Hello dear readers and welcome back to MegaCrypto Casino and the next in our series of articles on the subject of Crypto Casinos, cryptocurrencies and everything related. We hope that you will enjoy this week’s topic and find your visit to Mega Crypto Casino to have been worthwhile.
So what’s on the menu for this week?
Well…the return of something that many might have thought had had its day, but has now risen from the grave with a new purpose and utility; that of giving crypto casino players a solid and retainable, or a usable asset, as a reward for their membership and patronage.
Going, going, gone? Not anymore!
Now, crypto casino members can not only enjoy some well-deserved down time at their favourite crypto casino, but win or lose, they can now walk away at the end of the day with something tangible and even valuable… NFTs. Let’s take a look.
NFTs - Back to Basics
Ok, so by now you know that here at Mega Crypto Casino, we don’t do things by half, we don’t waffle or fill in with pointless rubbish; so before examining the NFT craze of 2020 to 2022 and then the return of NFTs, it would be remiss if we didn’t first cover exactly what NFTs are and how exactly they work…so here we go.
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token… So what’s ‘fungible?
Well the dictionary definition of ‘fungible’ is; “a product or commodity replaceable by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.”
But perhaps, some examples might be in order: Having established that fungible items are interchangeable due to their identical nature, examples include pound coins, shares and commodities. A pound coin is exactly the same as another pound coin and a bag of sugar is exactly the same as another bag of sugar.
Conversely then, ‘non-fungible’ means that an item is, essentially unique and cannot be replaced by something identical.
Other characteristics and examples include;
- Unique ownership; because each non-fungible item is unique from any other (an example might be a digital artwork), it ensures individual authenticity.
- Non-interchangeability; because of its uniqueness, you cannot exchange one NFT with another NFT and expect it to be of the same value or usability.
- Certificates of authenticity; in the world of the blockchain, NFTs act as digital certificates of authenticity, or proof of ownership for assets such as digitalized music, images and game assets.
- Physical/Digital counterparts; a unique physical item, such as a Van Gough painting or music composition could be digitalized into an NFT and both could be considered unique. In fact, during the 2020/2022 NFT craze this was done and true ownership of one was not considered valid without ownership of the counterpart.
- And importantly for our purposes…a strictly controlled, limited run (for example of 100 NFTs), can still be considered true NFTs and ‘unique’ because of:
- Unique IDs; even if all copies of an NFT were physically identical, they would still have a unique blockchain ID (for example 1 of 100, 2 of 100 etc.), which would still qualify them as NFTs.
- Scarcity of Supply; by quantifying the quantity of supply at the point of creation (for example 1 of 100 etc.) this fixes the quantity, which cannot then be changed once minted.
- Historical and on-going Provenance; Any of the series of tokens can be sold or traded and each will retain its unique history and provenance on the blockchain.
- …and to sum up, these limited series NFTs can be thought of exactly as one would think of a limited run of numbered art prints.
But just to finish, it would be remiss of us (even at the risk of repeating ourselves), if we didn’t underscore some key concepts.
When you buy an NFT:
- You usually DON’T own the actual JPEG itself… you DO own the token on the blockchain.
- You ownership is via your crypto wallet, which has both a public address and a private key. The blockchain records, for example; ‘Token #5543 owned by wallet 0x4879A….
- Ownership can be proved publicly.
- You are free to transfer or sell whenever you wish.
- Usually, you also DON’T own the copyright.
- You DON’T control who copies the image.
- You certainly DON’T own the server hosting the file.
When you sell an NFT
- You sign a smart contract transaction with your private key.
- The blockchain updates ownership.
- The transfer can be verified publicly on the blockchain.
- Importantly, no authorisation nor approval is required from any central authority, government, official… or any third party whatsoever.
Essentially, you own the blockchain record rather than the actual intellectual property. OK, I’ll stop labouring the point!!
Ok, so now that we have covered exactly what NFTs are, lets take a quick look at how they are made… too detailed? Perhaps; but this is Mega Crypto Casino and if you stick with us and learn some of this good stuff, you’ll soon have a bunch of starstruck admirers down at your local pub, buying you pints and thinking that you’re some sort of NFT/crypto genius…you might even get in with some hot chicks…so let’s get to it and well keep it basic!
Creating NFTs
The first step is to create a digital file on the blockchain; the act of creating this file is called ‘minting’. The file could be an image, a video, a piece of music, a game asset or even a document. It is, however, important to grasp that the NFT represents not the digitalized version of the above items itself but the record of ownership of the item.
