I recently read a 100-page report written by Research And Markets.com last year, which analyzed the current status and future development of the online poker market. The report predicts that by 2032, the global online poker market will reach $283.4 billion, while the current market size is about $96.8 billion.
Texas Hold'em is the largest online poker competition. There are other games like Omaha, which are not comparable to Texas Hold'em in scale. Therefore, this article takes online Texas Hold'em as an example to analyze the necessity and practical cases of combining competitive online poker tracks with WEB3. Online Texas Hold'em is also divided into two categories: cash table and tournament. Cash table is the kind that everyone often plays at offline gatherings, and you can buy in chips multiple times. At present, the international community mostly classifies cash table Texas Hold'em as gambling, while tournament-type Texas Hold'em has been listed as an e-sports competition type by many countries and regions, such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, several states in the United States, etc. Taiwan in Southeast Asia has also clearly enacted laws to support Texas Hold'em tournaments as a type of e-sports project to carry out activities.
To be honest, I have been playing Texas Hold'em for more than ten years. I am a casual player who is not very good at it and therefore not addicted to it. Fortunately, I have done a lot of theoretical research. I bought several books to take notes, and I never get tired of watching various Texas Hold'em videos. However, I never thought that online Texas Hold'em is still a business worth hundreds of billions. After entering the crypto circle, I found that the proportion of friends who play Texas Hold'em in this circle is no less than that in the financial circle. There are several reasons:
First, although Texas Hold'em is about skills and psychology, the underlying gambling and luck are also the fundamental factors that attract players.
Second, those who can stay in the circle for a long time are either good at numbers or social geeks, and Texas Hold'em is most suitable for these two types of people;
Third, it is very boring for crypto people to face the computer every day. Having an easy-to-play online game as a social tool to connect with others can increase the emotional value.
Therefore, the user profile of the crypto community and the attributes of Texas Hold'em players can be highly overlapped. It is no wonder that after we have been exposed to the WEB3 Texas Hold'em community, we magically discovered that those top poker players who often appear in high-stakes cash tables such as WPTpoker or Huslter are actually crypto bosses...
If only the characteristics of the users in the two circles match, this narrative is not sexy enough to keep W Labs researching "crypto + online Texas Hold'em" for so long. Old friends of W Labs should know that in our second 10,000-word investment research article in 2022 (The Future Path of Gamefi's Chain Game Economic Model) (https://mirror.xyz/0x5c15d8bE6A1dcb715d998d60ed06732f71DCf432/PZscW7w1sbaOdXRUriLYZy8NZKYHH9cb8alShek4Lyc), we specifically used Texas Hold'em as an example to explain what kind of games are suitable for chain games.
Looking back at this article now, it only argues that blockchain games should be similar to Texas Hold'em based on the game rules of "easy to get started + thrilling every step", but it does not analyze it in combination with the characteristics of blockchain itself: If the main characteristics of blockchain are integrated into online Texas Hold'em, will there be a fundamental improvement in certain aspects of the original industry?
Huige, partner of W Labs, wrote an article at the end of 2022 (Comparative Analysis of Texas Hold'em GameFi Games)
(https://mirror.xyz/0x5c15d8bE6A1dcb715d998d60ed06732f71DCf432/PbYqPxB7EuRBs3AGuVxIokA8KmgtyZ2QFAYoDUxxEM4), which mentioned some changes that blockchain technology may bring to online Texas Hold'em. The reason why we wrote this article at that time was actually a byproduct of providing economic model consulting services to a WEB3 Texas Hold'em project. We simply wrote down some of our thoughts and ideas. The article briefly mentioned the convenience of payment and the transparency of licensing, which can be improved with blockchain technology. Two years have passed in a blink of an eye, and I am glad that some of these points are already being developed and verified.
