The Agenda Podcast: Decoding Crypto

Blockchain casino aims to share the wealth so more than just the house wins (feat. Zach Bruch)

• Zach Bruch • Season 1 • Episode 36

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Zach Bruch, founder and CEO of MyPrize, joins The Agenda podcast to explain how blockchain-based casinos have the potential to absorb significant market share within the gambling industry and how MyPrize aims to make betting more fun and communal while also sharing revenue with creators.

The Agenda is brought to you by Cointelegraph and hosted/produced by Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung. Follow Cointelegraph on X (Twitter) at @Cointelegraph, Jonathan at @maddopemadic and Ray at @HorusHughes. Jonathan is also on Instagram at @maddopemadic, and he makes the music for the podcast — hear more at madic.art.

Follow Zach Bruch on X at @zachbruch.

Check out Cointelegraph at cointelegraph.com.

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The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are its participants’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph. This podcast (and any related content) is for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, nor should it be taken as such. Everyone must do their own research and make their own decisions. The podcast’s participants may or may not own any of the assets mentioned.

Jonathan: Crypto is for everyone, not just rocket scientists, venture capitalists, and high IQ developers. Welcome to The Agenda, a Cointelegraph podcast that explores the promises of crypto, blockchain and Web3 and how regular-ass people level up with technology.


Ray: Las Vegas has long been the most famous gambling capital of the world, a place where people from around the world visit for live music and shows, bachelor and bachelorette parties, world-class hotels and food, and, of course, gambling. Casinos have long been portrayed in popular culture as an energetic and sexy place where fortunes can be made, but they have also faced their fair share of criticism for being places people can go to lose their existing fortunes.


Jonathan: In the 21st century, some of the attention places like Vegas have historically received has shifted into the digital world, where sports betting and online casinos have exploded in popularity in recent years, in part due to an increase in streamers gambling on their livestreams and showing off their massive wins. Parallel to traditional online gaming has been the growth of online crypto casinos, where people can gamble their hard-earned cryptocurrency from the comfort of their homes.


Ray: So, how exactly do crypto casinos work? How do they differ from real-world casinos, and how do they navigate the complex laws and ethical considerations that come with running a gambling operation? To find out, we are joined today by Zach Bruch, the founder and CEO of MyPrize, an online crypto casino that recently emerged from stealth and is currently open for early access. Welcome to the podcast, Zach. We're happy to have you today.


Zach: Hey, thanks for having me.


Ray: So let's go ahead and dig into it. Gambling, like outside of the tables, seems to be really solitary. It's more like a single-player experience. And that's what I've observed when I've gone to brick-and-mortar casinos. So, I kind of assumed or imagined that this solitary characteristic is amplified within an online casino. Is that a barrier for an online casino like MyPrize?


Zach: So I actually think if you're looking at brick and mortar and what's happening in the land-based casinos, a lot of casual players and gamblers are actually going with groups, right? They're going with a bachelor party, a bachelorette party, groups of friends, family, uh, what have you. And that's part of the excitement for them. Everyone's getting around the roulette table, everyone's around the craps table, and you're all rooting for an outcome. Even if you're going alone to Vegas or alone to Atlantic City or whoever you might be going. You're around the craps table, you might meet someone across the table, and you build some form of bond with them. That is a multiplayer experience that happens in brick and mortar. So, it is very community-oriented, and you can feel the emotions. You are interacting with the dealer. It's very engaging. If you look at what's happening online that is very solitary, so that you're doing alone, you're sitting alone in your room, you know, clicking a spacebar to pull a slot. And it's very mundane. Fast forward to the past couple of years. You can now watch streamers actually bet, right? You're seeing streamers play slots.


Zach: Slots is one of the largest growing streaming categories in the world today. It's in the top 15 and continuing to grow, but those players are still just playing by themselves; the creators are just playing by themselves and the viewer. The audience, his fans or her fans, are just watching them play. And so what we created at MyPrize is the ability for those fans to actually play with the streamer and feed off that feeling that you actually get when you're in a brick-and-mortar casino. And much like the early days in video games, which was a single-player experience, if you remember back to GoldenEye, you run around by yourself. Fast forward to the 2010s, and you're playing Fortnite as a group. Everything in video games today is all about the multiplayer experience, and we believe with MyPrize and in the gambling space, everything should shift towards a multiplayer experience too because you're seeing that these folks online want to play with their friends; they want to have a more engaging relationship with their favorite content creators, and we're giving them that with our bet together product at MyPrize.


Ray: So why build this thing in the crypto and blockchain space instead of the traditional mobile app space?


Zach: So for a slew of reasons. One, today, as it stands in online casinos, crypto is the on-ramp into online casinos. So, most people don't even recognize this. But some of the largest applications for crypto today are on-ramping into the casino space. So you have all these traditional folks that aren't actually active members of the crypto ecosystem or the crypto ecosystem that we know it, but our active gamers and gamblers in an online casino, and they are buying crypto to go play in these sites. And so, for us, we want to make sure that the flows are very similar to a normal consumer that's already playing in this space. The other thing that's important to us is that our goal at MyPrize is actually to build, you know, a killer application. So, MyPrize is a centralized business. We're an online crypto casino, but over time, we want to develop and create a much larger GambleFi and decentralized ecosystem, where our players can then go and participate and explore an entire ecosystem that was built by incredible developers out there. So we're starting by creating a killer application that will onboard millions of users, and then we'll funnel all those millions of users into a much broader decentralized ecosystem.


