Adjusting Playmoney - Back to its original vision

The idea of Playmoney is simple, have a site-internal token that can be given out to everyone to test the games, have fun with them, a coin that is just meant to play with it, as the name says. 

However, when we added the onsite exchange option, we decided to include Playmoney in it, and have given it a value this way. Over time, that meant more and more necessary restrictions for PLAY, restrictions it originally was not meant to have.

playmoney

 While we would love to continue offering those additional features for Playmoney, at this time, we believe they are not worth the tradeoffs. As a result, we have decided to move Playmoney once again closer to its original idea, closer to what it was meant to be. 

This sadly means getting rid of the option to exchange from and to PLAY. As of this blogpost, you will have 7 days left to exchange to and from PLAY, after this, exchanges in either direction will no longer be possible. 

If you have a balance of PLAY right now, you will have to use this grace period to decide whether you want to have your balance as the new, revamped Playmoney, or whether you want to use the time left and exchange to another currency.

At 18:00 UTC on March 30th, all exchange pairs involving PLAY will be removed and further exchanges will no longer be possible. 

While this might sound like bad news for some, it will also give us the opportunity to explore new, fun ways to utilize Playmoney in the future.

Using the Bitcoin Lightning Network with CryptoGames

This text guide will help beginners to take advantage of the newly added Bitcoin Lightning Network (or LN for short) deposit option on CryptoGames. The Lightning Network offers both very fast deposit times, with deposits being credited within a few seconds, and low fees, currently a deposit via the Lightning Network will only be subject to a 1% fee charged by our payment provider and a few Satoshis (0.0000000X BTC) of LN routing fees. This is especially interesting for those users that make a lot of deposits on CryptoGames. While it takes a little while to get a Lightning-enabled wallet properly set-up, once you’ve done the steps, you can benefit from the advantages with every single deposit you make afterwards. Depositing via LN is cheaper and faster than on-chain BTC deposits, but how do you use it? In three sections we will cover how to install a Lightning Network enabled wallet, how to set up your first channel, if you don‘t know what that is yet, don’t fear as it will be covered too, and finally how to use your wallet and the channel you just set up to make „lightning fast“ deposits at CryptoGames. While this guide is targeted at beginners, LN as a layer-2 solution is a bit more complex than a simple on-chain Bitcoin transactions, so a basic level of understanding about Bitcoin is recommended, albeit not required.


Section 1: Choosing and installing a Lightning-enabled Wallet

The first step towards using the Lightning Network is installing a wallet that is capable of interacting with LN. Most current common Bitcoin wallets do not have this feature, so you most likely will have to install additional software. Check first if your current wallet is Lightning-enabled. If it is not, there’s a number of different wallets you can choose from. Please keep in mind that most lightning wallets are beta software. We cannot guarantee that the wallet you choose will always work as intended. Also we cannot guarantee fort he continued support of any software named here, so, and this is important, do your own research and make sure you’ve covered all aspects, before installing any software. CryptoGames will not be responsible for possible losses you make when using any of the wallets named here.

Our video example is using the zap wallet, which is available on MacOS, iOS, Android and Windows (the Windows version being the one used in the video). Other popular lightning wallets are Eclair Mobile on Android, Breez on iOS and Android, or Joule which integrates with your own node as a browser extension.

Section 2: Opening your first channel

In order to open a channel, which is a connection between your wallet and another party in the Lightning Network and allows you to send and receive funds, you need some BTC in the on-chain section of your lightning-enabled wallet. Navigate to the section where you can find the address (it is either a 3-prefix P2SH address or a bc1-prefix bech32 address) of your wallet and send some funds to it. How much you send will limit how much you can spend via the Lightning Network, but don‘t worry, you can open additional channels later and spend more coins that way.