Two years have passed, the WEB3 industry has experienced ups and downs, practitioners have separated and reunited, and after experiencing the helpless sigh of "it's all a bubble", we are more focused on studying those projects that may use the characteristics of blockchain itself to change a certain WEB2 industry or product. Even a little change is more reassuring than the Ponzi model of "I know it will definitely collapse, I just believe that I can run faster than others." So in the current sluggish market, we picked out some tracks or products, focused on tracking and analyzing, hoping to see their long-term development in the future, and the online Texas Hold'em track was the first target we picked out.
1. How blockchain technology changes online Texas Hold’em
Blockchain technology can completely fill in some of the current pain points in the online Texas Poker track. This is already a consensus among many teams engaged in blockchain Texas Poker. We will explain it systematically below.
1.1 How to prove that there is no cheating in the card dealing: transparency of card dealing
I remember when I started playing online Texas Hold'em a long time ago, an old classmate who was running a private online Texas Hold'em game at the time kindly advised me: Don't play big online, the cards can be adjusted at will. Think about it, the centralized card-dealing process can be adjusted at will by the platform's own scientists. So later when I was itching to play, I only played small games on Pokerstars, because Pokerstars is the largest in the world, and it doesn't have to do evil for you small scattered investors, but it still has the ability to do evil! This is like the centralized institutions in the crypto circle, which have always been balancing their brand value and the benefits of doing evil. For example, if you deposit tens of billions of U in a certain security, when a certain security has cash flow problems, would you not want to do some small tricks to embezzle some of your funds for emergency? Don't challenge human nature.
If the cards are dealt randomly using a protocol, and are recorded on a tamper-proof blockchain, and everyone confirms that these records have not been manipulated through zero-knowledge proof ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof), then the transparency of Texas Hold'em cards will be perfectly solved. Zero-knowledge proof is a powerful concept in cryptography. Academician Yao Qizhi of Tsinghua Yao Class is an expert in this field. It is a way to prove the authenticity of something in a certain way without revealing any specific information about the thing.
Some people say that some excellent online Texas Hold'em games now use the RNG (Random Number Generator) mechanism instead of a simple card-handling mechanism. Doesn't this ensure the fairness of the cards? I am a layman in technology, so I humbly consulted some code experts. The conclusion is: RNG also has different levels of design, and it is still under centralized control. Even if the RNG process itself is fine, the exit and entrance will still be controlled by humans. Therefore, if RNG is regarded as "anti-cheating system V1", the ZKP + RNG mechanism of blockchain can be called "anti-cheating system V2".
How to embed zero-knowledge proof into the Texas Hold'em card dealing system without affecting the smoothness of the dealing process and the player experience has been developed by different teams in the past two years, and it is very expensive. But I think this is the most basic point that blockchain technology can change the online Texas Hold'em track. With this point, other points can be added to the icing on the cake.
1.2 How to prevent collusion and account manipulation: fairness among players
It is impossible to completely solve the problem of cheating and playing with fake cards in online Texas Hold'em. Human greed is endless. What the project can do is to continuously increase the cost of cheating and playing fake cards without affecting the gaming experience of regular players.
The WEB3 Texas Hold'em projects we have played have various ways to deal with collusion and number brushing, which are mainly reflected in the rules. For example, some projects have cash tables, and only the administrator sends links to invited members, and the link becomes invalid after one entry; for example, MTT Sports, which has the strongest rewards now (this time it held a big event on Singapore token2049, because the official competition started in October, 1 BTC is given as a bonus every week, and a total of 100 BTC is waiting for Texas Hold'em masters from all over the world to play), gave up the cash table business model and only did competitive competitions. Moreover, high-level competitive competitions must require a higher level of identity authentication, and they need to show their faces to verify their identities. At the same time, players will be asked to change tables randomly during the competition.
The improvement of blockchain technology in this regard is that it can determine which accounts are partners or small accounts within a certain range based on the big data of players recorded in the blockchain, and then make a decision. If players are dissatisfied, they can appeal, because the actions that happened before are recorded in the chain anyway.