Ray: This is a little bit long, right? But it leads to the question. So it's a little bit data-heavy. I looked up some stats on sports gambling and just regular gambling, right? And in sports gambling, Americans wagered a record $119.84 billion on sports betting in 2023. And that's up 27.5% from 2022. That's data from the American Gaming Association's Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker. So then I looked at some other data, and it says that these bets translated into $10.92 billion in revenue in 2023. And that was a 44.5% jump from the previous year. Further data shows that 49% of self-described sports fans had placed a bet at some point in their lives, and this figure continues to grow year over year. Sports betting revenues tipped at $10.92 billion last year, and Goldman Sachs estimates that the industry will eventually reach $45 billion in revenue per year, right? Meanwhile, that's just sports betting. So traditional casinos and gambling apps themselves. In 2023, they turned over $66.5 billion, which is just crazy. So I want to contrast that growth and that user base and that flow, right? And those revenues want to contrast that against what has so far been general disinterest in crypto from the average retail investor.


Ray: When we look at, like, Google Trends data that shows searches for Bitcoin, crypto, and blockchain, they're all pretty flat and near multi-year lows, or they're near their multi-year lows. And in terms of what their range is, right? None of them are reaching peak euphoria. And we know that the demographic data for the average crypto investor shows are like 26 to 35. They have a few thousand dollars invested in crypto, but generally, it's a small client base compared to the size of the traditional gaming industry, right? So, with that said, I'm wondering what are your growth projections for blockchain-based casinos and blockchain-based sportsbooks. And also, do you factor in the crypto markets basically in two-year cyclicality? What sort of reservations do you have regarding the viability of this industry, where every two years, we go into a bear market, and all the money flows out of crypto? What's your take? I know that's a lot of information upfront, but you're a smart guy.


Zach: Big question. We got some big answers, okay. So you talked about a lot of things there. I think one of the most interesting things you touched on is how large the gaming or gambling industry really is. So you talked about some of the online numbers, but what we didn't touch on is actually the brick-and-mortar. So all of gambling, in general, is a $1 trillion-a-year industry. So everything else that you touched on represents less than 10% of that. So gambling really has not had its internet moment. You would think that a much larger piece of gambling would sit online, and it just doesn't. So, more broadly, I feel that the entire gambling industry is going to grow significantly because it can become a lot easier for folks to access it so they can play their favorite games. There's going to be ways in which they can actually go and play with their favorite creators, and now we're giving them activities that they can do with their friends who are all over the world. You're part of a Discord chat; you're part of a Telegram chat. You know, you go on to kick to watch your favorite streamers when that streamer leaves, right? They're not streaming for an hour, or they're not participating in the Discord.


Zach: Those are still your friends, and they're not in the city next to you or the town next to you, and you want an activity to do with them and play with them. And you can now do that with an online casino, like MyPrize, where you can actually go bet together, participate together, engage together. But more broadly, even beyond just MyPrize, I think much more creators and builders and entrepreneurs are going to start building in the gaming space and grow the entire market share of online casino. So you will see not only that trillion dollar-a-year mark grow beyond a trillion, but you'll see that $100 billion that sits online grow significantly as well too. So we'll see a tremendous amounts of growth in the much broader gaming space and gambling space over the next 2 to 5 years. That's first. The second piece of your question is, do I think that gambling is cyclical? I know, of course, in crypto, we have cycles. We see how markets change. But what's happening in crypto to date has always been everything has been based on speculation, right? The biggest product within crypto is speculating on tokens even right now.


Zach: What's the most fun and engaging thing that you can be doing in crypto? Or what's all the hype right now is memecoins. Why? It's because people love to speculate. People are having fun with their friends. They're participating as a group. They're rallying around something, and they're speculating together. That's what a memecoin is. You saw the same exact thing happening with the Wall Street Bets movement when whole groups and subreddits were getting together to put on. The same trade as you're looking at gambling. Gambling has been around since the very first day of human life. People love taking risks. Crypto is the epitome of that. We're seeing it all the time, but every single person loves gambling, loves taking risks and gambling. And casino has product market fit, so it does not matter whether crypto markets are booming or they're pulling back. People want to go and engage and have fun. At the end of day, what we're building at MyPrize is an entertainment company where you can go and engage with your favorite creators, have fun with your friends, and then that is not impacted whether a crypto market is booming or falling.


Ray: Hey, that's beautiful. We just got our soundbite, like our video clip, where people have been gambling since the first day of human life. And what you said after that is our loop right there.


Jonathan: I'm just curious what people would have been gambling on in, like with the Neanderthals. Would they be like, uh, berries and nuts and stuff like that? 


