From Bitcoin only to multi-crypto

BitEdge started as Bitcoin only

When we started BitEdge back in 2013 it was Bitcoin only. We only included Bitcoin sportsbooks and I did all my betting in Bitcoin.

The first multiple crypto sportsbook to pop up was Betcoin, which started accepting Litecoin in 2014.

That same year we had to make our first decision on the matter when Bitcoin’s leading dice site, Just Dice, relaunched only accepting a little-used crypto called Clams.

We are not Bitcoin maximalists but we could not list every site that accepted every crypto so we decided to only list sites that accept Bitcoin. If they accepted Bitcoin and other cryptos, that was fine too.

Bitcoin’s product failure caused a change

By 2017 Bitcoin’s blocks were full and Bitcoin started to fail as a product. It got harder and harder to use Bitcoin for gambling like I had always enjoyed doing. Transaction fees were too high and you had to wait hours for a confirmation.

This governance failure also made double spending easier. Which in turn led crypto sportsbooks to require multiple confirmations before you could bet with your deposit. Before full blocks some sportsbooks offered instant deposits and others required 1 confirmation. After full blocks, the standard has become 2 confirmations before you can bet with your deposit.

I tried gambling with other cryptos like Ether and Dash and found it a much better experience.

Soon after that more and more Bitcoin sportsbooks added other cryptos, to the point where now 8 of the 13 (62%) crypto gambling sites we list are multi-currency and only 5 out of 13 (38%) are Bitcoin only. This is detailed in the table at the top of this post.

Catering to the multi-crypto ecosystem

All major cryptos have dedicated communities around them, with some people only using that particular crypto. Someone who only uses Ether is not interested in sportsbooks that only accept Bitcoin. For someone like that, we have settings in the top right corner of this site allowing you to choose to only see sportsbooks that accept cryptos of your choice.

For example, if you select Ether, this site transforms into an Ether betting guide by only showing sportsbooks that accept Ether.

The crypto space is a multi-asset, multi-currency, multi-token ecosystem. This is a reality that BitEdge embraces.