Where is our killer app?

[KonstantinosM]

The title says it all. Will it be an awesome game where people can earn bitcoin by competing? Will it be the lightning network allowing transactions to happen painlessly and without restrictions? A Library of content?

So much work is being done, but it still feels like we don't even have bitcoin wallets with nice GUIs and I know I'm not helping, it's not like I'm creating anything either. Is there something I'm missing?

This is a huge space and everyone is innovating, perhaps bitcoin is doomed to end up as digital gold, a safe place to hold and transact value and all the fun/frivolous things happening with alts. I hate all the restrictions placed on online gambling and all of that nonsense.

I wish I could play a competitive battle royale game where everyone bets some sats and everytime you kill someone you get a slice and the winner takes a big pot. I wanna bet on certain outcomes like what bitbet.us used to be. I wish I could buy stocks in a bitcoin stock exchange.

I mean, I have a lot of patience with bitcoin and big things are happening, with this past halving, our annual inflation rate is below the USD FED inflation target rate and I like that. I just can't wait for what's next to come.

Edit: bitbet.us used to be like this https://web.archive.org/web/20130805070106/http://bitbet.us/

[Tipstar]

High graphic battle royale game are still way far from blockchain based games. Even the privately operated blockchain based gaming platform are failing to build and engaging game. There have been some approaches towards P2P games with lightning network like https://www.lightningbattle.com/ which have 2 games at the moment that could be played P2P. I remember playing one P2P coinflip but don't remember the name.

[pakhitheboss]

I wish this could happen soon. Clas royale is one of my favourite games based on P2P model. If gamers can come out with such a game  where people can bet Bitcoin for every game they play then it would be fantastic. In the meantime you can try arcade based gaming sites like saltybets or betroar to play with your Bitcoins.

[superbotolo]

I think it should be more than an app where you can bet Bitcoins...it should be something that deeply innovates and offers an idea that does not exist right now. There are already plenty of games where I can bet real money, where would be the innovation in using Bitcoin for that?

Even the idea of a wallet is nowadays too old. When Bitcoin was created, transferring money person to person was not easy and not immediate. Nowadays the world is full of solutions that provide for that. In the US I can transfer money in realtime to a friend using Venmo. I can even transfer money to my family in another country with basically no exchange rate instantly using Revolut.

[mk4]

There are already plenty of games where I can bet real money

Like what? Genuine question.

In the US I can transfer money in realtime to a friend using Venmo.

If you think the point of using bitcoin is the speed and ease of use, then you've missed the point. If you don't give a crap about security, privacy, and the problems with the economy, then sure go with the PayPals and Venmos.

I can even transfer money to my family in another country with basically no exchange rate instantly using Revolut.

They mostly do have fees though: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/legal/fees

[Artemis3]

The title says it all. Will it be an awesome game where people can earn bitcoin by competing? Will it be the lightning network allowing transactions to happen painlessly and without restrictions? A Library of content?

So much work is being done, but it still feels like we don't even have bitcoin wallets with nice GUIs and I know I'm not helping, it's not like I'm creating anything either. Is there something I'm missing?

This is a huge space and everyone is innovating, perhaps bitcoin is doomed to end up as digital gold, a safe place to hold and transact value and all the fun/frivolous things happening with alts. I hate all the restrictions placed on online gambling and all of that nonsense.

I wish I could play a competitive battle royale game where everyone bets some sats and everytime you kill someone you get a slice and the winner takes a big pot. I wanna bet on certain outcomes like what bitbet.us used to be. I wish I could buy stocks in a bitcoin stock exchange.

I mean, I have a lot of patience with bitcoin and big things are happening, with this past halving, our annual inflation rate is below the USD FED inflation target rate and I like that. I just can't wait for what's next to come.

I like the interface of Electrum (which is similar to core with enhancements), of course the PC version, the mobile version is dumbed down and misses some features. What do you want with a wallet interface anyway? To me a wallet must absolutely let you pick a transaction fee (so i can use 1sat/B, copy paste addresses and show / read qrcodes.