Zach: Oh, that's that's easy. How do you think fire was invented, right? If we rub these two twigs together, can we? Can it spark? People were throwing down rocks on that from the very beginning, but I think. Literally, it is within human nature to feel rush, to feel the excitement, to want to speculate, to feel the euphoria, right? Like all these things, all these feelings are what we are feeling every single day in a crypto market. Like the volatility of crypto is what makes it so emotional and exciting to so many people because you can feel full cycles of emotion in such condensed time periods, everything that we're seeing in today's life is served to us much faster. TikTok is showing how short-form content right content is coming to you in shorter terms. Crypto, as I mentioned, is investments, and speculation is that's condensed gambling and gaming. You're pulling a slot. You're instantly knowing if you're a winner or you're a loser very fast. So humans want the quick responses. And I think that we're going to see in every single category of life, faster responses. And then what we're seeing in markets, even in traditional markets, is a direct response to this human emotion.


Jonathan: It's interesting you mentioned that crypto or online gaming that its still such a tiny percentage compared to brick-and-mortar gambling. So maybe it's because I'm chronically online, but I see like Stake.com everywhere. Seems like every major streamer is promoting Stake.com. So is that just because I'm living in a bubble? Like how big is the economy around that compared with, I don't know, one casino in Las Vegas? Is it just microscopic?


Zach: No, I think they're right up there, I think, and that's what's happening right now. You're seeing the growth of online casino, whereas an online casino can now even eclipse what's happening elsewhere. So you're starting to see the rise of these online casinos. And that's only going to continue to grow. So, the business you mentioned is the largest in the online space today. There are many other players that are going to come into market. Whereas in the traditional world, you know, there's tons of brick and mortars, not just in Vegas but in, you know, so many countries around the world that are doing serious numbers.


Jonathan: Um, so how do you balance… Because one brick-and-mortar casino is in one specific city with the city laws and one county and one state in one country. So it's very easy to build that location around the laws that apply to that city, that state, that country. So, as a website that's an online platform, how do you balance the local laws of each country and regulations? How do you take that into consideration when you're building the platform?


Zach: We take that very seriously. So we not only work very closely, of course, with the general counsel of our firm, but with multiple outside councils and regulatory councils to make sure that everything that we are doing is in line with what's appropriate. So that's something that we are trusting, you know, the top professionals in the category and in some of these regions as well, to make sure what we're doing is in line with what's expected.


Jonathan: So is that what, like, I can notice that, um, maybe it's not MyPrize, but I know a few of these websites have a U.S. version which has different capacities than the international version. Is that where this comes in?


Zach: Yeah. So we actually have two products as well, two in two separate entities. So we have MyPrize US, which serves the U.S. market. And we have MyPrize.com, which serves those folks abroad outside of the U.S. internationally. And anyone sitting in the U.S. cannot participate on MyPrize.com, and on MyPrize US, we run a sweepstakes casino. So it's a bit different. And it's not real money gaming, but the international customers have real money gaming, and it's a really fun and engaging environment in both places.


Jonathan: Gotcha. So I'm super curious about the differences between what happens when you take the concept of a brick-and-mortar casino, which has this whole infrastructure and economy built around it, and you bring it into the online world. So, how does security work for an online casino? Is it possible to, like, count cards like you could at an — obviously don't give any tips for people to cheat — but like, is that something you're keeping an eye out for at online casinos? Do you have people like watching for people that might be counting cards? Or is the fact that it's everything is hard-coded into programs? Does that make the security element shift from maybe watching individual players to watching out for holes and bugs that could be exploited in the programming? Like, how does that all work?


Zach: Yeah. So online casino is actually very similar to online exchanges and online crypto exchanges. It's one of the reasons why we felt very comfortable building in this space. So, in the past, our team has built some of the largest crypto exchanges. And we felt there was, you know, a tremendous amount of similarities. Right? You're building user accounts, you're thinking about AML, KYC, fraud, chargeback risk, asset security, all those different types of things. And all of that comes into play for an online casino as well, right? You have to make sure the user accounts are secure. You have to make sure that people aren't charging back losses to make sure there's no fraud or money laundering on your platform. All of these things are very important. On top of that, when it comes to the actual games themselves, how do you make sure folks aren't cheating? Right? That's another thing that you're asking. And so we work with multiple third parties as well as game providers. And these are multibillion-dollar businesses that are providing the gaming software to not just our casino but to all the largest online casinos out there. We're all using the same game providers. And so there's a lot of rigor that goes into those games and making sure that they are secure as well as we have our own systems to monitor various types of activity that we might be noticing on the platform at the end of the day as the operator. So when you're running the casino, that's called an operator in the industry. As an operator, you're warehousing the risk, right? So, the loser, in this case, is not going to be some other player. It's us. It's our business. So not only are we, you know, handling security and trying to mitigate cheating for all sorts of other reasons, we're trying to mitigate that risk because we're also trying to protect ourselves because, ultimately, we sit on the other side of every single trade that happens on the platform.


Jonathan: And yeah, that makes sense. The other sort of question I have in that regard is I've heard some crazy stories, and who knows how true these are, of people who go to brick-and-mortar casinos and gamble millions and millions of dollars, like very wealthy people or well-known gamblers. And how there sort of exists this like VIP tier where if you're gambling $1 million a weekend in Vegas, they'll put you up in the fanciest hotel possible, they'll comp all your meals, they'll fly you there on a private flight. Because ultimately, they know that at some point, they're going to make more money off of you than they're spending on to entice you to come gamble at their casino. So you don't have to give away the secrets of your specific platform, if there are any. But does this exist in the online world as well? Are there like VIPs?