The next step would, as might be expected, to upload the file. It is technically important to note, however, that the item itself is not uploaded to the blockchain. The reason is that the costs would be prohibitive; so as a workaround, the file itself would be uploaded ‘off chain’ on perhaps, decentralized storage such as IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System), or on a regular web server; only a link to the file is actually stored within the NFT itself.
More unashamedly geeky stuff, so brace yourself! A quick explanation of IFFS follows.
Inter-planetary File System is a peer-to-peer. de-centralized file storage and file sharing system. Unlike traditional HTTP location-based file storage that fetches files from a specific location, IPFS presents files from whichever blockchain node is the closest to your location. The advantage is that in case of a technical outage, a copy of the file is still extant and available for presentation, unlike a HTTP single location-based file which might be completely unavailable in an outage.
The final step in NFT creation would be to create a ‘Smart Contract’, which you could safely say is the crux of the whole creation process. A smart contract is essentially, a small program on the blockchain which actually brings the NFT into existence, assigns ownership of the NFT, acts a ledger by tracking provenance and on-going ownership of the NFT and can even account for on-going royalty payments. So for instance; the smart contract can be programmed so that every time a sale of the NFT occurs, the artist can automatically receive a percentage of the resale value.
It is important to note that technically, when a smart contract is created, it creates a unique token ID, assigns it to your crypto wallet address and makes a permanent and immutable record of this on the blockchain.
And essentially, that’s it.
NFTs - So where do they live?
As you know by now, especially if you have been a regular to our MegaCrypto Casino articles, there are several blockchains extant, which act as the native ‘home’ to specific cryptocurrencies and specific groups of cryptocurrencies, for example; the bitcoin network hosts BTC and USDT (via the Omni Layer); the Ethereum blockchain hosts USDT (ERC 20) and USDC; the Tron blockchain hosts USDT (TRC 20) and Tronix (TRX). Of course, the above are just limited examples and these blockchains host various additional cryptocurrencies.
That said, the obvious question is “so where do NFTs live then?”
Well, in a similar way to cryptocurrencies, NFTs can exist on various blockchains for various reasons; let’s take a look.
- The Ethereum blockchain; the first and original home of NFTs and therefore, the most well-known NFTs reside here.
- The Solana blockchain; first became popular in reaction to high fees on the Ethereum blockchain and became known for their faster and cheaper transactions.
- Polygon; literally built ‘on top of’ the Ethereum blockchain as a ‘Layer 2’ blockchain solution. In the most basic language, it is a sort of ‘support system’ which helps the Ethereum blockchain work even faster, better and cheaper…and that is what it’s known for.
- The BNB Smart Chain; a high-performance blockchain originally developed by Binance to provide functionality for smart contracts to run DeFi and decentralized apps; a low cost ecosystem.
Of course, there are other blockchains hosting NFTs but we primarily mention these as they were the most prominent during the NFT boom of 2020 to 2022.
A has-been craze?
Having now refreshed our collective memories as to what NFTs are and some of the basics of how they work, we can now take a very brief look at what might be termed the ‘heyday’ of NTF’s.
As you may personally recall, what first started as a sort of geeky, niche, crypto experiment, subsequently exploded into a bone fide mania, combining digital art, crypto wealth, asset scarcity, social status, and financial speculation, all within a tech-innovation, financial bubble, internet subculture movement ecosystem.
So what happened? Well, to begin at the beginning; the whole phenomenon started building in 2020 with the on-going development of blockchain technology, notably the Ethereum blockchain, which suddenly made it easy to create unique digital assets which could be bought, sold, traded and owned on the blockchain.
Although as with many clever, quirky and innovative trends, this all started initially with niche and perhaps geeky crypto interest groups. Arguably, the onset of the Covid-19 period fed into the trend, with vast swathes of the globe restricted in movement and increasingly turning to the online world. This led directly to online creators looking to tap into the new online audience by seeking means to monetize their work and this drive quickly found itself intersecting with digital art, collectibles, gaming and online culture.
Although like any gathering wave, the earliest sales of such digital assets were relatively modest, but by the following year, a full-blown mania had developed, with sales in the ‘art and collectibles’ sector reaching the multi-millions of US Dollars. As just one example, an example of ‘digital art’ named Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days, a collage of 5,000 digital images, fetched USD 69.3 million…and in all fairness it was (IMHO) a complete load of rubbish that a 5 year-old could have put together, and there were, of course, many other examples such as this. At the peak of the mania, the global NFT market saw monthly trading volumes into the billions of US Dollars.
Of course this couldn’t be sustained, as the prime driver of this market was largely speculation rather than utility of product and by late 2021-2022, with the market now flooded with low-quality or copycat products and with pricing now very far removed from actual demand, the market began to dry up and prices plummet.
