Bitcoin Forum

Five years is an eternity in crypto. Since Cloudbet (https://cbet.ly/2QmZPy2) first launched, the landscape has changed countless times. One thing has been constant though, the community.

We’d like you to join us on a trip down memory lane as we look back on the birth of Cloudbet, the rise of Bitcoin, and how the bitcointalk community has helped us grow from humble roots to a major player in the bitcoin betting world.

In October 2013, five years after the whitepaper that revealed it to the world, Bitcoin was still in uncharted territory. It was a time of pioneers. A small but vibrant community of believers had worked tirelessly to lay the grounds for a completely new ecosystem, while the outside world seemed utterly oblivious.

Few people had even heard about Bitcoin, let alone accepted it as payment. For most, it was just too risky. But where others saw risk, we saw opportunity. Where others saw a silly internet money, we saw the future. Because from the start we knew that, more than money, this was a revolution in trust.

Gambling presented the perfect use case for Bitcoin, and we recognised it straight away. And so, five years ago, in October 2013, Cloudbet launched the first Bitcoin-native professional betting platform. Our vision was to create a complete gaming experience for our players, while also being the easiest way to bet with Bitcoin - and those are still our goals in everything we build.

Now we are turning five, which in crypto time is the equivalent to an entire geological age. And we know that we couldn’t ever have got here alone. We are grateful to our loyal players, who have trusted us in this journey. Thank you for believing in us. We promise to live up to this trust in every step of the way.




October 2013 - Cloudbet is born

Cloudbet took its first ever wager in October 2013; 0.12 BTC (worth just $24 at that time) was placed on Korea’s K-League (soccer) - it won! We’d like to thank that first player for trusting Cloudbet; there have been over 6.5 million wagers in our sportsbook (https://cbet.ly/2JoLzSB) since, including plenty more winners, who we’ve happily paid out in bitcoin, contributing to the amazing growth of Satoshi Nakamoto’s dream.

https://i.imgur.com/i6LMyYk.png

When Cloudbet was launched back in October 2013 it was the first major site that enabled users to bet on sports with bitcoin. Our mission was to address the shortcomings of fiat bookmakers by leveraging the power of bitcoin in an intuitive platform - we wanted (and still strive) to provide ‘the easiest way to bet with bitcoin.’

At that time BTC was trading at just $200 and awareness of crypto’s huge potential was limited to early adopters. Understanding the grassroots nature of Bitcoin (Cloudbet’s founder was inspired by Satoshi’s white paper to build a payment engine) there was unanimous agreement among the small startup team that the only way to gain meaningful traction and feedback on the product was to announce Cloudbet in Bitcoin’s most active community - bitcointalk.org.

So on the morning of November 13th, 2013 - with some trepidation - Cloudbet posted its meta thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333552.0) on Bitcointalk and immediately began to receive friendly but cautious responses, which is perhaps representative of the community at large. Ideas are welcomed but trust must be earned, and Cloudbet set about gaining that with a thread that has now spanned 266 pages and over 5000 posts.

November 2013 - Adjusting our limits

With a background in professional betting the Cloudbet team understood the importance of offering meaningful betting limits - mainstream fiat bookmakers routinely limit or even close the accounts of successful bettors - which is why from the start, maximum bets were set at 50 BTC, but back in those days with the price fluctuating so much, minimum limits were pricing out smaller players.

https://i.imgur.com/C7OtC51.png

Knowing that to succeed we had to offer what people wanted we took on board the feedback adjusting the minimum bet limits down to 0.001 BTC for most events. That is still the case today but we have retained our exceptionally high maximum limits, as demonstrated at the 2018 World Cup where we were accepting 100 BTC bets on the final. The same is true of our casino where you can play table games for up 5BTC a hand. We want to keep pushing the boundaries and making the case for crypto over fiat.

https://i.imgur.com/pL5353M.png


November 2013 - Instant Withdrawals

As a crypto sportsbook and casino Cloudbet is entirely free of third-party payment providers, and the inevitable processing delays they incur, so from the outset we wanted to fully leverage the benefits of decentralised transactions. Just a few months after launching Cloudbet had automated the majority of withdrawals, and since then 90% of withdrawals have been processed instantly. We do still process larger amounts manually, which as Bitcointalk members rightfully point out, is frustrating, but our commitment to responsible gambling means that we have to make sure that, on occasion, we need to verify some player’s activity.

