Will bettors love Bitcoin?

The history of Bitcoin begun in 2009, when a person or a group of people hiding under the nickname Satoshi Nakamoto, decided to create a cryptocurrency and a payment system which allows conducting fast money transfers with the use of the Internet that enables full anonymity as well as minimal commission fees without any subsidiaries. Among the reasons behind the creation of the Bitcoin was the financial crisis in the 2008, which stirred stable stock and currency markets. Initially, the value of one Bitcoin was $0,063 and nothing pointed to a forthcoming success. Following years brought a systematic growth of the currency’s value, with growth rates of about 1400% in some years. As of today (08.05.2017) the value of one Bitcoin is approximately $1604,00.

To understand what Bitcoin really is, you have to imagine a currency that does not have any physical form as it exists just in the virtual world. It is a sequence of numbers or symbols, a digital record having a certain value, resembling a traditional currency. In case of traditional currencies, the value is assigned to a piece of paper, where in case of Bitcoin such value has been assigned to that sequence of numbers or symbols, forming a digital record. In both cases, a buyer and a seller exchange goods or services for funds with a certain value.

There is an interesting story connected with Bitcoin of an American man who held the first documented transaction of exchanging Bitcoins for real goods in 2010. The man purchased two pizzas for 10 000 Bitcoins and probably ate them with huge satisfaction after a profitable bargain. We hope that the pizzas were very tasty as the amount of Bitcoins he payed for them could be now converted into over twelve million dollars.

There are three ways to obtain Bitcoins. The first two are faster and more popular. Having some sum of traditional currency you can purchase and then resell Bitcoin in special operating exchange points or currency exchanges either online or at one of few thousand Bitcoin ATM’s. Another way of getting Bitcoins is by accepting them as a payment for a service or a product that you are selling.

Third way of obtaining the Bitcoin is much more difficult and requires a significant computer programming knowledge and technologically advanced computers. It is called “mining” as the people creating Bitcoins have to spend some time to generate new Bitcoins. To put it simply, their advanced computers perform various operations which help the Bitcoin system to work such as solving various bitcoin algorithms, verifying Bitcoin transactions or keeping the Bitcoin network secure. In exchange for their work, they are awarded with small amounts of newly-generated Bitcoins.

As in the case of any other currency, if you gather some amount of Bitcoins you will need to store it somewhere. You can either write down your bitcoin code somewhere like a piece of paper or a file on a computer or use other methods such as specially created Bitcoin wallets, in other words, an applications resembling a bank account. It is worth saying that the second option is safer and much more popular. In general, e-wallets are applications with the help of which you can freely use monetary funds, the safety of which is guaranteed by a number of keys and passwords, limiting unauthorized access to your account.

There are various types of such e-wallets. You can choose them depending on the sum you plan to store, level of security you want to use and whether you will access your Bitcoins only through your own devices (laptop, computer, phone) or any device with an Internet connection. Below we will present you the most popular Bitcoin storage options.

• Offline wallets – characterised by the absence of Internet connection, more useful in the role of a safe for the storage of Bitcoins.
• Computer application wallets – installed in your computer, you can move it with a flash drive and use it on any computer, it limits you to the use of only computers.
• Web-browser wallets – you can use them only after installing them into your browser on any device with Internet access. They are designed for short time storage of a small amount of Bitcoins.
• Mobile wallets – operate with the help of an application installed on a phone/tablet. Due to huge mobility they perfectly suit daily financial transactions.
• Hardware wallets– in the form of a USB key, which allows to use them on any computer.

For beginner users who do not want to store big amounts of Bitcoins for a long time, we advise to use application wallets on a computer or mobile wallets.

Soon after the introduction of the Bitcoin, it has widely spread among various aspects of life, including gambling - sports betting in particular. More and more bookmakers offered their customers the availability to use Bitcoins. There are options for both payments and withdrawals with the use of this cryptocurrency. It is a very swift method that enables you to automatically convert Bitcoins into the currency you are using at the bookmaker’s website.

For sports punters it is an especially attractive option as there are no commission fees at the moment of depositing or withdrawal of the funds. Furthermore, there are more and more online bookmakers that offer their customers the option to directly bet with the use of Bitcoins without the need of currency conversion as well as those that offer betting with this currency even without a player’s account on their website.

The time of transactions should satisfy most punters as it usually takes up to several hours. Thus, Bitcoin is much faster than traditional banking transfers. A short time of realisation of the transactions is particularly important for punters that have accounts at several bookmakers and they constantly need to transfer their funds between their accounts because of their small bankroll.

Currently, Bitcoin is especially popular among American customers because of the United States policies on online gambling and sports betting which include several laws and restrictions. It is thus understandable that the majority of bookmakers such as Bovada, Betonline and Intertops have mostly American sports in their offer. Although American punters have to provide their personal information at the bookmakers website, they do not have to do it when paying with Bitcoin.

The thing that attracts punters to Bitcoin the most is the anonymity it provides. Using Bitcoins, punters do not have to provide any personal data. With Bitcoin, there are no additional costs, payment taxes or tracking. What is more, it cannot be stolen. The ownership of the Bitcoin can only be changed by the owner. From the other hand, because of its status, Bitcoin is not as stable as real currencies.

Up until recently, the official position of the Neteller company forbade the “usage of Neteller with the aim of trading, purchasing and selling Bitcoins or similar digital currency”. The policy of the company changed and now Neteller offers possibility of transfers in Bitcoins, with 5% commission for each transaction.

Similarly to Neteller, Skrill also offers its clients possibility of purchasing Bitcoins. Transaction realisation looks very simple.

1. You have to log-into your Cubits account, then select the Purchase Bitcoin option and choose Direct Purchase.
2. Then you choose the amount of money for which you want to purchase Bitcoins and select Skrill from the list of payment systems.
3. Before pressing the Confirm Purchase button, you should check whether the sum of money you will pay as well as the amount of Bitcoins corresponds to your order.
4. To finish, click Confirm. Then you will be re-directed to the Skrill website to finalise the transaction.

Which bookmakers accept Bitcoin?

We can divide online bookmakers into three categories: 
1. Bitcoin only bookmakers (highest anonymity, highly recommended): Cloudbet ,Nitrogen Sports
2. Bookmakers accepting Bitcoin as another payment method: Bovada (USA only), Betonline, Intertops
3 Bookmakers accepting Bitcoin and letting players bet in Bitcoin: Sportsbet.io (highly recommended - people who are behind this bookmaker have years of experience at brands like William Hill.