Quote:
Originally Posted by Nooseknot
There is no need to speculate on this and the tech is nearly 10 years old. You didn't really give an example. Lets say a player deposits 1 bitcoin, and the markets crash and the exchanges crash and everything crashes...the site still has the players bitcoin and they can just send it back to them.
You haven't given an example where there is a problem. I'm wondering if you are just inventing issues that don't exist because you are unclear how the technology works.
There is great liquidity worldwide and internationally so its quite diverse and regulations and laws have been evolving for years in this space its getting quite mature in this regard.
I don't really know how all this works and I'm not at the moment spending any time at all looking into it or trying to think it completely through, but:
I think what you are saying only works if the poker games are played in bitcoin. Then it doesn't matter what the value of bitcoin is because the games are player in bitcoin and if the value of bitcoin crashes, the accounts are still in bitcoin (they are just worth less now) and the site just sends bitcoins to players who want to cash out.
But if the games are not played in bitcoin, then the poker site has to credit the players with whatever currency the games are played in while taking bitcoin. If they immediately exchange all of the bitcoin for whatever currency the games are played in, then ok, but if they retain the bitcoin and credit player's accounts with the currency that the game is played in, then this is where there can be a problem for them:
1. Poker Site's games are played in $, but Poker Site accepts bitcoin as a deposit method.
2. 1 bitcoin is worth $X.
3. Player deposits 1 bitcoin to Poker Site.
4. Poker Site retains 1 bitcoin and credits Player's account with $X so that Player can play in poker games
5. Player plays poker games and breaks even. Player now has $X in account. Poker Site has 1 bitcoin.
6. Value of 1 bitcoin goes down to $X-$50.
7. PokerSite now owes Player $X, but only has 1 bitcoin worth $X-$50.
EDIT:
I suppose whenever Player joins a table Poker Site can convert bitcoin to $ to join the table and when Player leaves the table can convert dollar to bitcoin, so that balance in account while not playing is always in bitcoin. I would think there would still be risk and other issues, but as I said I am not really thinking it through and I don't know all too much about it.