Throughout the vast and constantly evolving world, a few things will always remain unchanged. One of the obvious ones, being extremely relevant to the current discussion, is the natural human need or demand for entertainment and fun. After all, in the world that demands constant effort and hard work, it is extremely easy to feel drained or demotivated without sufficient hobbies or means of engaging in fun activities.
The reality still remains though, that even entertainment is largely a business, involving payments form customers, trading money for the time well spent. Of course, there are extremely large platforms, such as YouTube for example, managing to create a hyper successful business through advertisements, while not demanding a single cent from their users, but the point still stands.
Since the entertainment and the financial worlds are so closely intertwined, it would be informative and interesting to take a look at the connections between a specific, fresh development within the financial industry, and observe how the crypto market affects massive companies of the entertainment realm.
After all, despite the current state of cryptocurrencies, for it to truly maintain relevance, it requires big allies, as well as recognition and partnership from the said allies. Whether or not the market is succeeding in this aspect is argued over by many, but there is a plethora of relevant information to consider before forming a decisive opinion.
Discussing the Staying Power of Crypto
Firstly, before moving on to the actual specific examples, it is important to look at some relevant data regarding the crypto market, to potentially measure its staying power through more general analysis. Many experts are extremely divided on the future of the industry.
There are those who hold the opinion that cryptocurrencies have already left behind their peak years of success, all the way in 2021 where the currencies were at their top prices. While the statistics definitely show a decline post that era, the industry is still easily a billion dollar one, with the market cap of over 1 trillion USD. Obviously, quite an impressive number demonstrating the current relevance of Cryptocurrencies.
Regarding the future though, while the market is fluctuating and somewhat unpredictable by nature, it has managed to establish itself in various ways in various fields. When it comes to exploring how to spend crypto, there are myriad of companies accepting the digital assets as a mode of payment. In the entertainment sector alone, cryptocurrency purchases have been adopted on a wider scale, with AMC movie theaters accepting crypto payments for movie ticket purchases since 2021.
Moreover, companies like Xbox and Twitch allow consumers to pay directly via Bitcoin – either for subscriptions or streaming games. And such adoption indicates nothing but positive progressions on the market, bolstering the synergy between crypto tech and entertainment.
Entertainment Industries Intertwined with Crypto
Whether it is through online video games, or slightly more traditional spheres, such as sports betting, the cryptocurrency market has established a decent footing in the industry. When it comes to the latter, the concept has been around for an extremely long time now, with fans putting their trust in certain teams or players, making bets resulting in financial losses or gains. Nowadays, due to the popularity of cryptocurrencies, there are various websites that accept it as payment in the sports betting world.
Something that is highly relevant for both sports/entertainment as well as the crypto market though, is the FTX fiasco. The company was a major contributor for the market, and was one of the largest exchange systems, recently collapsed. This was huge news for the crypto world, leaving the founder of FTX, Sam Bankman exposed for running a shady Ponzi scheme, leading to his eventual arrest.
This led to many big partnerships being cancelled and shut down, including the large chess tournament FTX crypto cup, which had a sizeable 320-thousand-dollar prize pool in the first year of launch in 2021, which would only increase the next year, all the way up to 1.6 million dollars. Obviously, the recent events regarding FTX leave the future of the tournament unclear.
On the brighter side though, we can take a look at the gaming Esports tournaments, which are often sponsored by the crypto payment services. This is huge for the market, as gaming is a rapidly developing industry, reaching new and even more impressive heights despite the current achievements. A partnership can be mutually beneficial for both industries.
As for the casinos, some of them started taking cryptocurrencies as payment options for their popular game offerings. Of course, this includes online formats of gambling options, which have received a significant boost in popularity recently, with users spending crypto and participating in games anonymously – from the comfort of their homes.
This, in addition to all the other uses and methods of spending cryptocurrencies, including very niche ones such as donations for streaming services, or simple online purchases, somewhat dictate towards the staying power and future relevance of the industry.
The biggest concern though, must be the general public perception of crypto, many thinking it to be untrustworthy or risky. Through these partnerships with large and trusted entertainment companies, that perception can change for the better. Even in this scenario though, proper knowledge and risk management will always be essential when exploring the crypto world.