Zach: I think it exists in everything, right? So, like, what you're talking about is a great customer, right? Someone that's coming in Beijing loves your product, is showing up every day. I mean, you're mentioning someone that's spending a lot of dollars, but our view and MyPrize is we want to reward all of our users that are coming every day and having fun. Whether you're coming and participating with a few pennies or you're betting in a big way. And so, a lot of other online businesses and online casinos want to reward players in the same way. So yeah, if you have great customers, are you willing to give them incredible rewards or take them to great experiences? Absolutely right. And so I think with a casino, whether it's sports betting, whether it's casino products like slots or blackjack or baccarat, or whether it might be a poker product, at the end of the day, casinos are very transparent. You know exactly what the odds are of every single game that you're playing, and you're really there to have fun and have a really great experience. So anything that you can be doing or anything we can be doing at MyPrize to enhance that experience for certain players, we want to be doing it.


Zach: So if there was a way that we can make the slot experience, you know, 100x better, we want to do it. If there's a way that we can get a whole room of, you know, the best creator and their entire audience at a fun experience, we want to do it. And so everything that you're touching on is you could of course, forget it. You know, one type of way, oh, they want to keep you in the casino in the traditional world, sure. But the way we see it is, at the end of the day, everyone knows they're there to have a really great time. And we want to make sure that you're having the best time possible because when you're coming to MyPrize, you're having fun. It is where you can actually have the most engaging experience with your favorite creators and those communities. And we want to create memories. And that is, that's what's important to us because, at the end of the day, you as a player are going to want to go and engage where you can look back and recognize that you had the best time and the best time with all your friends.


Ray: All right, so speaking of experience or the customer experience, what is the onboarding process like for MyPrize? Do I need to, or does someone who's interested need to, like, go download an OKEx wallet or a MetaMask wallet and then figure out how to get Ethereum on here? Is this thing on Arbitrum? Is it on Optimism? Is it on Base? Is it on Solana? Do I now need to like to make a Coinbase account? Figure out how to get some crypto, which means like connecting my bank account. What if my bank is anti-crypto and it's not that easy for me to do the debit card thing? P2P is not really around anymore. You know, what I'm doing is kind of outlining the difficulty and lots of the turnoffs that make people kind of like, I don't know about this crypto stuff or any crypto app. So, you know, what's the onboarding experience and process like for a potential MyPrize user?


Zach: Well, all the users, all the listeners of the podcast can go on to MyPrize.com if they're outside of the U.S. and check it out, and MyPrize US if they want to see for themselves if they are in the U.S. But it's super easy. Very simple. Every single thing that you mentioned, right is high friction. And that's exactly what we want to remove. So when you go on to MyPrize, MyPrize.com MyPrize US, you can log in. You can use a Gmail account right away. Connect with Google and you're in right away. And we make the experience super seamless for you to get going and get started. So you can play right off the bat and then move from there. Everything that we're doing, we feel that, more broadly, a lot of the apps within crypto are filled with friction, and if we want to onboard the masses, we have to keep removing the friction and making the user experience significantly smoother and much more similar to a Web2 experience that you might find elsewhere. So that's what we're creating at MyPrize. And I think the other great applications that have done a good job at that is crypto exchanges as an example, right? It's very easy to onboard a crypto exchange today, no matter who you are. And coincidentally, that's now one of the first applications that a normal or mass user will actually use. They'll create a Coinbase account. That might be the first crypto thing someone might do.


Ray: Yeah, yeah. So, tell me more about the creator aspect of the platform. I read somewhere something about players and creators being able to make their own rooms and their own games.


Zach: Yeah. So one of the things that was really interesting to us, as we were looking more broadly at the creator economy, was that you have all these incredibly talented creators, right? So many great creators out there that aren't actually able to monetize or capitalize on their content. Right? They might be creating YouTube videos, or maybe they're a TikToker, and you could be a long tail TikToker, and you're really not able to make a living. So what we wanted to create was the ability for every single creator to effectively be able to start their own small business and be able to host their own rooms where they can bring in their communities, play with their communities so they can play games with their communities, and they can also enjoy a piece of the house because it's really as if it's their business and they're a part of their business. So you might go on to modernize com, Backslash creator XYZ, and you're actually playing with them. So that creator will be streaming. They'll be playing slots; they might be playing blackjack. Their entire community can be participating in playing with them, they can engage with them. And a lot of these creators are already doing that, right? They're already streaming slots. They're already streaming blackjack, but their audience cannot play with them, and they aren't monetizing it. It's just content that they're creating. And so what we've enabled is the ability for every single creator to now have their own small business where they're hosting these rooms, they're bringing in their communities, they're having fun, they're engaging, and of course, we're giving them the opportunity to create a ton of memorable content as well with their fans.


Ray: What is GambleFi, and do you think it will become a thing? I was watching an interview with you on Arrington the other day, their podcast and the host asked. She mentioned GambleFi and said that she'd been at a conference and used the term, and everybody laughed at her; it's not DeFi, it's not BitcoinFi, it's not NFTFi. It's, you know, GambleFi. It sounds like jumbo shrimp, doesn't it? Like it doesn't make sense. Gambling finance. What is that? So, is that a valid term? Can you tell me what it is, and do you think it'll become a thing?