In the end, what was at first much vaunted as a revolutionary transformation in digital ownership, turned out to be just a classic boom-and-bust cycle. That said, there was indeed a legacy in the concept and technical framework of digital ownership and a small niche market in more ‘worthy’ or utility-driven digital art still exists today; but from those ‘boom years’, most surviving NFTs are now either inactive, or worth just a small fraction of their values at the height of the mania.
So, is that it then? Was it all a craze which is now long gone and forgotten? Are NFTs themselves now long gone, or relegated to the realms of incels in dark basements?
…well no! Like all good things such as flared jeans or my collection of 80s Rock Concert T shirts which cost a fiver back in the day, but are now ‘vintage’ so go for 100 pounds plus, NFTs are back from the dead and thrilling a whole new generation in a surprising new role.
Back from the dead in Crypto Casinos
Ok, so we all understand Crypto Casinos; the 21st century incarnation of a trend first started in 1638; an avenue for freedom lovers everywhere to spend their crypto, un-assailed, unobserved and unrestricted by any authorities or third parties; a great way to unwind …and as our regular readers will know, a vital financial on-ramp in developing, or financially troubled countries.
But in keeping with their highly innovative and technical nature, crypto casinos have recently been experimenting with NFTs as a ‘value add’ for their clients by blending gambling, gaming and Web 3 ownership of digital assets, thus transforming NFTs from just artwork, into in-game-collectibles, VIP access tokens or even earnings generators. Let’s take a look:
NFTs as In-Game Collectibles
These can come in a number of incarnations; custom metaverse avatars, limited edition slot machine skins, special edition slot machine skins, special edition poker table themes, unique digital chips or badges or even limited edition event collectibles…anyway, you get the idea.
And how might these be used practically?
The ownership of one of these NFTs might bestow access to a themed game room; others might ‘level up’ based upon duration or frequency of play; others still, might grant preferential cashback rates or bonuses. And a real utility; players can subsequently trade these NFTs amongst themselves or on a secondary market.
NFTs as VIP Access Tokens
As you’d expect, it probably does what is says on the tin, but let’s take a proper look. Essentially, these can function as digital membership cards that can grant access to such things as high stakes tables and private tournaments, and additionally, can give holders higher withdrawal limits, increased deposit bonuses and even revenue sharing or staking rewards.
A good number of crypto casinos and decentralized gaming platforms have integrated such NFT based perks and loyalty rewards into their structures via smart contracts which automatically perform on-chain verification to immediately detect VIP members.
Let’s also not forget that these VIP access tokens, just as in the case of in-game collectibles, are real and tangible assets; they have a provable scarcity and they are tradable, so should a holder no longer wish to be a VIP, they can sell their membership and gain financially thereby.
Income Generators
Crypto casinos are nothing if not innovative and one of the things which they are currently experimenting with is the use of NFTs as revenue sharing or yielding assets; very similar in some respects to Securities.
Variants include NFTs which can confer a percentage of the house profits, NFTs which can be staked to earn platform tokens, and even ‘Founder NFTs’ that pay out dividends from future profits.
Crypto Casinos and the New Re-Animated NFTs
Well, that’s just about it and we have certainly come a long way; from the height of the NFT mania, to the resurrection of NFTs in a brand-new, shiny format. Although we have touched upon just a few of the new incarnations of NFTs, you can bet your bottom dollar (no pun intended), that the innovative nature of crypto casinos will give birth to many more.
At the risk of using a much used cliché: “It’s different this time.”
But unlike within the economic and financial world, where use of this phrase usually signals quite the opposite…in fact, often heralds doom; this time, in the worlds of crypto casinos and decentralised gaming, it really does seem to be completely different.
Unlike 2020/2022, when NFTs equated to the purchase of often questionable digital art, manic financial speculation and invariably, a large loss of one’s investment; in 2026 NFTs within the crypto casino ecosystem represent solid assets with solid benefits…and additionally, assets that one didn’t have to fork out a fortune for. In fact the new NFTs represent:
- True digital ownership of a truly scarce, sought after and certainly tangible asset.
- Assets which can be sold to willing buyers or traded for something of equal or greater worth.
- Assets often with cross-platform mobility and recognition.
- Assets which have the potential to truly appreciate in value.
So there we have it, the new NFTs: In the old days you could buy NFTs and in the end, potentially walk away with nothing. Today, as loyal crypto casino goers, you can earn NFT’s for your patronage and loyalty, and walk away with something…not bad at all.
And that’s it. Thank you dear readers for visiting Mega Crypto Casino and we hope that you found this latest article interesting and informative. We trust that you will join us again soon, for the next in our series of articles on crypto casinos, cryptocurrency news, crypto tech and everything related, and we heartily look forward to your next visit.