Christmas has come early this year for those who either hold Bitcoin or use it for trading and gambling. Poker players, for instance, have been cashing out heavily in BTC as Bitcoin’s price kept on soaring.
Poker players are craving Bitcoin
Bitcoin has bounced back in spectacular fashion over the past month, gaining over 40% before a harsh 16% pullback that just stopped it from reaching an all-time high, settling its gains at 24%, at the time of writing. Given this magnificent bullish run, it’s easy to see why people want to get in on the act, which is thus increasing demand for BTC.
This kind of sentiment has also been shown by poker players around the industry, who are now increasingly eager to cash out their winnings in Bitcoin. According to Phil Nagy (WPN), the CEO of Winning Poker Network (WPN), the biggest and oldest poker platform in the United States, poker players have become regular cryptocurrency traders, buying millions worth of BTC to satisfy the constantly growing demand as more and more players are opting to cash out in crypto instead of fiat currencies. He said that presently, nearly 95% of all payouts are being requested in Bitcoin, which puts a significant strain on executives who have to go to the crypto market and buy at higher prices. Moreover, brokers are now charging 1.5% on BTC purchases. Over the past several weeks, 60% of all transactions on WPN (roughly $100 million) were conducted in BTC.
What’s peculiar about poker platforms is that the players are responsible for filing their own performance as WPN doesn’t regulate this. Nagy also explained that apart from a natural desire to accumulate the digital asset, the value of which is quickly appreciating, players also want to avoid regulations and minimise their tax bills. WPN’s policies on deposits and withdrawals make it an investment platform as players can make deposits in fiat and withdraw in crypto. That is the reason why the requests for withdrawals in BTC have surged from 60% before the rally to the current 90%.
Online poker has a long-standing relationship with crypto
1xbet poker sites were among the first gambling platforms to embrace cryptocurrency. WPN, for instance, introduced Bitcoin way back in 2014. Last June, WPN got the largest cryptocurrency jackpot ever that amounted to 104,23 BTC or $1 million.
Since 2010, cryptocurrency-oriented poker sites, as well as online sportsbooks and casinos like 1xBit, have become increasingly more popular due to the numerous advantages offered by this new kind of digital money, such as anonymity, the swiftness and cheapness of transactions, etc.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent global lockdown, has only intensified activity on such platforms because even traditionally offline players have had to migrate online, which has led to them discovering cryptocurrencies and the benefits of cashing out in Bitcoin.