1.3 How to protect funds: decentralized wallets
If Texas Hold'em players still remember how Full Tilt Poker, which was once popular more than a decade ago, went bankrupt, they should all support the introduction of blockchain decentralized wallets.
More than a decade ago, Full Tilt Poker was second only to Pokerstars. Even the poker god Ivey supported it. However, the centralized system caused the team to lose players' deposits of $400 million to only $60 million, and many people lost all their money.
This kind of thing is actually very common in the crypto circle. The FTX incident is a replica of Full Tilt Poker. If you can use a decentralized wallet to log in to online Texas Hold'em, the main assets are placed in a decentralized wallet, and the project party has no right to call the assets in it, and only a small amount of funds are placed in the project's centralized account to lubricate the game process, even if the project runs away, most of the assets are still in your wallet.
1.4 Convenience of circulation and payment: automatic settlement of cross-border contracts
Long ago, when playing Pokerstars, you could only find sellers on Taobao to top up your account. This strange business model existed because of circulation obstruction. What if there is no Taobao in a certain area? The last benefit that blockchain brings to online Texas Hold'em is that entry chips can be obtained as long as there is an Internet connection, and the rewards are automatically settled through the contract embedded in the game rules. If you want to cash out, you can do it through the WEB3 withdrawal channel.
In this article, we summarized how blockchain can change several native features of WEB2 "Online Texas Hold'em", which can directly hit the pain points that users suffer from but have to accept from WEB2 online Texas Hold'em projects. Such projects can combine blockchain technology to produce a chemical reaction, so that the team, investors, and users can establish a slightly longer-term basic consensus: this project is at least trying to change some existing unreasonable phenomena. In the next article, we have prepared some actual WEB3 Texas Hold'em project cases to discuss in detail.
Next, we will use cases to specifically analyze which pioneers have appeared in the market. In recent years, many projects have entered the online Texas Hold'em of WEB3. Guatian friends have studied and experienced more than a dozen of them: Coinpoker, W3poker, NUTSDAO, GalaGame PokerGO, XCard 7Deuce, zkHoldem, PokerDAO (Mental Poker), InPoker, Web3 Poker Club, DreamPokerClub, Macondo, CCpoker, ChipChip, MTT Sports...
Many projects have disappeared as of today, and some are still operating at a low cost, but the daily activity data is very pitiful. To be honest, some teams just packaged a set of online Texas Hold'em code with the concept of WEB3, issued NFTs and then issued tokens, collected some money and ran away, but this is also the basic operation of WEB3. So far, there are really not many that can persist in operation and whose business models can still turn around. In the WEB3 world, we selected the most influential cases of two types of Texas Hold'em cash tables and tournaments to analyze.
Case 1: Coinpoker, the representative of cash tables
Coinpoker is an evergreen in WEB3 online Texas Hold'em. I have had no choice but to play on Coinpoker in recent years. To be honest, it is a helpless move, because most WEB3 online Texas Hold'em games basically shut down within a year. Coinpoker has been operating since 2017 and is relatively stable.
One point that Coinpoker emphasizes in its publicity is the transparency and fairness of the card dealing, and the RNG random numbers it uses have also been notarized. The game mode is still mainly cash tables, and users can play by depositing USDT. There are about 500 players online every day.
The project issued a CHP Token (trend chart below), which was not listed on any exchange, but only placed orders on decentralized DEX. The design of the token's empowerment and output was even more ordinary. We feel that because cash table games will be classified as gambling, investment institutions and exchanges are reluctant to have any relationship with such projects.
As far as the product experience is concerned, I really want to complain a lot, so I took two pictures for you to see:
The interface at the table: players did not return to the center position; and there was only one shortcut key for raising the bet to 3 times; there was no shortcut key for Check/Call...
Main interface: It seems to have many functions, but only the cash table is popular, and it is hard to find a table...
