The world of cryptocurrency and bitcoin can seem very confusing at first to anyone. Once you get the hang of it though, you’ll be sending and receiving bitcoin to your wallets in no time!
I won’t give a full in depth history of explanation of the genesis of bitcoin and crypto, and focus more on the transactional side for gambling online.
So What Is Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin?
That said – lets get a quick understanding of what it is. When you think of Canadian dollars, you think of the shiny, plastic textured colorful bills in your wallet (or those loonies and toonies also). Well that is Canadian Dollars or CAD as its abbreviated. It’s also called “fiat currency” meaning it’s government issued currency not backed by a commodity, such as gold.
As well with our fiat currency, we can compare its value relative to other currencies. As Canadians, the common comparison is to the US Dollar, or USD. $1 CAD is work approximately $0.70 USD. That is called a “currency pair” – the value of one currency relative to another.
Now lets get our feet wet on bitcoin and cryptocurrency. First of all, there is a direct comparison in terminology so far. Fiat Currency = Cryptocurrency (meaning its a currency not backed by a commodity), with the main differences being a) its not issued by the government and b) it’s digital only.
Have you ever sent an Interac transfer? You send funds from your bank account to someone else? All electronic, and that’s exactly how cryptocurrency is transacted. You don’t have the option for paper currency, but its every bit as real.
Now for Bitcoin. In our example, Bitcoin would be the equivalent of a specific type of currency. Much how CAD is a type of Fiat currency, Bitcoin, or BTC, is a type of cryptocurrency. It just happens to be the most popular one. There are many others, such as Litecoin (LTC), Monero (MON), Ethereum (ETH), etc.
You may recall we had our currency pair of CAD to USD. Well, you can do the same with BTC to CAD, BTC to USD, BTC to LTC, etc. Basically state the value of one currency relative to another. You may have heard Bitcoin BTC is worth approximately $11,000 CAD? That’s a currency pair. If you had 1 BTC you could sell it and get $11,000 CAD.
Now, this is one area that first confused people because the ratio of the numbers is vastly difference. What if you only had $1,100 CAD and wanted to buy BTC? Well, you’d get 0.1 BTC. Fractions of BTC are very, very common, and the decimal place goes out approximately 8 numbers. You may find yourself with 0.00346735 BTC (which is approximately $35.78 CAD fyi).
How To Get Crypto, Where To Keep It, How To Use It
Now that you have a general idea of what it is and how its valued, how do you get it, where do you keep it, how do use it and more.
We’ll stick with Bitcoin BTC since it’s the most commonly used, but the following applies to basically all cryptocurrency.
First things first, you need a place to store your BTC, and that is called a Wallet. Simple right? Basically a digital wallet. Luckily, there are multiple options for digital wallets and they are all basically free. Most popular is one you can have an app for on your phone, as it makes transacting a bit easier. You can though have simply a web based wallet as well though.
I personally recommend JAXX, you can find it in the App Store or Google Play store. It’s 100% free, I’ve used it for years and never had a problem. Download and set it up.
Now you have a virtual wallet, congrats! Now where to buy bitcoin? There’s several options, but for the newcomers to BTC, I suggest stick with the industry’s #1 used market, Coinbase. You get $10 free for signing up!
Coinbase is essentially a market where you can buy, sell and send bitcoin. Hint: You’ll be using Coinbase to cash out your winnings also!
Now, here’s the secret sauce (and why you need the JAXX wallet) – you CAN NOT send or receive BTC directly to or from an online casino to Coinbase. They frown upon online gambling. Now while BTC is basically anonymous, they can identify addresses that are associated with online casinos, and they will disable your account if they see BTC flowing to/from Coinbase to a casino.
BUT, Jaxx solves this issue. You will essentially buy BTC on Coinbase, send to Jaxx wallet, from Jaxx to the online casino of your choice. Withdraws work the same way in reverse – Casino to Jaxx to Coinbase to CAD! (more on that last step coming up).
Back to buying BTC. On Coinbase you will set up your account and link your debit, credit, or bank account. Select to buy bitcoin, how much, and voila, bitcoin is yours. You’ll see it sitting in your BTC balance.
Next, send the BTC from Coinbase to Jaxx. It’s a simple process, and happens relatively quickly. You’ll learn about “confirmations” – basically your crypto will be sent and available after several confirmations from the network. This protects against fraudulent transactions. All in all, you do nothing and this all takes 20-30 mins. When the BTC is available, you’ll see it now in your Jaxx wallet.
Next step: just another transfer. Send from Jaxx to your online casino wallet. We skipped a little bit over how you identify where you are sending BTC. Each wallet has an address which is 16 characters, a combination of letters and numbers. To send BTC from Jaxx to the Casino, you simply click on Deposit at your casino, choose BTC, and they will give you a wallet address to send coins to. It is specific to your account, and after you send the coins from Jaxx to the casino you will see them within 30 mins. (remember, confirmations).
Now that your BTC is at your online casino, it will typically be displayed in your home countries currency, Canada in this case. So for example if you bought $100 CAD worth of BTC on Coinbase, sent to Jaxx, sent to the casino, now it’ll be shown as $100 CAD on the casino. The BTC is really just used to facilitate the transaction.
Benefits of Using BTC
That leads to the benefits of using BTC. It probably sounds like a lot of work. You have to have a Coinbase account, Jaxx account, wallet address, etc. Really, once you do it once you realize how quickly everything happens and how easy it is.
Benefit #1: BTC is anonymous. People really don’t like using their debit or credit cards as the transaction is memorialized forever in your transaction history with that card issuer. Not to mention a lot of credit and debit card issuers also don’t like online casinos, and won’t process the transaction.
Benefit #2: It’s fast (especially on withdraws). Depositing is great, but what we really care about is withdrawing our funds. You hit a big win, time to cash that in. Withdrawing with BTC is the exact opposite path and just as easy. Request a withdraw, give your BTC address for your Jaxx wallet. Once approved (usually within 48 hours), the BTC shows up in Jaxx. Then send to Coinbase, sell to CAD, and withdraw to your bank. Easy right!? It actually is easy, it sounds like a lot of steps but from start to finish you could transfer and sell your BTC in under an hour. The longest wait is for confirmations.
Now that you have a BTC 101 Education, look into depositing and withdrawing using Crypto going forward! All the recommended casinos accept BTC!
Benefit #3: It’s very secure. You hear about account take overs (ATO) on bank accounts all the time. Ever had someone use your credit or debit card number and have to dispute transactions and get a new card? It’s a huge hassle. With BTC, these things just don’t happen. Security is much higher on digital currency, and wallets often have 2FA (Two Factor Authentification) before sending BTC.