https://i.imgur.com/8ra21JZ.png


January 2014 - Rewarding our earliest players

Having focused on the critical aspects of our service, such as the limits, markets and payment processing, Cloudbet started to earn a loyal customer base. In order to reward those early adopters and attract a wider audience, Cloudbet introduced a 100% first deposit bonus - up to 5BTC - which was retroactively applied to existing customers.

https://i.imgur.com/TLwNsTH.png

The Welcome Bonus was intended to be a short-lived promotion, but is still available to this day, though active players can expect a wider range of ongoing incentives across sportsbook and casino.


February 2014 - Cloudbet Live Casino launch

Though our original idea was to be the home of bitcoin sports betting, it soon became clear that our users wanted other ways to play. So with the launch of our live casino (https://cbet.ly/2ziKc2W), we made sure that our users could play with live dealers, just like you would in real life.

Each month we add more games to our casino. And as our range of online slots grows, the number of winners also increases.  Our casino has seen a number of successful players (the most impressive of which was the record 160 BTC ‘Troll Hunters’ winner!) to players learning the ropes in the free to play area, our casino welcomes everyone.


May 2014 - Trust & Security

As much as we recognised the importance of gaining trust we also realised that we had to demonstrate that funds held by Cloudbet were secure, so the decision was made that Cloudbet would go to market offering cold storage as standard. In short we keep all funds offline - except for those required to honour withdrawals - where they are impossible for hackers to reach. And we've done that since day one.

Though Cold Storage was a good start, it was clear from community feedback that there was more we could do. So in May 2014 we introduced two-factor authentication (2FA). Widely available thanks to the Google Authenticator app, it gives users a second level of authentication, to help keep your Cloudbet account secure.

https://i.imgur.com/lRNeYad.png

Security has remained a fundamental aspect of our service, and as recently as June of 2018 we took further measures to make accounts even more secure, adding SMS Verification. By registering your phone number to your account you get a further layer of security.


July 2014 - Live betting for the World Cup

Though we are a bitcoin sportsbook rather than simply a sportsbook offering bitcoin, we appreciate that without an excellent betting product the advantages of crypto are meaningless. The biggest development in betting over the last decade has been live betting, so from the very beginning Cloudbet was focused on being able to offer a wide a choice of live markets as possible - something that sets aside from other crypto operators. This began at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and has grown every year since.

As well as listening via communities like Bitcointalk we regularly survey our customers, and we consistently hear ‘we love your live betting options’ but equally ‘we want more’. We are listening, and are continually expanding live markets.


January 2017 - The First Steps For Localisation

Though bitcoin has proven itself to be a global currency, we knew that as long as our site was only available in English, we wouldn’t be offering the best experience possible. That’s why in January 2017, we rolled out Korean and Indonesian translations for our site. This was followed by Turkish, Chinese and Russian. In our quest to bring bitcoin gambling to as wide an audience as possible, we’ll be looking to add even more in the coming months.


April 2018 - Bitcoin Cash & Fork Funds

The world of cryptocurrency gambling is almost unrecognisable from when we first announced the site to the bitcoin community, and these positive changes allow us to bring new features faster than ever. It’s why we introduced Bitcoin Cash as the first altcoin to our site in April 2018 - announcing exclusively on Bitcointalk - not in preference to Bitcoin, but because we want to provide customers with more choice. We don’t simply convert Bitcoin Cash deposits into bitcoin either, that would mean added costs for our users. Players can deposit, bet and withdraw Bitcoin Cash in just the same way as bitcoin.

Introducing a new currency might be enough for most sportsbooks. But not us. As another way of giving something back to our players, in the same month as we launched BCH as a currency on Cloudbet, we honoured the Bitcoin Cash fork. Every player who had bitcoin funds in their Cloudbet account at the time of the fork was granted corresponding Bitcoin Cash to match their bitcoin balance. If you were playing with us at that time, check your account, you might still have some of your windfall! Adding Bitcoin Cash has proven to be a popular choice, with over 11,000 BCH paid out as winnings in our sportsbook since it launched, and players still place huge amounts of bets daily.


