing that it can do amazing things.”
“I think we’re at a really critical moment right now,” Segev explains. “People say that we’re exiting the winter of blockchain because people were so focused on cryptocurrencies and the value of cryptocurrencies, and they took their eyes off the actual fundamental usefulness of blockchain tech and the tokens, and the powerful things that it can do.”
For operators, the applications for blockchain are not only powerful, they’re also “a no-brainer.”
“What a whole lot of land-based operators are beginning to discover is that an example of a casino chip can be morphed into anything,” Segev says. “It could be morphed into an augmented reality game, where I find a digital asset on a casino floor, that it’s got verifiable scarcity, that I can own that asset. And if I can develop an economy around that asset where other people want that asset, it’ll be near and dear to my heart, it’ll increase in value, it’ll be tradable, and hopefully it’ll improve engagement with the casino floor, or maybe it’ll move my activity from the casino floor to the online space, or from online to the casino floor.”
Customers will also benefit from blockchain, as the technology helps improve engagement between operators and their tech-savvy customer base. Segev explains, “What we’re seeing is a new generation of internet users that are demanding an experience in the physical space to match their experience online. They want to see seamless activity from online to offline, from the land-based to the online, and as a lot of land-based operators are beginning to get into the online gaming — they have been for some time — that seamless transferability of experience is really important. How do you do that? You need a means by which you transact. Typically we used to use things like loyalty points, or comp points or things like that, and that’s OK, but the better way to do it is to put those casino points or comp points on the blockchain.”