The above-mentioned bad product experience made me, who was used to playing WEB2 online Texas Hold'em such as Pokerstars a few years ago, really uncomfortable. It was like suddenly switching to 2G after getting used to 4G network. Even the most important recharge step was confusing. There was no user guidance. I tried to transfer a small amount carefully and successfully before I was sure that my exploration was correct. The reason why Coinpoker currently dominates the cash table online Texas Hold'em in WEB3 is not how good it is, but that its competitors are so bad. After two or three years, they basically died, not to mention comparing product user experience. No wonder so many WEB2 investment institutions think that WEB3 products are a big Ponzi scam. After so many years, the product experience has not been improved, and they only do CX and issue coins every day.
Of course, there are still two points worth praising about Coinpoker: first, withdrawals are almost instant; second, user registration only requires an email and a mobile phone, making it convenient for WEB2 users to access.
Case 2: Tournament representative MTT Sports
When we first came into contact with this product, we found that its white paper clearly stated the mission of the MTT Sports Foundation: to use decentralized technology to create the world's most successful multi-table e-sports brand and promote the MTT model of e-sports into the Olympics. This ambition has to be said to be very shocking. Although e-sports has become a major event in some large-scale sports events, such as the 2023 Asian Games, there are seven e-sports games such as (League of Legends) that have become new events in the Asian Games. However, if e-sports games can really enter the Olympics, it will undoubtedly be a huge improvement for the image of the entire industry, and it can popularize the consensus that poker bidding competitions are not gambling.
In terms of the current product experience, MTT Sports is not only a top-tier product in WEB3 online poker, but also a top-tier product in WEB2. You can experience it yourself:
https://sports.mtt.xyz/?i=30d8b409
When I first started playing MTT Sports, I clearly felt that it had several notable features in its products:
This is a web-based product. You can play it by clicking on the URL link on your computer or mobile phone (the mobile phone can directly use the link to generate an APP icon, which is very convenient to enter), which reduces the difficulty of user access. Many online Texas Hold'em games require downloading an APP, which actually increases the difficulty of user access.
Students who have played it should be able to experience the smoothness of MTT. For a web game to achieve the same response and speed as an APP, the technical level of the project team must be quite strong.
The login account is fully compatible with three modes: Google account, email + password, and encrypted wallet.
Comfortable game interface, this is the interface on the computer:
The mobile experience is the best:
Because of the amazing product experience above, we began to track and investigate the MTT Sports project, hoping to ambush opportunities early on.
The following are some analyses after the survey:
1. Product Positioning
MTT Sports is not just online Texas Hold'em. Just like its full English name Multiple Table Tournament Sports, it aims to create an "online multi-table game competition" that combines blockchain technology. Texas Hold'em is MTT's first game, and it has also developed an EVM public chain based on Cosmos. Let me make it clear here that currently MTT can only play tournaments, not cash tables! MTT Sports is positioned as an e-sports WEB3 project.
Is there a future for this kind of online poker e-sports project? Let me give you an example. The most influential WEB2 Texas Hold'em event in the world is WSOP. Last year, the number of applicants for its offline main event exceeded 10,000, with a total prize pool of up to 93 million US dollars, and the champion could receive 12 million US dollars.
The economic model of the tournament is simple and effective. Most of the prize pool comes from the ticket revenue of the registrants, and a small part comes from peripheral income such as advertising. In other words, the players' income comes from individuals who have a real willingness to pay, rather than the principal invested by old users similar to the Ponzi model, and the income comes from the principal of subsequent players. Therefore, the economic model of the tournament type is healthy and sustainable in the long run. You can make a profit because you are confident in the transparency and fairness of the game rules + you are confident in your competitive ability. The Ponzi competitive model can make a profit mainly by "entering early + running fast".
II. Project Background
On MTT’s Twitter account @mtt_sports, we did not find any description about the background of the project, nor did we see any relevant information in the three current versions of the white papers. We only know that it is operated by an overseas team.