As for bets, I'm sure there are betting sites for esports and such. Or do you want the betting to occur in game? Most game developers avoid this because legislation would prevent their games from being released in many countries. This is not bitcoin's fault, its just that gambling is not seen the same worldwide. Of course, you could entice the Casino's or betting sites to develop their own games, but to them its cheaper and easier to simply let players bet on existing games. I doubt this situation will change much, and this is unrelated to Bitcoin.

To this i would add my own pet peeve: Why no MMO is using bitcoin or some altcoin directly at least? They all use some sort of virtual money that resides in a server, and many make you to buy fake money with real money for virtual items (not unlike plastic tokens in a casino i guess?). Some MMOs have very interesting economies going on, you can literally trade in their "auction house, or shop, whatever" depending on game even without you directly getting involved in the extraction or transportation (tho that can be done too). Of course this would be a way of allowing real money in those games.

I guess most of the problem lies in legislation. If you forfeit the US, EU and minors, you can probably have those games developed in some nice Caribbean country or such. Do you have the capital to start such endeavor?

Digital gold is not a problem, once you understand Austrian economics, which has always pushed for the use of gold (not a gold backed coin) as money. A century after those proposals, we have digital gold which is even better. When the world decides to adopt Austrian economics, current fiats and most altcoins will be a thing of the past. If the USD finally collapses (thanks to indiscriminate printing), this will probably get in motion since there is Bitcoin now.

[UserU]

I think it should be more than an app where you can bet Bitcoins...it should be something that deeply innovates and offers an idea that does not exist right now. There are already plenty of games where I can bet real money, where would be the innovation in using Bitcoin for that?

Adoption I guess. Rather than converting fiat, you just have to use a single global currency. Fees are cheaper than cards and wire transfers most of the time.

Whenever I reload 10 bucks to play at casinos, there's a 3%+ processing fee, or almost 40 cents. And the kicker is I can't cashout in fiat. Bitcoin solves this problem.

[rexxarofmoknathal]

We're not getting a killer app any time soon, the technologies needed to make a really mainstream DApp just aren't ready yet.

We need a way to transmit and access a large amount of information across a blockchain, something like what promises to do.

However, something like the interplanetary file transfer protocol (IPFS) would be needed—and it simply doesn't work yet.

[verita1]

High graphic battle royale game are still way far from blockchain based games. Even the privately operated blockchain based gaming platform are failing to build and engaging game. There have been some approaches towards P2P games with lightning network like https://www.lightningbattle.com/ which have 2 games at the moment that could be played P2P. I remember playing one P2P coinflip but don't remember the name.

Thanks for sharing. I'll check it out later. All these types of App are useful in creating our ecosystem to promote the use of Bitcoin.

Around me I have families and friends who have not been interested in bitcoin because of everything there is to learn to achieve it and playing from an App could be more interesting for them and for anyone who does not know about bitcoin.

It is impressive the hours that an average person uses social networks without a money utility in these times of crisis.

[Sadlife]

Im confused whether you want to gamble or invest in it. But what you demand for is already there like games that you can play and at the same time you can earn satoshi and also GUI wallets there are already tons of them that offers it such as coinbase, blockchain, ledger that you can easily buy Bitcoins to.

[pooya87]

bitcoin itself is the "killer app" that revolutionized the way that we thought money should work (centralized and in full control of banks). now we can have money, transfer it anywhere in the world with a click of a button and with absolutely no middle man's hand in our pockets.
everything else, including the gambling games where you go to lose your money, are the extra toppings that are using the killer app (that is bitcoin) to make money from it.

[mycryptocoin]

Now there mare many game that you use Bitcoin as money to play and earn. You can search in the internet

[davis196]

Building a good game using blockchain technology and smart contracts is not very practical.The game would be too slow and would require a big investment.I'm not an expect in this field,but I used to be interested in creating a blockchain game,so I have spent lots of time reading and researching.So,basically it's not worth it.
To me,the crypto "killer app" would look like a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange+a decentralized crypto casino+decentralized gaming platform+something like eBay/Amazon,but accepting crypto payments.
If all those things are combined in a fully functional app,that would be awesome.

