Crypto betting on sports has enjoyed massive popularity over the last several years – could it translate to sport’s based non-fungible tokens?
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are tokens built on a blockchain like Ethereum. They are “non-fungible” because each token is unique and cannot be substituted for another.
This is the opposite of Bitcoin — where 1 BTC = 1 BTC no matter which wallet it came from or went to.
NFTs are like the baseball cards and basketball cards of the digital world. In fact, that’s exactly what some NFT creators are betting on: the rise of digital sports cards locked in NFTs.
Should you be betting on the same future?
The Future of Sports Betting and NFTs
When you place bets on your favorite sports teams, you have an emotional attachment to your team and the odds of them winning. But what if you could enhance that attachment and those bets by also collecting NFTs?
Would you make more money?
Think of it like betting on your favorite sports team while also owning a baseball from the game or the jersey of your favorite player. The entire experience is enhanced.
An excerpt from a Medium article puts it nicely:
“The most talked about aspect of NFT’s has been the idea of digitally scarce assets as collectibles. Humans have a rich psychological past of collecting things from baseball cards to rare coins. Therefore, many folks in the digital asset space have surmised that people will seek to own NFT’s purely for their unique and scarce traits.”
If this is the case — which it seems likely to be — we might even see a future where sports betting sites also sell NFT memorabilia — like a gift shop.
Current Sports NFTs
This future is no longer something to speculate about. It’s already here.
Take this example from a recent article:
“Fractional NFT markets can be compared to the liquidity pools seen on conventional decentralized exchanges. The supply for each market is managed by a bonding curve (an automated market-making algorithm) that sets the price based on supply and demand, and rewards in the form of TSX (the platform’s main governance token) are based on statistics tracking the athlete’s real-life performance.”
This is just one example. There already exist NFTs based on MLB teams, FC Barcelona has signed up for their players to be represented by NFTs, and other sports teams might very well be considering getting their players onboard.
How to Participate?
Just like with sports betting, there are many ways to participate in the phenomenon of sports NFTs. But also just like sports betting, there are sites to visit and sites to stay away from.
If you want to find great sports betting sites, then visit the link at the top of this article. However, if you want some fun sports NFTs, then you’ll need to resort to Google — since there are no comprehensive articles on sports NFTs just yet.
A few worthwhile things to keep in mind, however:
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Know how to use your digital wallet
The largest amount of financial losses people see in the cryptocurrency space is due to human error. Yes, there are scams and hacks, but the number of people who simply forget their private keys or passwords amounts to a far larger loss of funds.
Whether you’re sports betting with crypto or using your crypto to buy sports NFTs, make sure you know how to double-check your crypto address before sending and receiving funds.
The site at the link above also contains other great educational materials on crypto use.
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Keep backups
In fact, keep backups of your backups. The crypto world is different. If you forget the combination to your safe where you store gold bricks, then you can pay someone to drill into the safe and get your gold bricks. But if you forget the private keys to your crypto wallet — the one you use for sports betting or NFTs — then no one will be able to break into it for you.
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Update your portfolio
The crypto space is ever-changing. The sports betting sites that accept cryptocurrencies are also changing. Some of them have well-established reputations and will stick around. Others will fade or get hacked and new ones will replace them. To maximize your fun in betting and collecting sports NFTs, keep updated on the newest sites that offer the best perks.
Above all, keep your crypto wallet secure. Find out what would be best for you: a cold storage wallet, a hot storage wallet, and a combo of the two.
Perhaps you’d rather keep a few of your coins on an exchange? That way you can send and receive them from sports betting and sports NFT trading sites? Make sure the exchange also practices best security measures so some hacker doesn’t get away with your finances.
At the end of the day, it looks like sports betting and Sports NFTs are not only here to stay, but to expand. So keep reading articles like the one linked up top and find solutions that suit you best. Then, have fun!