Before Singapore token2049 in September 2024, MTT Sports basically maintained a low-key testing image. But after the competition started in the first week of October, all data began to soar: the number of Twitter followers is currently 16,000, the number of DC community members is 305, and the number of Telegram community members is 34,000. However, there are about 600-700 people online every day to play mining competitions and daily competitions. This should be the project with the highest daily activity in the WEB3 poker track. Friends who have done their KYC know that it is very strict, and basically all users are real.
Some friends in the GuaTian community started playing the beta version of MTT before October, mainly because of this official tweet
https://x.com/mtt_sports/status/1835142937140748674
It's very simple and clear: the official competition will start on October 5th, and one BTC will be rewarded every week until 100 BTC is distributed! Originally, most WEB3 users came here to make money, and some melon friends only started to learn Texas Hold'em at that time, so don't compare your learning ability with WEB3 users, hahaha! Recently, some friends sent me private messages to ask me, is this project reliable? Is it worth following in the long run? I can only reply with my personal judgment: it is definitely worth it! Because we found some clues about the main investors of this project, they have strong industry experience and technical background, which also explains why the product experience of MTT Sports can be so good.
3. Project Planning
There are three sets of white papers for MTT Sports, one for the public chain MTT Network, one for MTT Tournament, and one for token economics. In order to promote MTT Sports, the project adopts a free entry model for users, which is the most popular free game for WEB3 users. As long as you think you are good at playing cards, you can get rewards if you rank high. Currently, several levels of online competitions have been opened. This article will introduce how to play in detail later.
There are some things in the white paper that particularly caught my attention:
- There will be large offline competitions every year, which are likely to compete with WSOP;
- Allow qualified individuals to open and manage clubs, and Guatian Community strives to become one of the first club openers;
- A very strict identity verification mechanism, with the highest level requiring facial verification;
- The RNG card distribution mechanism has been described at great length, but the current white paper does not yet show how to verify whether this mechanism is transparent and fair, and whether blockchain technology has been integrated into the card distribution mechanism.
4. Economic Model
Currently, the main rewards for players participating in mining competitions, daily competitions and weekly competitions are MTT Tokens (there are also BTC rewards for weekly competitions), which is the only token of MTT Sports. The total number is 2.1 billion, and it is not currently listed on CEX and DEX. The distribution diagram is as follows (see the white paper for detailed explanation):
It can be found that the main output comes from event rewards, accounting for 40%. This version of the white paper gives a detailed description of the output of MTT tokens, which we summarize and list in the figure below, but the white paper mentions very little about the consumption scenarios of MTT, so we can only write based on the current product experience.
In fact, there are many scenarios for the consumption of MTT Token. After internal brainstorming, W Labs lists several for the project team’s reference:
1. Low-level events are free to participate in, and high-level events and offline events can use MTT tokens as admission tickets;
2. Players need to pledge MTT tokens to establish and operate clubs. After the club becomes popular, they can auction club seats with MTT tokens as the bidding subject.
3. During offline events and activities, some peripheral sales and sales of partners can be paid with MTT;
So from the perspective of the economic model, MTT Sports does not have as many fancy things as other WEB3 projects. It does not have NFTs and only uses a single token, which is more in line with the business logic of competitive games: if you want to make money, you have to win. The current tournament model can be used as the basic scenario for MTT Sports. Subsequent extended scenarios can include club competitions, or the MTT brothers and sisters of Texas Hold'em celebrity idols who have overcome difficulties, etc. Hahahaha, by then, there will be more application scenarios for MTT Token.
5. How to get started
Let's take the computer web page as an example to briefly explain:
After a new user enters the website, he/she must first register an account, and then undergo KYC certification at different levels. Then, select Tourney in the left column of the main interface to enter.
