Interview: Bitblox and the Rise of Crypto-Powered Prediction Gaming

Posted on: February 18, 2025, 05:28h. 

Last updated on: February 18, 2025, 09:03h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More

Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.

• iGaming is expanding to incorporate new products like Bitblox, which allow users to make strategic wagers on the price of Bitcoin
• Bitblox CEO Brandt Page says his company’s products are appealing to younger, tech-savvy users who are looking for alternatives to traditional wagering
• Despite the inherent volatility of Bitcoin, Brandt says accurately predicting the market requires significant skill

Gambling is no longer just about slapping down 10 bucks on a horse and hoping for the best. Thanks to novel iGaming products like Bitblox, you can now make strategic wagers on whether Bitcoin’s price will rise or fall over three consecutive 20-second intervals within a single minute via a platform that integrates real-time market data.

Casino.org spoke to Bitblox CEO Brandt Page about the brave new world of crypto-based prediction games.

Brandt, your company provides skill-based prediction games. Can you explain what these are and what inspired you to create them?

Skill-based prediction games are essentially a form of betting where the outcome of each round is dictated by something other than a random number generator (RNG). In our case, players are attempting to correctly guess the price movements of the actual Bitcoin market, so whether they win or not comes down to genuine real-world data rather than just random chance.

Rather than tweaking an existing RNG-based format like slots or table games, we wanted to introduce a totally new vertical into the iGaming space, but it had to be one that appealed to both experienced bettors and casual players in equal measure, and I think our unique format has done that.

So these games are designed for a tech-savvy younger market. Do you think this demographic is turned off by more traditional gambling games? Is it because they prefer an element of decision-making? A different type of interactivity and reward sensation?

I think this is a really interesting question and it’s one that we’re definitely discovering more about as we tweak our products each month. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the younger market is “turned off” by more traditional gambling formats, as developers who specialize in slots and casino games are certainly also designing their titles with this audience in mind.

What I would say, however, is that there’s definitely data out there to suggest that these younger, more tech-savvy players are drawn to titles where they play a more proactive role in the outcome of each betting round. I think for most of them, knowing that they have some sort of input or control over whether they win or lose is far more engaging than simply being a passenger to RNG. And looking at Bitblox games specifically, giving players the option to use their own market insights to inform their bets adds an extra layer of appeal.

Is there really skill involved in predicting crypto fluctuations over such a short period of time?

We all know that the Bitcoin market – particularly over a very short period of time – can be incredibly volatile, but honestly, this apparent “unpredictability” is one of the key factors behind our games’ broad appeal.

When you zoom out and take a longer-term view of the Bitcoin price, there are definite macro trends that can also be used to inform predictions in the short term, and we give bettors all the tools they need to do this through our live price feed.

That being said, when you’re trying to predict which way the Bitcoin price will move over a 20 or 60-second window, the market’s inherent volatility does result in quite a lot of variance – and this means the more casual players aren’t frozen out as they can simply bet by feel or pick the option that offers the best payout. In this respect, I’d say there’s definitely skill involved in Bitblox games, but not so much as to exclude players who don’t know crypto.

What advantages do these types of games have for operators?

I think the most significant advantage Bitblox games offer to operators is that their hybrid mix of games of chance and skill-based games (SBGs) means that they appeal to a broad cross-section of players.

This definitely says a lot about how big an audience can be engaged by our games, and when you also add the fact that betting rounds are uniformly short across all our titles and all of them offer frequent opportunities for wagering, you have a product that really appeals to the fast-paced preferences of modern gambling audiences while providing operators with lots of user activity and a reliable margin.

The US elections showed just how popular prediction markets have become. Do you think a more decentralized hybrid of betting and trading could be the future of gambling?

I wouldn’t necessarily say it will be decentralized or otherwise, but I do think we’ll continue to see a merge of trading and gambling over time. I can see a point in the future where there are markets on literally everything and you won’t have one definitive gambling site and one definitive trading site.

Instead, you’ll have one place where you can do all your trading – whether that’s financial or crypto-related – all your casino activities, all of your sports betting, and also make predictions on any market you can think of. That’s definitely the current direction of travel, but the big challenge is that there’s a very different regulatory framework for both of those things at the moment and, unless there’s some harmony between the two systems, that’s a big blocker to this sort of hybridization happening.

There’s also a scenario where people coming from the traditional financial world look at the gambling markets and think “trading markets are so much tighter – the margins are thinner compared to all this gambling where people are making money,” so gambling sites could well get overrun by the traders.

How do you see the regulatory landscape developing for crypto gambling, both in the near and distant future? Could we see crypto payment mechanisms and blockchain-based games regulated in the US one day, for example?

I think using crypto as a payment mechanism for playing games and having the web3 universe actually powering them are two very distinct things.

We’ve clearly seen the rise of crypto casinos where you can play using any number of cryptocurrencies – be they stablecoins like USDT or tokens like Bitcoin and Ether – so I think that’s already quite entrenched within the gambling world.

On top of that, the election of Trump, who is a very pro-crypto advocate, and his assertion that he wants the US to become a world leader in the space, will hopefully be positive for crypto and crypto markets in general.

For web3, it’s a bit different. It’s yet to be proven whether web3 can deliver – at speed – the sort of things that it needs to compete with traditional “centralized stack” games like slots. We’re not there yet but having been involved in web3 projects in the past, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of that once the speed and bandwidth on the blockchain side of things has caught up with other technologies.

What are your predictions for crypto in 2025?

I’ve said for some time that I don’t think crypto is going anywhere, and events over the past 12 months certainly haven’t changed my opinion on that. In America, in particular, the current administration has spoken very positively about cryptocurrencies and has even gone so far as to outline plans about how Bitcoin could form an increasingly significant part of the US strategic reserve.

I think all of this makes a pretty perfect storm for further crypto growth in 2025 – and while I’m not about to make predictions on what that could mean for prices, I think it’s fair to say we’ll see even more adoption from businesses and further regulation too.