Once your transaction has been confirmed and you have the funds in your lightning enabled wallet, switch over to the lightning enabled section of the wallet. The next step is to open a channel. Most wallets allow you to open a channel with a few predetermined hub-nodes, which is advisable as those are well connected. Eclair Mobile eg allows you to open a channel with one of ACINQ’s hubs. If your wallet does not have such a list of hub nodes, one of the bigger hubs is the node of Y'alls you can try connecting to. Once you have selected the amount you want to commit to the wallet, remember this is the amount of funds you will be able to spend via LN (minus fees), the next step is to send the channel-opening transaction. Shortly afterwards your channel should become available, which means now you’re ready to go and start using the Lightning Network.

Section 3: Making Lighting Network deposits on CryptoGames

Now to the final step. After you have set up your wallet and opened a channel, you are done with the setup phase of using the Lightning Network, from now on, you are able to send and receive funds via LN. To do so, you will need a lightning network invoice, a message that tells your wallet (or the wallet of the person sending funds to you) where the funds are going and how much it is supposed to send. Open your CryptoGames account and select the game you want to play, with Bitcoin as the currency to play with. Now click „Your Account“ and select the „Deposit“ option. In the top you will find the section „Lightning Network“. Now you can select the amount you want to deposit. As said earlier, the amount is determined by the invoice, not selected in your wallet, so only select an amount you are willing to send, as you can‘t change it once the invoice is created. Click „Create Payment Request“ and you will be redirected to a page with the invoice for your deposit. If you are using a mobile wallet and browse CryptoGames on your PC, you can simply scan the QR code in your wallet. If that‘s not possible, copy and paste the invoice text starting with lnbc. Confirm the details of the invoice in your wallet and wait for the payment to be routed to our node. After a few seconds, the amount will be credited to your account. Congratulations, you’ve just made your first lightning-enabled Bitcoin deposit at CryptoGames. From now on, you can make all your Bitcoin deposits via LN and take advantage of the channel you just set up. Of course you can also use the channel to send Bitcoin payments to other services and merchants that have already integrated LN. Some examples (we don not endorse any of these services or guarantee they are safe to use, do your own research and use them at your own risk) are BitRefill, Spendl, Bitcart and more.

Bonus (Section 4: Technical details)

This guide only focused on how the Lightning Network works from a user perspective, teaching you how to get started using the Lightning Network yourself, it did not explore how the technology behind it works. If you are curious about the lightning network but want to know more about the technology behind it before using it, we’d recommend reading this technical Beginner’s Guide by Binance Academy.

Adjusting Faucet Amounts

 Announcing Adjusted Faucet Rewards and new Progression

In the past, we have periodically been adjusting the amounts of coins given out via the site’s rewards program with evolving market situations. It has been a very long time since such an adjustment has taken place and with cryptocurrency exchange rates hitting new all-time highs, we have determined it is time to take another look at the reward structure and the faucets given out to players without any conditions on the site. 



The good news first, we are committed to allowing all players to test our games without a deposit, test new strategies without any risk or simply pass the time between deposits. Out of this commitment, we’re eager to continue offering faucet rewards, so the faucets are not going away. They will however have to be adjusted to the new market situation. With this announcement, we are rolling out the new reward structure and the updated amounts can be found in the Faucet Level section. With this change we also had the opportunity to take a look at how faucet levels progress and have made several adjustments to that. We’re thankful for our most loyal users, and as a token of our appreciation, the higher faucet levels have remained almost unchanged. Most of the adjustments have been made to the first few levels, so remember that while your faucet might seem smaller right now, it can still grow to a very sizable amount over time. 

With these changes, we’re still offering one of the biggest (if not the biggest overall) faucet reward program. Please note that none of these changes will hinder your ability to play all the games on the site with your faucets and while they might be less than before, they are still plenty. Although this might not be the last time we have to adjust faucet rewards, rest assured that we will always keep them structured in a way that is fair to all players, new and old, as well as the site. Thank you for your continued support. 

6 Billionth Dice Bet Hunt

 Join the 6 Billionth Dice Bet Hunt!

To claim a reward, the player must report in chat in 5 minutes and must have at least 3 active days. Playmoney bets are not eligible. Rewarding bet must be at least 0.00005 BTC or altcoin equivalent (picking the rates at the time bet was placed).

If the rewarding bet doesn't fit the requirements, the next valid bet will be the winner.

Good luck!