What originally started as a partnership between two friends, Bitzillions gave rise to SatoshiBONES, a dice game that operates on Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. After one year and a major facelift, the online dice game has stayed on the path toward more success in the industry. I had the privilege to talk with its CEO and learned a great deal about its game and plans for the brand.
Thank you for this opportunity. Let’s start with the beginning of Bitzillions.
Our SatoshiBONES dice game was released to public Beta in April 2013.
Was the software developed specifically for Bitzillions? Is it compatible with mobile, download, and web-based platforms?
The software was developed in-house. We are continually improving the code, and working on a new framework which will offer many more options to play. Our game interface is quite simple, and designed to work on both desktop and mobile browsers. There is no need to install software on any platform to use the game, simply need a Bitcoin wallet.
There are many dice platforms now, what makes Bitzillions’ SatoshiBONES different from the rest?
Our SatoshiBONES game is quite similar to other classic on-chain dice games. The main difference is that we are still allowing players to receive payouts on unconfirmed transactions. From our inception we sought community involvement in the form of a stakeholder relationship. This has provided us benefits in terms of testing/feedback, organic marketing, and capitalization.
SatoshiBONES was always intended to be a proof-of-concept, and we plan to release a new engine offering many more options in the future. Going forward with our new framework, I believe we will really set ourselves apart. Not only will we be able to develop new games quickly in-house, but we plan to offer an API to developers who wish to use our brand and platform.
We’ll be looking forward to that. But for the meantime, what are your plans for the second half of 2014?
For the current game, we plan to add new language options for the interface. Our second generation platform is being developed, and we will release it along with new games by year’s end. We plan to bring the same qualities to these new games that we have established with SatoshiBONES.
Your game has recently turned one year and Bitcoin has been around for five years. What can you say about the rise or the progress of Bitcoin casinos and gambling sites?
I believe this field is still in very early days and that it will expand considerably. Existing online gambling platforms will either adopt Bitcoin, or be marginalized. Bitcoin, as well as the related concept of cryptographically provable game outcomes bring fairness and simplicity to the field.
How about your part in operating SatoshiBONES? What are the challenges you normally have to deal with?
The largest challenge is the risk of double-spend attacks. To make an on-chain game fun, you need a scheme where the players can get quick feedback. This means not waiting for transaction confirmation. We are constantly improving our system to be able to continue doing this. Another challenge is that the distribution of bitcoin ownership is very uneven; there are some really big whales out there. This requires us to carefully tune our game characteristics to withstand continued game-play by players with enormous caches of bitcoin.
I couldn’t agree more. You’re in the industry that runs on virtual currencies. Do you think, though, that these will greatly affect our lives in the future?
I see cryptocurrency and other blockchain based proof of ownership as one of the cornerstones of the Internet. Many critics of Internet adoption back in the 1990s saw the lack of secure online payments as a reason it would fail. While they were wrong that the Internet would fail, they were correct in identifying a secure payment scheme as a critical part of the foundation. It may have taken a decade and a half, but that cornerstone is now here.
All right. What would you want to tell your potential customers out there?
Since our foundation we knew that trust and reliability were the two most important qualities to develop for our brand. We quite like the provability that comes with being an on-chain game. We don’t expect players to trust blindly, nor should they. Being on-chain allows us to be 100% transparent. In terms of reliability, other games have come and gone, but we’re still here. I think that speaks for itself.
It certainly does so. Again, thank you very much for this, and all the best with Bitzillions and SatoshiBONES!