What are Ethereum Casinos?
Gambling with the usual government currencies is nice from a convenience point-of-view, but the advantages compared with crypto gambling stop there.
Traditional currency casinos that require USD, EUR, JPY, and other government-backed forms of payment have lots of geographic limitations due to strict regulatory guidelines when it comes to forms of payment.
Crypto casinos, on the other hand, don’t have the same restrictions because cryptocurrencies are global forms of payment and aren’t affiliated with any one geopolitical region or government.
Now, you may have heard of bitcoin casinos, but ethereum casinos are up-and-coming competitors for good reason: sending ethereum is often up to fifteen times faster than sending bitcoin.
The way ethereum casinos work is simple. You open an account on the casino website and make an ETH deposit to the wallet address specified by the casino. Ethereum deposits will typically take anywhere from a few minutes to fifteen minutes, depending on how congested the network is.
After your deposit arrives and is confirmed by the casino and the ethereum network, your wallet balance will update with the deposit amount. You’re all set to start gambling with ethereum! From this point on, everything works as it would as if you were gambling with normal fiat currency like USD.
The only exception is that your winnings will be paid out in ETH, so having an ethereum wallet at the ready will be a good thing so that you can cash your rewards out when you’re ready.
All of this is well and good, but what is ethereum in the first place?
What Is Ethereum?
Like bitcoin, ethereum is a cryptocurrency that is changing the face of money forever. However, that’s where their similarities end.
Whereas bitcoin is strictly blockchain-based digital cash, ethereum is an entire network and can do much more than function as currency. Blockchains are like giant accounting ledgers that are held in thousands of places around the globe all at once by many different computers. All of the computers that are hosting the blockchain keep in sync with each other to guarantee that all of the activity happening on the network is truthful.
Ethereum is a blockchain that enables the creation of applications that run on its platform – creating an era of decentralized apps, called DApps. The way developers create applications is by using ethereum (ETH) to pay for the transaction fees those apps create on the network.
One of the great consequences of ethereum’s network is that it is much faster than bitcoin. Whereas bitcoin can only handle around four transactions per second, ethereum can handle up to twenty. So, aside from being a great platform, ethereum also functions as a fast currency.
Why Should I Play at an Ethereum Casino?
Ethereum shares all of the advantages of blockchain security while also being very fast to send and receive.
- Ethereum transactions are quick. While still not as fast as transactions done using the Visa Network, ethereum is still significantly faster to send and receive than other cryptocurrencies. Another big plus is that ethereum has several major updates on the way to improve its ability to scale. Next year, ethereum will begin implementing its sharding protocols which could potentially see the network handle thousands of transactions per second by the end of 2019.
- Ethereum is the 2nd largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin may be the king, but ethereum is certainly no slouch either. Coming at #2 on the cryptocurrency charts by market capitalization, ETH is the strongest contender when it comes to coins that may take the top spot from BTC one day.
- Ethereum will implement privacy features. If you want to gamble with ethereum in peace without worrying over whether your transactions can be traced back to you, then there’s great news ahead. Ethereum’s Casper upgrade slated for 2019 will implement privacy features that make sending an receiving ethereum anonymous.