Recently we’ve seen the cryptocurrency and gaming industries converge even more to create an interesting dynamic that has brought crypto investors and gamers together. However, more than just bringing together these groups around a common interest, this convergence has been crucial in the democratization of the gaming industry. That’s because by facilitating decentralized ownership, collectible in-game assets, and secure transactions, these two industries coming together have changed how we can play, invest, and trade on traditional crypto gaming platforms and iGaming options like these crypto casinos. According to crypto expert Michael Graw, the best crypto casinos allow players to wager on games like blackjack and poker using digital currencies and have become a popular option. Now, let us explore what crypto gaming is and where its origins lie below.
What is Crypto Gaming?
Crypto gaming, whether video games or iGaming platforms with crypto gambling options, relies on blockchain infrastructure like Ethereum. The blockchain technologies that crypto gaming utilizes use smart contracts, which are self-executing pieces of code.
NFTs are also used extensively in crypto gaming as these assets can be used for in-game items such as virtual property and characters. What has made many game developers use NFTs is that they come with distinct indivisible values, which increases their scarcity. Their use in games is why many players can now trade, buy, and sell these NFTs on blockchain marketplaces, as there is a demand for collectible items.
The use of NFTs has also given players true ownership of the assets they buy in games, for example, when a player buys a legendary weapon, they own it forever, and it gets stored safely on the blockchain. NFT technology has also enabled interoperability between different games as players can use items they bought in one game in other titles.
Early Crypto Games
Three games have made crypto gaming into what we know today, with the first one being CryptoKitties. CryptoKitties has been credited by many people as the first proper crypto game ever since its launch in 2017. What has made people name this title as the first proper crypto game is that it was the first well-known game to be hosted on a blockchain. This game, which is hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, allows players to collect, trade, and breed unique virtual cats that are represented as NFTs.
Another game that expanded on the concept that was introduced by CryptoKitties is Hashcraft, which was released in 2019 by the renowned game development company Ubisoft. What this game introduced to crypto gaming was the use of 3D graphics, as it allowed players to modify and create shared islands. Ubisoft used smart contracts to let players build up virtual properties and record ownership of these spaces transparently.
Botwars Ultimate Trading which was released a year after Hashcraft added a new twist to the crypto gaming sphere by infusing financial education into its gameplay. This game managed to do this by giving players an environment where they can come up with strategies to profit from a virtual crypto market that is based on real data from actual crypto exchanges and deploy bots to trade on their behalf.