There are currently three types of events in Tourney, and you can register and enter the event at the designated time:
Mining competitions every hour (purple icons):
The top 20-40 players (money circle) will each receive 10-15 MTT Tokens based on the number of participants. The game ends when the number of players in the money circle is eliminated. Before October, the first place winner will also be called the champion. The reward is small, but the honor is great! The mining competition is for everyone to practice.
Daily competitions (blue icons) start at 20:00 (UTC+8) every day:
After entering the money circle, the first place will be decided. The rewards for different rankings are also different. For example, the first place in the daily competition will receive about 800 MTT Tokens as a reward.
Weekly races every weekend (green icons):
The tournament with the highest rewards currently has a total weekly prize pool of 1BTC + 100,000 MTT tokens. The 9 players at the final table share 1 BTC, and the top 200 players share 100,000 MTT tokens. The weekly tournament has the most participants, with nearly a thousand participants in the first week.
There are multiple qualifying matches (Seat to DAY1) from Tuesday to Friday, and the top dozens of players are rewarded with a ticket to the weekly competition. On Saturday, users who get the ticket can participate in the 20:00 DAY1A competition or the 24:00 DAY1B competition. If you accidentally lose all your money in the middle, you can buy in again, but you must spend 110 MTT tokens. The top DAY1 players can enter the DAY2 competition at 8 pm on Sunday. The chips from DAY1 can be brought into the DAY2 competition. DAY2 is a bloody elimination competition, which is the most torturous. In the end, only 9 people will enter the final table at 8 pm next Monday.
After registering for the event, click My Games under Tourney to see how many events you are going to participate in. It also thoughtfully adds a countdown to remind you when you need to enter.
The Rank, Shop and other function columns are now open, and everyone can explore and familiarize themselves with them.
VI. Future Outlook
MTT Sports is a product with a very unique position in the WEB3 track. It is the only product we have seen so far that only has tournaments and no cash tables, while other online poker games all have cash table gameplay. This has given the green light to MTT token to many investment institutions and exchanges that are optimistic about Texas Hold'em and e-sports: MTT Sports does not involve sensitive gambling, so cooperation is possible.
Currently, MTT Sports’ profit model is very clear. As long as the revenue from tickets and other sources is calculated to be greater than the revenue from the prize pool, this is a profitable business model. In addition, the 100 BTC invested by powerful shareholders can ensure the long-term operation of the project.
Currently, users can obtain MTT tokens by participating in various competitions. They can hold on to them and wait for their value to be realized. We believe that MTT tokens may bring greater surprises to everyone.
Finally, let me summarize this article. W Labs has been in the WEB3 application track for more than three years. Its research categories cover blockchain games, social networking, RWA, etc. It is constantly exploring what kind of projects can attract real users and establish long-term business models.
There are two points that have gained consensus among some friends:
First, blockchain technology can be used to make up for the shortcomings of WEB2 products, or to upgrade the product to achieve a better user experience. For example, online Texas Hold'em card dealing, anti-cheating and asset storage can all be improved with blockchain technology.
Second, the product quality itself should at least be polished to a normal level. It doesn’t have to be “Black Myth: Wukong”, but at least it shouldn’t look so fake.
This article is finished.
Disclaimer
The information in this material is derived from public or other information that we believe to be reasonably reliable. Guatian Laboratory makes no express or implied warranties as to its accuracy, adequacy, completeness or appropriateness for its use.
The information, introduction, data, etc. in this material are for readers' reference only. Under no circumstances should any content of this material be regarded as any invitation or recommendation, and does not constitute investment advice. All risks that may be faced by investment-related project assets (including but not limited to: investment risk, management risk, legal risk, tax risk, liquidity risk, credit risk, policy risk, economic cycle risk, interest rate risk, operational risk, risk caused by force majeure, etc.) shall be borne by the investors themselves. Guatian Laboratory and/or its related personnel shall not bear any legal responsibility for any consequences caused by relying on or using this material.
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