Hello fellow Steemians
Many of us at steemit must be gamers or at would have heard about how big the gaming market really is. Last year Valve Corporation, a game maker tried to move in on a $7.4 Billiongambling market. So you could imagine the amount of money to be made in the gaming sector. So to take advantage of this huge load of money there is going to be a new player in the market and I mean literally since the new coin that is going to be released is only for sSports events. The name of this coin is Skincoin. As of now there are 762 currencies on coinmarketcap.com and so the skin coin will be 763, that's a lot of coins to choose from. First let us see what a Skin is
Skins are virtual items that can be used in games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) or Dota 2. The term “skin” is derived from the typical function of these virtual items: changing the appearance of a player’s in-game avatar, weapons, or equipment.
Skin was launched by Valve Corporation in 2011 as a service for Steam users to exchange in-game items for games with built-in economy. But in 2016, the Washington State Gambling Commission demanded that Valve developers stop supporting gambling related to game’s items and the Steam platform.
Now that we know what a skin is so let's talk about Skin coin a bit, so according to their site
Skin coin token is a decentralized cryptocurrency for making bets, accepting and sending payments for game skins in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, TeamFortress 2.
So basically this coin is for the gaming population out there and is being advertised as the First Universal Cryptocurrency for eSports Industry. Skin coin is based on the Ethereum blockchain platform and will be used for trading with gaming sites, buying/selling skins, making bets on gambling and betting platforms.
How big is the Skin Market
According to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a research firm,
More than 3 million people wagered $2.3 billion worth of skins on the outcome of e-sport matches in 2015. In 2016, this figure grew by two-fold and reached $5 billion. About 40% of the total 5 billion market in 2016 were betting on the results of cybersport matches and tournaments. Player wagers his skins on winning his team.
So there is a huge market out there for skins which grew by two-fold in 2016 and has the potential to carry on growing in the future.
Problem!!
As you all can guess that what skin trading was doing was creating a market for teens to spend their money on buying skins and creating a gateway to gambling. So after facing a severe backlash the Valve corporation
In August 2016, Valve made a newsletter to popular sites that use skins as bets. Some of the gambling sites switched to skins trading or to bets with virtual currency, not violating the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
In particular, the largest gambling portal CS: GO Lounge received a ban from Valve on the skin gambling activity. At the end of September 2016, the portal resumed its activity by introducing the system of inner currency in the form of coins (points), which does not violate the policy of Steam.
Proposed Solution by Skin Coin
By introducing the Skincoin into the gaming industry the creators are trying to solve the problem of convenience and safety when it comes to the gaming services. This will protect all types of gaming platforms as well as exchange services from Valve claims and blocking of accounts on Steam. Skincoin does not qualify as a payment method in the usual sense. This protects Skincoin from claims of the regulatory and other governmental institutions.
ICO
The ICO is going to start at 12:00 UTC on 21 june 2017
Skincoin is can be bought through Ethereum only and you can buy 6000 skins for 1ETH initially.
- Minimum transaction amount : 600 skins (0.1 ETH)
- Maximum transaction amount : 18000000 skins (3000 ETH)
- 1 Billion skins will be made out of which
600 million are for fundraiser
300 million for Skincoin Foundation
100 million for team members
Image source 1, 2, 3, 4
So what do you think will be the future of this new currency. Will this be a dud or a blast?? Leave your comments.
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I am a gamer and I really liked the idea of skin coin. Thanks for the information
thanks @pinkpanther. I am glad that i was of help :)
Hmm this is interesting, I used to play a lot of dota2 and have a lot of skins, am i going to be able to trade skins [ingame] for skins [coin] ?
As of now the Skincoin will only be available in exchange for ETH. They will create a trading platform till october of this year then may be you can trade :)
Sounds interesting! I will Definatly be keeping an eye on skincoin then :) thanks !
Interesting concept but I don't see this one taking off. Its common for gamers to sell skins to one another and pay in one form of crypto or another already so I don't see the advantage gained by using skincoin.
I am not a gamer so I am not very aware of the situation but from what I read the problem is that if you have skins in one platform that will not work on some other platform and so your money is worth nothing out of that platform. So these are are trying to do away with this problem.