[squatter]

Things never change.

I remember people asking the same question 5 years ago, frantically waiting for some app to come along that would accelerate adoption. Services and interoperable protocols will continue to be built on top, but they'll always be sideshows to Bitcoin's native value proposition. As far as adoption goes, Bitcoin sells itself -- no marketing or "killer app" needed. It's the hardest form of money ever known. That's why people and institutions are buying it.

[KonstantinosM]

Everyone aks me what I really want, as if it's all out there already.



A stock market that works on bitcoin. And let me just say, that we had one. The technical implementation wad done like 5 years ago, I think it got shut down due to legal concerns.


I want a site like what bitbet.us used to be:

bitbet.us used to be like this https://web.archive.org/web/20130805070106/http://bitbet.us/

Services and interoperable protocols will continue to be built on top, but they'll always be sideshows to Bitcoin's native value proposition. As far as adoption goes, Bitcoin sells itself -- no marketing or "killer app" needed. It's the hardest form of money ever known. That's why people and institutions are buying it.

Money has to be accepted widely to be useful. People don't want to have keys to bitcoin just so that they can control that small aspect of the network. I really like your answer but I think that adoption is important. I think of it in terms of the computer. If there was no good software, would almost everyone on the planet have a computer at home, a computer at work and a computer in their pocket? The killer app for personal computers wasn't the ability to solve math problems really quickly or to store really big numbers into memory.


Stocks denominated in bitcoin bought and sold with no restrictions can be done easily. Sites where you bet on outcomes (like the one linked on the OP) were also done.
I wish that the government would either step aside, or just create reasonable regulations instead of tying our hands up and not letting us do what we want to do. I'd protest for my position, I'd vote for it. I don't understand why we can't have nice things. I'm not against taxes or regulation.

[hatshepsut93]

Killer apps are a rarity, not a necessary element of promoting some technology. Relying on finding a killer app to make your tech successful is an extremely risky approach that will fail most of the time. You can imagine a scenario when someone makes a wildly successful app that boosts Bitcoin adoption, like a social network or work platform, but chances of it happening are already very low, because history shows that killer apps emerge at the same time as technology is launched, not 10 years after it.

[malevolent]

I want a site like what bitbet.us used to be:

bitbet.us used to be like this https://web.archive.org/web/20130805070106/http://bitbet.us/

There's Predictious and BetMoose, but they aren't super popular. I think people tend to be interested mostly in sports betting nowadays, and starting around ~2017 a lot of altcoin projects which incorporated betting were created, that is my guess why sites like bitbet are no longer popular.

[MysteryMiner]

The killer app for Bitcoin was Silk Road.

10 000 BTC pizza proved You can use bitcoins to buy something.
Silk Road proved You can use bitcoins to buy anything.

[thisnewcoin]

I wish this could happen soon. Clas royale is one of my favourite games based on P2P model. If gamers can come out with such a game  where people can bet Bitcoin for every game they play then it would be fantastic. In the meantime you can try arcade based gaming sites like saltybets or betroar to play with your Bitcoins.

I Don't think it will happen soon, because blockchain games are like still kids, I am saying it because I haven’t found any good graphic big games where I can earn bitcoin by competing others! I think Dapp idea not working for big games like Pubg, Royal battle! All the dapp almost same, no revolutionary game yet. But I believe it will happen in this decade,!

[Velkro]

The title says it all. Will it be an awesome game where people can earn bitcoin by competing? Will it be the lightning network allowing transactions to happen painlessly and without restrictions? A Library of content?

Hard to guess. Second layer like lighting network could be it. But maybe it will not be this, its big question mark.
We still wait for killer app, its almost guaranteed that it will happen, time will only tell when.

For now store of value is best Bitcoin advantage over anything in the world, while USA printing insane amount of money.