- Ken Kruger, CEO of Moon Technologies, moderated a panel at Bitcoin 2023 on Bitcoin as a Payments Revolution.
- The panel included well-known disruptors in space such as Mike Brock, Ivan Soto-Wright, Desiree Dickerson and Bill Barhydt
- The panel discussed digital identities, bitcoin-only games, the future of banking and more.
At Bitcoin 2023, a panel moderated by Ken Kruger saw Desiree Dickerson, Mike Brock, Ivan Soto-Wright, and Bill Barhydt discuss Bitcoin as a payments revolution, highlighting its inherently disruptive nature. A fascinating segment of the payments revolution is play-to-earn games that pay out in bitcoin.
Dickerson is the CEO and co-founder of THNDR GAMES, a bitcoin gaming company. Bitcoin gambling has offered its own form of disruption, as people from countries with struggling currencies have latched onto the play-to-win model, which allows users to earn money for their time spent playing Bitcoin. games.
Dickerson has often spoken of maintaining a Bitcoin protocol just for THNDR’s gaming model.
“How do we change the way players are compensated for their time without robbing games of the pure enjoyment of playing?” asked Dickerson.
The answer? Keep it only in bitcoin.
Injecting other digital assets like NFTs or stablecoins would seek to take the sheer joy out of the bitcoin gaming experience, according to Dickerson, which allows users to earn with passion. Not only is it important to Dickerson to ensure THNDR users maintain the joy of gaming, but ensuring games are accessible is at the heart of THNDR GAMES.
“One of our big concerns is that ultimately we want our games to be accessible to everyone and there’s no more accessible on-ramp than bitcoin,” Dickerson said.
The accessibility of these new systems is paramount to their adoption, which Soto-Wright commented.
“Over time, people will move to a more efficient system,” said Soto-Wright, co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Moonpay, as well as founder and general partner of HODL.vc.
These disturbances and new systems, however, tend to be less noticed if you don’t need them to survive, as Kruger said.
“We’re doing some really important things and those in the developed world might not see what’s going on,” said Kruger, CEO of Moon Technologies, which is a platform that enables consumers to use bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. “We’re doing really important things and those in the developed world might not see what’s going on.”
Speaking of important developments, Mike Brock touched on what he sees as an absolute necessity in the Bitcoin space: social trust.
“Social trust is such a necessary element for digital payments,” he said.
While discussing the need for digital identities that allow users to trust the entity they are interacting with, Brock hinted at future products his company would launch.
Brock leads TBD, the DeFi and cryptocurrency arm of Square, and has also held leadership positions at Cash App and Square Crypto. The disruptive nature of Cash App set Brock on a revolutionary path, which was evidenced by his new direction in digital identities. The creation of these new systems leads us to wonder what happens to the old systems.
“This is the future of banking. Borrow against your bitcoin. Don’t sell your bitcoin,” Barhydt said.
Barhydt is the CEO of Abra, a digital wallet provider that enables the management of cryptocurrencies and the ability to earn interest on them when users buy, trade, earn, and borrow bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. currencies. These financially inclusive tools and his drive to provide them to the masses created an unwavering faith in the future of banking.
As one of Dickerson’s final thoughts, she said, “There’s no way to beat them if you don’t work with them. Integrate first, then knock them all down.