Calvin Ayre’sPredictions for 2017:
Bitcoin eats everything

The single biggest development in 2017 is already here and growing in importance with each passing day. Bitcoin officially ‘arrived’ in 2016 thanks to adoption by some farsighted mainstream operators and even the UK Gambling Commission accepted that the ground was shifting under their regulatory feet.

Mark my words: Bitcoin is eventually going to eat the whole global online gambling industry and the first courses of this meal are already being digested. Quite apart from liberating gambling sites from the anti-competitive dictates of government-imposed payment blocking, the blockchain technology underpinning Bitcoin is rapidly making the role of gaming regulators obsolete.

Think of it: with the blockchain documenting every financial transaction, spin of a roulette wheel and roll of the dice, gamblers can act as their own regulators, with any examples of shady behavior on full display for all the world to see and market forces punishing any operator stupid enough to think they can get away with it. There are lots of things that Bitcoin has been predicted to make redundant, but I’m guessing the concept of ‘trust’ wasn’t high on most of these lists. Yet here we are.

Bitcoin has undoubtedly benefited from the reckless policies of central bankers, who have seriously undermined confidence in the durability of fiat currencies. With its finite volume hardwired into the technology, Bitcoin is increasingly viewed as a safe haven more akin to gold than the highly speculative investment it once was, and operators who store their loot on the blockchain will find themselves with extra capital to fuel expansion plans.