Zach: I think when we're talking about GambleFi, people are talking about it in the sense of decentralization. Right. So, decentralized gambling. So MyPrize, a centralized business, over time will create decentralized rails and a decentralized ecosystem. But there will also be a much broader GambleFi ecosystem. And that's going to be an entire ecosystem where developers are creating DApps, where users can come and play and gamble and speculate in a decentralized way. And so why I think GambleFi actually has huge potential, and why I'm excited about what we're doing at MyPrize is, and I touched on this earlier, is that we're actually building a killer application, right? We're building an online casino that has product market fit, the casino has product market fit, and it has for thousands of years for a lot of other applications on crypto. These are new and novel ideas that people are testing out. The product market fit is not necessarily there. So gambling has product market fit. So, if you do a good job, you can onboard millions of users, which means you're creating and bringing in liquidity of users that you can then push into a much broader ecosystem.


Zach: So you take a business like MyPrize and a group like MyPrize, that then helps build out a much larger GambleFi ecosystem. They actually we can push our users, our liquidity of users, to developers that are building great DApps on top of crypto rails and actually push our users into a. Decentralized crypto ecosystem. From there, what can be built, of course, is decentralized games. Right? So decentralized casino games, but also just speculative other DApp or DEXs, whatever you might imagine that might already today, in other decentralized ecosystems, the same things can sit in what I'm calling GambleFi ecosystems. But I think what it's more about is that you're bringing these users that are actually onboarded into the ecosystem with the notion that they want to gamble. These are speculators. These are people that came into the industry to gamble. So they are a great user to then go and participate in some of these DApps that are all about speculation and things of that nature.


Ray: That makes perfect sense. So, is there any vision for a metaverse being developed around an online casino since people are already there together? And I'm imagining that it's like a chat room, like when I watch some of these guys. Uh, I forgot his name. There's a famous guy. He got in trouble in New York for inciting that riot where he said he was going to give away PlayStations and then, like, a thousand guys. 


Zach: Kai Cenat.


Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So whenever I see his stream, it's like him and some guys and then everybody else is commenting just like text, like old school chat, you know, that sort of thing. But I'm wondering if there's any vision for a metaverse being developed where people are actually in there with their NFT or their little SimCity character? And would an online casino have perks like a real casino where I could go see Britney Spears or Bruno Mars or someone like that? Do you foresee outside businesses and future business partners coming into this online casino space in the same way that they operate in the physical casino space?


Zach: I find that the word metaverse, you know, very interesting, right? Like, what does that actually mean? Are we in the metaverse right now? We're talking on Riverside. I'm looking at you and Jonathan. We're communicating. We're having a full conversation. Arguably, this is the metaverse. When you're on a Peloton, and you're working out with people from all over the world, and you're following a trainer who's streaming from New York, you know, is that the metaverse? So what you're describing is, you know, like a 3D-type world, maybe where you're going in with a headset and pulling a slot machine. I think a lot less about that. And the way that I'm viewing the online experience for our folks is really all about community. And really community has driven everything from the history of the internet. Even if you look back to the 1990s, people are on internet bulletin boards sharing thoughts, right? Then it went to AOL chat rooms, and you're speaking to people you know, constantly on AIM and things like that, to Reddit, which is indexed communities where you can really find a very niche community you want to participate in, in Discord and so on. And so when you think about these different types of things, the next evolution of these online communities is really doing activities.


Zach: And I touched on it earlier. The whole Wall Street Bets movement, that entire community was really speculating and trading together, putting on positions together, um, as a group. So when we're thinking about it at MyPrize is sort of a lot of things that you touched on. You can be online; you're watching your favorite streamer. It's actually parasocial, meaning you're actually engaging; you're talking to your favorite streamer, they're engaging with you. You're putting on the bet with them. You're cheering on your friends in the chat. You're typing to each other. You can also be communicating with each other, you know, are you seeing Bruno Mars or Britney Spears? Maybe because they have a residency at the online casino where they're doing live shows, and you can be playing slots with them as well, or you're seeing a comedian, but maybe it's not even a comedian. Maybe it's your favorite makeup influencer that you know she's waking up in the morning. She's showing you how she's doing her morning routine, but you can also be playing slots alongside her or be playing another type of engaging game alongside her, which is not only fun and engaging but it's also a revenue source for the content creator and also an opportunity to start your day off with a win if you're the player.


Zach: And so all these things become possible when you start bringing community into an environment where not only can they play games together, they can play games with their favorite content creators, so they always want who they already want to follow, but also that content creator can communicate with them. So you're breaking that additional barrier and that everyone's really in the room together. And so that's what's so exciting for us, is that we are now reaching a point in the world where this added layer of parasocial, where you can actually interact directly with the content creator, is becoming more viable and becoming more popular. It's why Twitch and Kik are such popular sites today and why TikTok Live is so popular today. Because people want to have that live engagement. In the past, you were watching passively, right? You're watching and following someone on Instagram passively. Now, all the fun and excitement is in active engagement. That's why you want to engage on Twitter. It's why you want to engage with the craziness of the world, as you mentioned on Kik.


