There’s lots of discussion about cryptocurrency, but how can virtual currencies become more popular? According to Dr. Almond, the reason is because the lottery makes it simple. It dumbs it down, so people will use crypto to play a crypto lottery because they understand it. Dr. Almond is currently writing a paper on why he feels that crypto needs the lottery to find its ease and exception.
Dr. Almond is the Associate Dean of Learning at the University of the Arts, London. His work involves him developing digital projects to support the university’s ‘Better Lives’ project. Dr. Almond is also involved with a crypto lottery startup called CryptoMillionsLotto.
To understand the future impact of cryptocurrency and the reasoning behind the proposal, Digital Journal spoke with Dr. Almond.
Digital Journal: Thanks for the interview. How important are cryptocurrencies now, in relation to business?
Dr. Nick Almond: They aren’t directly relevant yet for most businesses, but they will be. Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt the way that we handle information radically and how accurately we can assign a value to it and businesses need to be prepared for that. Those that aren’t at least keeping an eye on this space might find that their business context changes around them, and quickly.
DJ: How important do you think cryptocurrencies will become?
Dr. Almond: I don’t think people are quite prepared for how significant they will be, but there’s some time to go yet. There’s a lot of technological development to be done; it’s very early. When the technology matures, it’s going to change how we interact with money and how we assign a value on a fundamental level. Exactly when they become important is the big unknown, and that is entirely dependent on how many people are using them, and that means that real-world use cases need to be realized. People need to see how cryptocurrencies can benefit them personally before real adoption happens.
DJ: Who are the main players?
Dr. Almond: The innovators and the developers working with them. At the moment the most important people are those that see the potential of what blockchain can do for us. They’re the ones building the future of this new technology. CryptoMillionsLotto is taking a massive leap of faith by bringing their lotto infrastructure into the crypto space, and it’s the businesses that are looking at how blockchain can disrupt their industries that are going to bring this technology out of the realm of abstract computer science and to everyday people.
DJ: Are there too many cryptocurrencies emerging at this point?
Dr. Almond: Yes, there has been for some time. There’s already far too many to keep up with. Once they list on an exchange, however, the markets decide which ones live and die, and a lot of them will disappear. It’s the projects that get to a working product quickly that people will actually use are going to be the ones that succeed.
DJ: Please explain your ideas behind a cryptocurrency based lottery?
Dr. Almond: Lotteries have been around in some shape or form for thousands of years, and CryptoMillionsLotto piggybacks onto one of the most globally understood games on the planet. That’s why I find the idea so exciting, the path to crypto adoption will start to happen when people see a real use case that they know and understand and it won’t get much easier to understand than this.
Our goal is to make it so easy to end up with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in your possession that anyone can do it. That will include as far as possible aligned with people’s current lotto playing experience. The only difference will be that winnings are collected in crypto, and unlike state-sponsored lotteries, anyone in the world will be able to play. That could mean some massive jackpots.
DJ: Why is the lottery concept the optimal one?
Dr. Almond: Because its an incredibly simple implementation of blockchain technology. Unlike most of the space, it’s immensely achievable, and we don’t need to break the boundaries of computer science to do it. It’s going to be one of the first real-world use cases of distributed ledger technology that everyday people can get behind and that what makes it so exciting.
DJ: Why would this idea appeal to the typical consumer?
Dr. Almond: The lottery is a concept that everyone understands. If a conventional lottery appeals then this will, potentially significantly more so if you’re in a territory where your state-sponsored lottery has a small jackpot. From the first game CryptoMillionsLotto is guaranteeing a €20 million jackpot, paid out in Ether, and that’s way higher than some of the other state lotteries out there.
DJ: What needs to happen to turn the idea into reality?
Dr. Almond: The product is almost ready to go live already, and that’s what makes it so exciting. There’s a minimal development lead time into this project, and that’s what makes it so unusual in the space. There’s a lot of projects out there that have raised vast amounts of money, and they are years away from a working product. Making working blockchain projects is difficult, and many of even the most innovative projects are running into the scaling problems of Ethereum and Bitcoin.
Once this project goes live, it’s a case of fine-tuning the user experience and getting the word out there and convincing everyday people that they can be part of the cryptocurrency revolution without having to go through a steep learning curve.
DJ: Will government support be required?
Dr. Almond: Yes, regulation needs to evolve to accommodate this new technology, so they will need to understand what’s going on in the space. That’s where we need support. We need governments to collaborate with the innovators in this space and know what we’re doing. CryptoMillionsLotto, for example, is leading the way by gaining SEC approval before making the crowd sale of their token, which makes it a security token offering (STO) rather than an ICO, making it much closer to a conventional share. The best projects in space are very keen to be compliant, but the uncertainty in regulation makes this quite difficult.
