Another year, another hundred articles proclaiming the death of bitcoin. This year was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So with the festive season in full swing, and Christmas drawing ever closer, I thought it would be the perfect time to roundup all the fun we’ve had on Bitcointalk this year, and thank some of the awesome people we’ve met and worked with across the forums.
Here’s
Cloudbet's year in review, but feel free to share your ups and downs in this thread (and we don’t just mean a BTC price chart!) - did you manage to buy the dip?
Fun and games!It’s been a pretty busy year for us on Bitcointalk!
- We kicked the party off back in May this year, when we became the first crypto gambling site to honour the Bitcoin Cash fork, providing all our players with free BCH to match the BTC funds they had in their Cloudbet wallets (May the fork be with you!)
- It was just after this that I joined Cloudbet and cautiously introduced myself on our meta thread. Needless to say there was a fair bit of housekeeping to do after our prolonged absence from the forums, but the community were surprisingly welcoming and patient while I got my head around the outstanding issues (and relearning BBCode after too long spent on Twitter and Facebook!)
- Shortly after that it was World Cup time, and the first iteration of our now widely popular predictor competitions kicked off on Bitcointalk! This was a simplified version of the predictor game, with players asked to pick the results of the tournament’s quarter final games. It was our first attempt on this platform, and although some mistakes were made, the response from the community was fantastic and helped set the guidelines for these competitions going forward.
- As the tournament progressed we also unleashed a Bitcoin price predictor competition onto an unsuspecting Twitter audience, asking them to guess the price of BTC and BCH at kick off of the world cup final. Of course the results varied from cautiously pessimistic, to wildly optimistic, but that’s the beauty of crypto amirite?
- As mentioned above, predictor competitions are popular with our sportsbook-savvy fans, and throughout the year we have also run a 4-week EPL predictor, as well as the ongoing Super 6 Soccer Leagues Predictor competition which is due to wrap up on 24th December.
We had over 100 individual entrants join in the Predictor competitions alone, supplying just over 1000 entries in total over the length of the campaigns, so a huge thanks to everyone who has taken part this year!
- In October Cloudbet turned 5 years old, and we celebrated with a Crypto Meme contest that grabbed the attention of some of Bitcointalk’s most creative and witty members with large Bitcoin prizes. This was another prime example of the community in action, as a team of hardy detectives helped investigate some of the claims of plagiarism and ensured that only the finest OC made the final list of winners!
- Following on from this success we launched a ‘Review Fiat’ Competition to mark the passing of Black Friday and Cyber Monday - two colossal monuments dedicated to the folly of consumerism. We wanted to provide our crypto community with the means to poke fun at fiat in a lighthearted way, and they certainly didn’t disappoint!
But “What’s next?” I hear you cry! Well, we have a whole lot planned for 2019, but you’ll have to wait till January to find out!
The ‘Nice’ list!There’s been a large number of boys and girls who have made our ‘nice’ list this year, but we want to extend a special thank you to everyone who has helped run our various campaigns and promotions across Bitcointalk and beyond.
- Hhampuz is the man with the plan when it comes to bounty campaigns, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to anyone looking for a reliable manager. He was even kind enough not to mock me when I missed an entire tab of a spreadsheet I was supposed to be providing feedback on! Thanks again for your hard work!
- Krogothmanhattan - king of coins! We have been working with Krog on a series of popular sponsored raffles running in the ‘collectibles’ section of the forums, and his patience with my ‘casual’ approach to campaign planning definitely helped get the ball rolling smoothly!
- Hilariousandco - Not only does he have the less-than-envious job of trying to keep the Gambling section of the forums from turning into a complete lawless free-for-all, but also dealing with my questions about where to place threads, sponsorship of competitions, and weekly (definitely not spam™) reminders about our Super 6 Predictor Competition!
- SyGambler - Someone who most of you will recognise as a an incredibly helpful and knowledgeable forum member, he helped provide us with some valuable feedback to make improvements to our service that will reach into 2019 and beyond - thanks again Sy!
On the subject of feedback, i’d like to take the time to thank everyone who has contacted us via our meta thread, competition threads, and direct messages to report issues and provide feedback on our services.
The Bitcointalk community’s unique brand of constructive criticism is crucial in our ongoing mission to provide the best bitcoin casino and sportsbook experience online. Santa Cloudbet will be delivering satsumas instead of coal to your stockings this year!
We also ran a signature campaign this year on the forums, and massive thanks are due to all our campaign members for their hard work, and patience with my mistakes that led to delays to the second week’s payments. You the real MVPs!
Lastly, a huge thanks to everyone who has joined in our many competitions and giveaways this year! We already have some big promotions planned for the new year, so I’m sure i’ll see the regular faces in other competition threads very soon!
The ‘Naughty’ ListNow I’m not going to call out any specific names here, but as most of you reading are fully aware, we’ve had a few run-ins this year with members of the forum.
We aren’t perfect, and mistakes have been made when it comes to how we handle certain issues within the community.
Although it would be easy to dismiss everyone ranting on our thread as a ‘troll’ it’s important to look past the initial anger to the actual situation at hand. I’m a gamer and gambler myself, and have been through enough conversations with various support teams that I know how frustrating it can be when you don’t receive the answers you are looking for.
What I’d like to do is thank everyone who have contacted me via the forums and over PM to discuss these complaints over the past year, as many have lead to key improvements to our processes and systems which have benefitted all our players.
If you have an issue or find something frustrating about your experience at Cloudbet, please reach out and we can discuss how to solve the problem and ensure others aren’t affected in the future.
Christmas CoverageIn regards to our coverage over Christmas and the New Year,
Cloudbet will continue to operate as usual over the holidays, and our
support teams will be on call 24/7 to handle any issues that may crop up during this time.
I’ll still be checking in to keep an eye on the forums and our Twitter feed daily, but
coverage will be limited and I won’t have access to all of our systems from home.
Any urgent issues should be directed towards our support teams, otherwise I’ll respond ASAP when I’m back in the office on the
2nd January.
Thanks again for another great year of bitcoin betting, and from everyone at
Cloudbet's, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
To the Moon!!!
Ronnie @ Cloudbet
