As we move deeper into the digital era, many crypto users are becoming more firmly entrenched in their idea of which coins to use, but they don’t always choose for logical reasons. If we look at the two biggest tokens in the industry, what are the real reasons for choosing one or the other for iGaming purposes?
Liquidity Issues and Store of Value
Bitcoin (BTC) has increasingly been described as being a store of value in recent times. This means that it’s considered by many people to be ideal for keeping funds that you might need urgently, at some point soon, or not for a long time. With a huge market cap, this has become one of the planet’s most liquid assets, with buy and sell orders being met on a 24/7 basis every day of the year.
Ethereum (ETH) has a smaller market cap of around $283 billion. While it sits far behind BTC in overall size, there is no doubt that it offers an excellent level of constantly available liquidity. This means that one of the key differences is that this ETH has the potential for greater price volatility, which makes it less like a store of value in some people’s eyes.
What Games Can You Choose From?
If we look at how you can play in an Ethereum casino, we find a big selection of themed slots, like Crown Coins, Gold Mine Express, and Roman Riches Jackpot. That’s not all, since we can also move into the table games and live games sections, where classics like roulette and blackjack are presented in fresh new ways.
What if we enter a Bitcoin casino next? The truth is that you see the exact same selection of slots and table games. The crypto that you choose to play with doesn’t make any difference to the selection of games that you can see, and indeed, most casinos will let you pick from a number of cryptos, meaning that you aren’t limited when it comes to choosing your platform either. You’ll also see options like Litecoin (LTC), Tron (TRX), and Cardano (ADA). Once you add the money to your casino wallet, you can then head to the lobby and choose from any of the games on offer, no matter what funding method you use.
At this point, you may wonder what will happen if you get a win. Again, the same withdrawal process is used for any of the cryptos you want to cash out. You need to remember that the price volatility may affect the amount that you receive when you make the withdrawal, since the token may have risen or fallen since you bought some.
If you’ve ever wondered about things like the differences between American and European roulette versions, playing them in a crypto casino is an effective way of understanding what they have in common and how they differ.
The Changing Speed and Costs of Transfers
BTC has always been highly respected for its slow and incredibly steady transfer system. While it lacks the native level 2 integration found in the Ethereum ecosystem, it provides a solid option as long as you don’t mind waiting for the next block to be processed. With an average block time of ten minutes, BTC is relatively fast, but you need to use the Lightning Network if you want the speediest transfers.
If we go back to ETH, the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade has added value features to make it more decentralized and increase execution efficiency. In terms of speed of transfers, it means a giant leap forward that ensures players won’t need to rely on L2 options like Arbitrum, Polygon, or Optimism for fast transfers.
The Smart Contract Option
If you’ve ever wondered why Bitcoin is called digital gold and Ethereum is described as a world computer, this section covers one of the main reasons for that difference. Bitcoin is basically a decentralized ledger where transactions are marked, and new coins are mined. It works perfectly for what it does, but it lacks the scale and adaptability of Ethereum.
One of the clearest ways that this can be seen is in the way that smart contracts can be built on Ethereum. While this isn’t yet a major feature of the iGaming scene, it provides casinos with the option of writing provably fair game mechanics and non-custodial payouts into the code for each game.
Summary
For the majority of players, either of these tokens is ideal for fast, simple transfers between their account and a casino. The exact same mechanism for sending money from your wallet to a casino wallet applies in both cases. If all you are looking for is a simple way to move funds, you can choose either BTC or ETH with confidence and start playing.
If you like the idea of ETH’s other features and capabilities or BTC’s simplicity, you just need to be aware of the other factors that we’ve looked at here. Once you’ve decided, it only takes a moment to move your funds and choose your first game.