May 2018 - More than just a bitcoin betting site

Cloudbet has come a long way over the last five years, but because our business is predicated on cryptocurrency, our progress is also a testament to bitcoin’s resilience (both big and little ‘b’). In order to talk about Cloudbet’s intrinsic connection to the wider Bitcoin movement we created our blog in May of 2018; it is also the means to tell this story. We have great plans for the blog, not just as advocacy for the power of cryptocurrency, but as a comprehensive guide to sports betting and casino games as well as the place to learn the basic bet types all the way up to the intricacies of progressive betting strategies.


Now: Learning from our mistakes

We haven’t always got it right. There are things the community have rightly held us to task about. We know that sometimes withdrawals can be delayed and that support hasn’t always been up to scratch. But we’re investing heavily into our customer service team, even opening another dedicated office to make sure we’re able to respond to queries as fast as possible, no matter what timezone you’re in. It’s our number one priority.

Thanks to the early improvements and the feedback from the community from our early adopters we saw incredibly rapid growth in the number of our users. It was an incredibly exciting time for us, despite bitcoin having a troubled year, we saw more players than ever before. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. We weren’t able to respond to our customer’s queries as quickly as we’d liked. And there’s a good chance that some were frustrated by that. Even though we couldn’t sort the situation out as quickly as possible, it was a reminder that we had to invest in the right places.


The Future: To the moon

We’ve used this line a lot in 2018 but it still holds true, five years is an eternity in crypto so it is hard to know for sure what the future will hold, but we firmly believe crypto will go from strength-to-strength. Because of that, we’ll be looking to add more coins, revamp our website, and improve the experience for all players, but above everything else listen to what the community wants and move forward and grow along with the burgeoning crypto industry.


Still with us after that wall of text? Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about how the community has shaped our growth!

You can join in the birthday celebrations in our Bitcoin Meme Creation Contest (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059255) in 'games and rounds', where there's a 0.75BTC pot up for grabs! 


Have a great (birth)day!  ;D

^ We've also got pretty good at identifying the obvious BCT trolls (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=874254) over the years  ;)

+ 5 Merit for your 5th Birthday.

Happy Birthday Cloudbet, incredible journey. Keep up the good work.

This made my day. haha


Happy Bday Cloudbet. Reaching out 5 years isn't really an easy thing specially on this gambling industry.

Happy Birthday for my first sportsbook that I used in crypto world. :) Thanks for that not difficult to reached waiger requirements for first time deposits rewards lol.

Yes good thing you guys seriously takes actions on some problems in the past. So sad to see back then that you really encounter some complaints and I admit one of the reason why I stopped using your site although I didn't experienced any major problems. But now Im seeing that there is really an improvements and hope it will be maintained.

Well then, wishing you the best for more years to come. 🎂 🎂 🎂

happy birthday cloudbet hopefully better for next year,

If you look into the mirror, it is really not difficult to identify a BCT troll!  ;)

You are also pretty good in avoiding direct questions https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333552.msg45998746#msg45998746

Did you contact your support yet? I've been waiting for an answer for over a month now. Funny, how you call users trolls but you don't want to answer very simple question about your license provider.

First of all, congratulations on your achievement.

^This did not go well down my throat. Adding mobile number in a semi-legal industry may be a nightmare.

You can always use a cheap phone with a throw away sim card. It doesn’t have to be your contrsct phone (registered to your home & bank).

Well done on reaching 5 years, Cloudbet. I actually never used your services - mainly because I actually did sportsbets not with Bitcoin and my first Bitcoin uses in gambling were for dice. But I appreciate that you are one of the oldest names plus are sponsoring a competition I'm in (bitcointalk English Premier League pool) so there is a stamp of trust approval.

For us, competition in the industry is important, and having more good casinos/bookies around are good for us. May you live to see another 5 years.

