Reviving an old Bitcoin game experiment (LotoBitcoin) – looking for feedback

[oldbtcdev]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a small Bitcoin-related project we recently decided to revive and get some honest feedback from the community here.

Back in 2016, we built a simple experiment called LotoBitcoin. It was never meant to be an investment product or a traditional casino, but rather a small, game-first project inspired by early Bitcoin-era ideas — when people were still exploring what Bitcoin could be used for beyond speculation.

Like many small projects from that time, it eventually went quiet.

Recently, we decided to bring it back with a very intentional and limited scope:

- game-first, not profit-first
- no financial promises or investment guarantees
- no “guaranteed wins”
- focused on learning, experimentation, and community feedback

The platform currently works like this:

- Logged-in users can complete daily quests to earn Quest Points
- Quest Points can be used to purchase tickets for a weekly lottery
- Each week, one winner receives a BTC voucher with a fixed value (redeemable in BTC)

The platform currently includes:
- Blackjack
- Dice
- Daily quests
- Weekly lottery based on quest participation (not deposits)

The idea we’re exploring is whether simple, game-driven experiences can still be a good way to introduce people to Bitcoin mechanics and on-chain thinking — especially compared to today’s increasingly complex DeFi-heavy ecosystem.

Project site:
https://lotobitcoin.com

This is still very much a work in progress. We’re mainly looking for:
- honest feedback
- constructive criticism
- thoughts on whether projects like this still make sense in today’s Bitcoin ecosystem

Not here to sell anything or make promises — genuinely interested in hearing what more experienced Bitcoiners think.

Thanks for reading.

[Basels]

I wouldn't know why you chose LotoBitcoin for name. It has a funny way of reminding me of a scam website called LootBitcoin. Anyway, that's on a lighter note. On a more serious note, your concept interesting enough. Or should I say enticing enough to attract a lot of users considering the $1000 weekly lottery redeemable in BTC. I honestly think that would keep the platform populated with users who are fixated on winning the lottery. However I think it would be a better idea to make the lottery smaller and rewarding to to more participants. Say three to five winners are drawn weekly. This way, you keep the hope of the players alive that the probability that they could win something is high.

Good luck.

[SFR10]

The idea we’re exploring is whether simple, game-driven experiences can still be a good way to introduce people to Bitcoin mechanics and on-chain thinking

I have mixed feelings about the bitcoin mechanics part... To a certain extent, it could be indirectly useful as an onboarding process, but I believe with LotoBitcoin in the equation, it'd count as some sort of a central authority and if I understood everything correctly, there's going to be a token in the future that'd probably replace the quest points ^{[please CMIIW]}.
^{- Could you elaborate more on the on-chain thinking part?}

[oldbtcdev]

Hi, and thank you both for your replies. I understand that you actually took the time to visit our site and evaluate, and we really appreciate that.
I will try to answer you both regarding your feedback and questions.

First, Basels. We are the founders of LotoBitcoin from back in 2016, and back then, it was one of the first BTC faucets, and it grew into a game and entertainment website, where people could learn about Bitcoin and blockchain, and participate in BTC lotteries. We were already preaching about BTC back then. LotoBitcoin seemed like a cool name, and that's why we chose it. We kept the ownership of the domain after we took down the website in 2021, because we had a hope of bringing it back someday.
Regarding your suggestion to reward more than just one lottery winner, we actually agree with you on this. The reason we chose to set the BTC voucher amount to $1000 is that we just launched, and we want to reward our early winners. We plan to have three to five winners of every weekly lottery, with a smaller amount, because we have to be realistic and we want to be able to pay out the winnings. I think $500 in total for the 5 winners would be a more realistic amount long-term. Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate it.

Secondly, SFR10. We feel you in regards to the concern you have about the centralization, and you are totally right about that. As OG Bitcoiners and senior blockchain developers, we want to grow into a decentralized platform over time. We have just recently relaunched the platform, and the only current blockchain-related feature is the BTC voucher from the lottery, but we will make the lottery an "on-chain lottery" for transparency reasons, and at the same time, we also want to protect our winners and their on-chain accounts. Also, the games will be on-chain when we introduce deposits in the future. There are a lot of considerations we need to figure out, regarding what chains we will actually use for our transparency and on-chain transactions. But, this is just a future goal at this point, and we need to focus on growing the platform and gaining trust from our users before we can even consider any deposits and real-time on-chain transactions. Right now, LotoBitcoin is only a game-centered platform that rewards a small number of users who show that they are willing to play and complete quests, to participate in our weekly lottery. Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate it.

I hope more people have great feedback, and we hope you both will join us and watch us grow into something we can be proud of going forward.