Jonathan: Speaking of creators, I'm curious about your thoughts on some of the, um, maybe, ethical or financial implications of working with influencers. I've seen some critique of, I don't even remember what the name of the platform or the streamer is, so I won't, I won't even, I can't even name any names, but like, uh, people critiquing some of these. Influencers that go on streams to promote certain gambling products that they seem to always win when they're on stream, and then they're never in the red. I saw a video of one person who ran out of money, messaged somebody on their phone, and then a few minutes later, their wallet was magically refilled. So yeah, I guess I'm just curious: What if there are any ethical considerations in your mind when it comes to working with people to promote gambling products? That would be like a best practice so that these communities are trying to build with creators, come into it with the full understanding of the odds and what they're getting themselves into.


Zach: Yeah. So something that you're touching on right now is why I think the online gambling space has not grown so significantly yet. You know, it's huge, but it still hasn't grown the way it should. And that's because there's a gigantic stigma on top of it. Right? We're acting like online gambling is so bad. But really, what you're creating is a fun and engaging environment for so many people. Or you can, if you're doing it in an ethical and appropriate way. And at MyPrize, that's what we're trying to do. You know, your bet sizes can be pennies, right? It's cheaper to participate and play with your friends on MyPrize than it is to go see a movie or to go and eat at Chipotle, right? And so I think that there are really responsible ways to do it. But everything that you're talking about is this heavy stigma that sits on top of it. And that same stigma existed in crypto back in 2010 when I first started getting involved in this space. In 2013, 2015, 2017, all those years, I remember introducing myself to, you know, ex-girlfriend's parents, and I'd say, hey, I'm in Bitcoin, or I work at Kraken, and they're like, oh shit, you're dating a drug dealer, right? That's what everyone thought anybody touching crypto was doing back then, right? There's a heavy stigma on top of all of these things. And so I think that one of the things that we as an entire community need to change, and I'm talking about the gaming community, is really helping fight the stigma, do things appropriately, make sure that we're doing things in a fun and engaging way, but in an appropriate way.


Zach: Make sure we're watching age limits, and you're not marketing to underage folks, making sure that the way in which you're behaving is right, and just because certain things might be illegal doesn't mean it's right. So I think that behaving in an ethical way is very important. But what's also important is to recognize that there are a lot of old stigmas that sit on many industries today, and we're starting to see a shift. And I think that shift is one of those things that's going to lead to such growth. Earlier in the call, we talked about immense growth in the sports betting space. And that shift has happened because the stigma around sports betting has been pulled back significantly. So, now sports betting is becoming way more accepted. It's not, you know, taboo to say I'm going to go put money on this game. You can say that at the dinner table with your family and your friends. But 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years might not have been the same case. Today you can say, you know, OnlyFans in bio or whatever on TikTok or on Instagram. That's no problem. Today, I could say I work in crypto, and my girlfriend's parents love it, right? So you see how things have shifted over time.


Zach: And I think we're going to see the same exact thing happen in the gaming space. We saw crypto go to Web3; we saw weed become cannabis. You know, gambling is gaming. The stigma is going to disappear. And I think that it will be okay for creators to find a way to make a living for the great content they're creating and also provide an opportunity for their fans to transparently know they might lose. Because it is a casino game and is very transparent, you might lose, but you also can win. And that's fun, and that's exciting. And it's unlike crypto. It's unlike selling an NFT. It's unlike promoting a coin in which you're hoping that there's just one outcome in a casino game. You know, it's win or lose. It's in-your-face; it's very transparent. And I think that one of the very special things about the casino industry is the transparency within it. Every single person who has ever asked about casinos knows what the odds are of the game and that the edge sits in the hand of the house. You know, it's very transparent. And I think that with that transparency is very valuable and it's very good for the end-consumer. So they are aware, and they know what's happening. And then, over time, the stigma will dissipate, and gaming will continue to flourish and grow.


Jonathan: So I'm curious, as a CEO of a crypto gambling website company, what are some of the things that you do to build in this culture of mistrust, to build trust that people can go on to your website and know that the obviously the odds are not necessarily in their favor, but that they're not so not in their favor that they're being scammed or manipulated. Like my mind goes to, I go on to a crypto, random crypto website where I can put Bitcoin in, and it's going to have the chance of doubling it. I'm going to assume that I'm probably going to lose everything because it's a scam site. Yeah. So like, how do you build this trust with communities that you've been talking about?


Zach: Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things. One, we’re fully doxed, right? You know exactly who we are. Um, we're real people, too. We have real investors. We have real institutional investors that are behind us. And you know that the capital, um, is there. And three, we're working with some of the largest gaming providers and iGaming providers in the world, and these are the same folks that are providing the games for all the largest casinos that exist today. Again, these are billion-dollar, multibillion-dollar businesses. So people can feel very comfortable when they're coming to participate and see these are the odds of winning a blackjack hand. These are the odds of owning a slot. And I think most people on our platform are going to be coming because they want to have a fun and engaging experience with their friends. And sure, they might win an outsized amount of capital, right? It could be a great experience from that perspective. But if not, they had a great time with their friends. And so for us, one of the things that we are trying to do and really look into is try to see what is the minimum bet size that we can have, right? Like what is the smallest amount of bets that we can allow?


