The Bitcoin Association recently sponsored the first annual Unbounded Capital Summit in New York City at Dream Downtown. The exclusive event was invite-only and featured some 80 attendees including prominent venture and hedge fund managers, fintech and blockchain entrepreneurs, and institutional and family office investors.

The summit was hosted by Unbounded Capital to help promote a network and provide excellent opportunities for on-chain companies to meet experts and investors.

One of the keynote panels at the event was hosted by Joe de Pinto, Co-Founder of Haste Arcade, who detailed the different ways that his company is revolutionising the way games can be monetised through the power of the blockchain. Haste Arcade, is the world’s first Instant Leaderboard Payout (ILP) gaming platform, allowing users to earn instantly after posting high scores.

The problems with the gaming industry

De Pinto began his presentation by highlighting the enormous size of the current gaming market, which attracts more than $300 billion in revenues from an install base of 3 billion casual gamers. However, he noted that this is not a perfect industry and that companies are still grappling with how to monetise their games.

He noted that businesses typically monetise their games in one of three different ways:

• The game is free with advertisements – This requires a large user base.
• The game is free with in-game purchases – this doesn’t guarantee revenue
• The game is paid – This limits potential players.

De Pinto added that these monetisation barriers also work in conjunction with existing barriers from gamers such as annoying advertisements, the inability to pay large upfront costs and that people are unwilling to pay a high-cost upfront when the quality of the product is unknown.

Most games are also inherently limited in that the excitement wears off after a time and there is no incentive to bring users back to a game over time.

How Haste Arcade is changing the gaming industry

De Pinto noted that Haste Arcade aims to address these problems by offering gamers real-time, peer-to-peer rewards for playing games and placing them on leaderboards.

Micropayments allow developers to monetise their game without a large following, while still earning revenue through other avenues such as digital collectables. The Haste community also gives developers an existing user base, so there are fewer concerns about marketing and earning ability.

On the other side of the spectrum, Haste Arcade has an extremely low barrier to entry, meaning gamers can easily access the platform and begin playing. There are no advertisements and the potential to earn real money while playing incentivises them to keep playing for longer.

Phenomenal success of Haste Arcade

De Pinto noted haste arcade has already seen rapid growth and a steady player base, with:

• 10,000+ accounts and a 31% increase in average monthly growth since April;
• 2,000+ monthly active users;
• Successful paid advertisement campaigns and partnerships;
• Developer competitions.

De Pinto also detailed Haste Arcade’s development roadmap with new games, arcade modes and platform features currently in the works.