Morning all,

Thanks for the kind words and birthday wishes!  ;D

It's also the 10 year anniversary of the bitcoin whitepaper today!

@marlboroza - As I said at the time, the information on our license can be found on our site here (https://www.cloudbet.com/en/license). It's not a subject I've delved into because I don't know anything about license renewals or the legal side of things, and don't want to give out any misleading information due to my own ignorance (it's happened before!)

@RocketSingh - I can understand, I'm not a huge fan of sharing personal information either. We just wanted to give our players as many options as possible to secure their accounts and funds, and some prefer SMS to the google authenticator. You can find out more about our privacy policy here (https://www.cloudbet.com/en/privacy_policy).

Hope you all have a great day!

Ronnie @ Cloudbet

Welcome to the 5 Year club! ;)

While I can't say I know a ton about the history of cloudbet, I commend your strong communication with users of this forum.

Congrats!

But how about if players only do have 1 phone numbers? What I know, mostly people out there only registered with one number and even their address. I do not say that the site is bad or do not nice to play but just because the verification itself will consider playing much around here

Don't forget we are running a 5th Birthday Bitcoin Meme Competition (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059255.0) with free entry and a 0.75 BTC Prize pool!

You can check out the full details here (https://cbet.ly/2JtZK8H) at the Cloudbet blog!


@Stunna - Thanks very much! I'm seeing some great stuff coming from Stake lately (not that I'm keeping tabs on the competitors or anything...)  ;)

Have a great day all!

Ronnie @ Cloudbet

Nice to read something like this from one of the old hands in Bitcoin gambling (I still say bitcoin and am glad most operators still say it too, despite what numerous altcoins may claim in the space).

5 years is really an eternity, just need to look around this landscape where the few stand amongst the many dead projects littering.

Must admit here like others, my loyalties lie partially with the ones I first found, and where I'm happiest. But like many gambling sites who've been around since 2013/14, it's really surprising to me the better ones are arguably also the ones newcomers are least likely to hear of and try.

The "wider community" certainly extends its roots to this gambling section, even if the size may not be as the activity suggests. Rest assured, those eyes are watching =)

Interesting choice of words.

There's only a few days left to join our 5th Birthday Bitcoin Meme Creation Competition (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059255.0) with free entry and a 0.75 BTC Prize pool!

Looking for more info? You can check out the full details here (https://cbet.ly/2JtZK8H) at the Cloudbet blog!


@buwaytress - We are starting to step up our game even more on bitcointalk, with more campaigns and promotions to give us a little bit of extra exposure for forum newbies!  ;)

@marlboroza - I was referring to the time when I incorrectly told @Jollygood that we didn't use cookies on site when we obviously do (again, I'm not a techy dude either) so from then I've been trying to stick to answers I know are legit, and waiting on responses from experts internally on stuff I don't have the knowledge for.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ronnie @ Cloudbet

@cloudbet

First of all Happy 5th year

Second I am getting very bad experience . Its my first time using cloudbet and its really disappointing.
I requested withdrawal multiple times and status is pending for over 12 hrs !
I don't know why it needs manual process just because i had little winnings so this means restrictions !
Best Regards
Redmoe

Congrats on the 5th year of staying in business. I am guessing that there is probably less than 1% of all bitcoin services that can stay open this long.

Unlike a regular business, running a bitcoin business is very difficult especially with all the regulations and all the hack risks. There are many exchanges in the past which had way more capital which failed, kind of like what happened with MtGox.

Its funny how the first bet was 0.12BTC, looking at it right now it seems like its a whale who made the bet. But with the $200 BTC/USD exchange rate its only slightly over $20 which is the typical bet amount these days.

So congratulations and here is to another 5 year of being in business.

Happy 5th anniversary of Cludbet
hope cloudbet is the best and provides customer friendly service   :)

Happy 5th Anniversary to CLOUDBET.
Five years in the business world isn't easy to pull of but it already a milestone to you. I was just hovering around bitcointalk then i bumped on your anniversary post which really caught my attention. Being a regular fan of gambling, Cloudbet is definitely going to be my next thing after i have mastered how everything works. Cheers Team  ;)