Zach: And in a slot, as an example, a slot might pull throughout an hour 300 to 500 times. So, if you're betting a penny, that would be $3 to $5 in an hour, and you could win more than that. But that's the most you could hypothetically lose. And so I think once you start thinking like that, it's not that expensive of an activity. And so we started thinking, how can we create the most engaging experience for someone to do with their friends? And in an environment today where things are so expensive, no matter where you are, we are not only giving you the opportunity to potentially win something right, but you actually can win a lot of money. But in the case that you lose, you can lose an amount that is significantly less than going to a movie and buying popcorn and a soda. And you only saw an hour and a half of Tom Cruise scaling some building. But hey, if you want to do that, do that too. And it's all good. There are different types of entertainment, and our goal is really to create a fun and engaging environment for the creators and their communities.


Jonathan: Is there a beef between the brick-and-mortar casinos and the online casinos? Do they dislike that online gambling could be taking money away from brick-and-mortar gambling?


Zach: I don't think they're fully seeing it just yet, but I think they're starting to see how fast online casinos and gambling are growing and want to find ways to participate. And some of them are. But also everything that, you know, even I've said online is I'm trying to create, we're trying to create a really engaging experience, and that's an online experience. But brick-and-mortar casino is still one of the most engaging, fun physical experiences as well, right? Like it has a fun activity to do in the physical world. But online casino is a very fun activity to do in the digital world. So just because there is competition and I'm sure online casino is going to, of course eat into the market share of brick and mortar, it doesn't mean that there isn't still a place for brick and mortar.


Ray: Yeah, that makes sense. The way that technology's going, for sure. You're so passionate about this. Me and Jonathan and all the listeners can pick up on how passionate you are about this. So, what catalyzed this pivot into online crypto-based gambling for you? Because you know your bio, it's not boring. But what you used to do looked a little bit kind of dry at the Kraken building, like the order book infrastructure. And then, previous to that, I know you did an NFT kind of platform that could onboard traditional businesses and creators into NFTs, and that's really exciting. And NFTs kind of went in a different direction than most people thought. But, you know, what catalyzed you to go from dealing with numbers and code and possibly wearing a suit to now doing this thing, which sounds a lot more exciting and fringe?


Zach: In my entire career, no one's ever told me that being one of the first crypto traders is, uh, you know, suit and tie and, uh, and boring. But you love to see it in 2024, in crypto. When I started exploring the online casino space, I recognized that it had a lot of similarities to the early days of crypto exchanges and crypto trading. And I touched on this a bit earlier. But there are a lot of similarities in building the infrastructure because you need to do a lot of those similar things from the user accounts and things like that. And actually, as you're thinking about the games, you, as the casino, as I mentioned earlier, are warehousing the risk. So, there's a lot of risk management involved in running a casino as well. So, the skill set matched very well. And myself and the team that I'm working with to build this business we've all worked with each other for many years, building numerous consumer applications together. And our last business, a lot of us work together and at various businesses before that. And so there's a lot of crossover there. The other thing that's very exciting to me is that one of the things that personally drives me is onboarding as many people as possible into crypto. And so, as I look at the broader crypto space, I think that the best way to onboard people into the ecosystem is to bring them into applications that are easy for them to use, and oftentimes, it's a centralized business.


Zach: And so when I thought about gambling, I thought that this really is an industry and a market that has a clear product market fit that people want. They want to participate. If we can onboard millions of people onto MyPrize, then MyPrize has a very special opportunity to push millions of people into a much broader crypto ecosystem. And that was one of the really large things that were driving me and has driven me throughout my entire career, whether it was at, you know, working at a business like Kraken, your DRW, your Cumberland or building Recur, which onboarded hundreds of thousands of folks into the broader crypto markets. It's what drives me here as well to how can we bring millions of people into the crypto space, expose them to crypto? And I felt gambling was a great medium to do so. And then on top of that, of course, the excitement around the creator economy, where I felt creators were really just weren't, you know, capturing their fair share. And I think that it's true to the crypto ethos. There is a way in which they can be earning a lot more and really have skin in the game and be part of that, and bringing those folks into a crypto ecosystem is also immensely valuable. So, I really wanted to be part of that and build a very compelling application. And we put together an absolutely incredible team, myself and my co-founders, at MyPrize to really go out and tackle this market. And so we're very excited to be launching in the next few weeks and to show everyone what we've been working on.


Ray: Sweet. So what's that look like in the next few weeks when the launch happens? How do we know? Are there incentives right now? I know people can. Up till today, they've been able to log in place, or they like paper bets or real bets, and they earn XP. Do things carry on the same after launch, or do certain elements of that process fall away?


Zach: Right now, we have a pre-launch period where you're able to actually go and earn XP. This is almost like earning points on your loyalty or player loyalty card. And then, once the casino goes live in the coming weeks, you're going to be able to play your favorite slot games, your favorite blackjack games, roulette, all sorts of games. Of course, you'll continue to be able to earn some XP throughout that, but you also, if you're at MyPrize.com, you'll be able to earn real money and actually just participate like a normal casino. So, the full casino experience opens up to the public. You'll be able to bet with your favorite creators. So, actually, creators will be streaming on the platform. They'll be playing games, and you can hop right in and play with them. So we'll see, as an industry for the first time, a very fun and engaging experience where casino is no longer a single-player experience. It is truly multiplayer, community-driven, and I think you can see my excitement like, I really can't wait.


Ray: Yeah, yeah. So, I guess. I'm looking forward to the commercial during the NBA Finals. It's a few weeks from now, with Kevin Garnett, Jamie Foxx, and Kevin Hart, where they're placing their bets on MyPrize, and you guys are sponsoring a commercial during the NBA finals. That's going to be exciting.


Zach: You won't even need a sponsor commercial. They'll, you know, they can create their own rooms by themselves and then start earning right then and there. And that is the beauty of MyPrize. It really enables creators and folks like the Kevin Harts of the world to get out there and create their own small businesses and really capture a lot of the value. So we're excited about that.


Ray: Yeah, it is exciting. You've convinced me that a market that I assumed might have been oversaturated or not, like, successful in trying to compete against a behemoth, which is traditional casinos and whatnot. You've convinced me that there's still actually a lot of untapped growth and that we should see this industry take off and grow even further. So that is exciting.


Jonathan: So the traditional brick and mortar gambling and casino, like I was saying earlier, has an entire sort of infrastructure built around it from the restaurants, the live music shows, the people that come and bring you drinks, the hotels, everything. So do you see in the future sort of a similar infrastructure being built around online gaming and online gambling, like might a MyPrize partner with an alcohol delivery service, I don't know, so that if you're if you spend a certain amount of time on the website, then you get sent a bottle of, uh, something exciting or a mixed drink through some delivery service or like tickets to, would there be a music infrastructure that's built up around online gaming? Like, is the future of online gaming one that sort of mimics as much as it can traditional brick-and-mortar gaming? Or is it something that's completely different and maybe we can't even conceive of yet?


Zach: I think it's somewhat of a combination. So you look at what's happening in the brick-and-mortar world as an influence, right? So everything that they're doing is showing you what people love, right? Because they're providing you entertainment, experience, memories, as I touched on. And so a lot of these things you want to try to recreate, at the same time, there are different things and different ways to create those experiences online. So, you know, at a casino, there might be a concert or a show that's really exciting. At MyPrize, you have your favorite creator that's literally streaming there that you can talk to, right? You're engaging with. And when we're thinking about that streamer today, we. We're thinking about an online slot streamer, but we're not too far away from the Chris Rocks of the world or the Kevin Harts of the world, very famous comedians realize, wait a second, I can do an hour-long set on MyPrize. And everyone in the audience, the thousands of people, can tune in and be playing blackjack or slots while they're watching me, or you're not too far away from you guys. Instead of saying, you know what? Why don't we do a live podcast? Let's just do it on MyPrize.


Zach: And the entire audience can be, you know, speculating together or doing a blackjack together. And it's fun, and you're creating new content. And so that's engaging. And then I think you touched on some of the rewards. Would it be cool if, all of a sudden, you could be sending DoorDash to your users? Absolutely. You know, would it be cool if you were sending them on trips or bringing them to actually go to live experiences with the influencers, and you're hosting them in a studio to create different types of experiences? Of course. But I think one, you're actually creating a business in an online environment. Your breadth of what you're able to do is just different than that of what sits in a brick and mortar. So you actually are able to do a lot of other engaging and fun things online. So we plan to tap into a lot of that as well. And I think that over time, the industry will develop, and you'll see, you know, some similarities to what was going on in the brick and mortar space, all sorts of other ways of innovative things that you can be doing because you're actually online.


Jonathan: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Take the best of both worlds. Take what's exciting about the brick and mortars. Leave behind what sucks. Take what's exciting about online streaming and incorporate that in. Yeah, that makes complete sense to me. Well, thank you, Zach; this has been a pleasure. It's been a very interesting conversation. I say this at the end of most podcasts, I guess, but I definitely learned a lot, which I think is a sign of a good podcast and the sign of a good show. So if you're listening and you haven't listened to our other podcasts, go back, because that's the whole kind of idea of these podcasts is that we learn as much as we can about something that is in the crypto world, that is actually having a real-world impact in the real world as well. It's not just vaporware. There are actual users and people being onboarded into crypto. So I'm gonna have to, I guess, check out MyPrize.us. I am based in New York, so I'll do the fake money or however it exactly works. I guess I'll find out when it launches. But if you are in the other parts of the world, it's MyPrize.com, correct, where people can go to learn more about this project? 


Zach: That's correct. 


Jonathan: And where can people follow you if they like the way you talk and, like your thoughts, and want to hear more?


Zach: Yeah. You can follow me at @ZachBruch on Twitter. You can follow us at @myprizecom and @myprizeus. And of course, go on to MyPrize.com or MyPrize US to come play and have fun. 


Jonathan: Wonderful.


Ray: All right. Thanks, Zach. That was a great conversation.


Zach: That was fun, guys. Thanks for having me.


Ray: The Agenda is hosted and produced by me, Ray Salmond.


Jonathan: And by me, Jonathan DeYoung. You can listen and subscribe to The Agenda at Cointelegraph.com/podcasts or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever else podcasts are found.


Ray: If you enjoyed what you heard. Rate us and leave a review. You can find me on Twitter at @HorusHughes.


Jonathan: And I'm on Twitter, Instagram, and just about everywhere else at @maddopemadic.


Ray: Be sure to follow Cointelegraph on Twitter and Instagram at @Cointelegraph.


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