How is crypto benefiting the gaming industry?

Just recently, Fortune Business Insights valued the global blockchain gaming market at $128.62 billion and expected it to hit $614.91 billion by 2030. Elsewhere, Statista expects the metaverse gaming sector to reach $31.6 billion in 2025 and $168.4 billion by 2030. All these statistics perfectly agree that online gaming and crypto tech might just be the ultimate power couple in the next few years.

Both industries thrive on innovation and appeal to tech-savvy audiences. For instance, consider the buzz around the Bitcoin price today – it’s a constant topic among financial and tech circles. This widespread attention shows how far crypto has come and how it is becoming a core part of everyday transactions, including gaming.

And as it continues to gain traction, it offers a significant opportunity for gaming companies to improve their edge. Keep reading to discover just how that is possible.

The age of instant payments

It’s no surprise that instant payments can actually be a competitive advantage. A recent PYMNTS.com study revealed that up to 78% of consumers consider these features important aspects of customer satisfaction. Plus, in countries like the US, the portion of those using instant payments has increased from 11% in 2018 to 41% in 2025.

Even for businesses, about three-quarters want their banks to offer these payment methods. No one wants to receive delayed funds; ignoring this preference could only lead to serious business losses. And in an industry like online gaming, where instant gratification is a thing, you don’t expect things to be different.

Thankfully, crypto has the needed infrastructure to ensure you can process players’ funds within no time. It eliminates the need for third-party organizations, which are usually responsible for payment delays in traditional methods. This also leads to reduced transaction costs.

Let’s take a token like Solana, for instance. With an average transaction fee of about $0.00025, Solana can support up to 65,000 transactions per second. This can be handy during peak seasons as it reduces the possibility of lags, improving player experience.

Appealing to more people

By improving player experience through crypto’s quick payment processes, you are likely to enhance your business performance. Remember, humans rarely keep quiet about positive experiences. In fact, according to experts, more than seven in ten will tell six or more of their friends about satisfying experiences.

The best part is that we often trust such information more than other marketing forms. Actually, studies claim that about 88% of individuals trust word-of-mouth suggestions more than any other advertising method. Since acquiring new players is becoming super challenging, you may want to take advantage of such statistics to stay ahead.

Plus, the number of crypto users is rapidly increasing. Just recently, Exploding Topics valued it at one billion. This is more than 12% of the world’s population – a figure that any serious gaming company would not want to ignore. And in most cases, you’d find many of these crypto users prefer crypto payments.

Actually, eMarketer recently found that 21% of holders had used it to make purchases. Another quarter confirmed their preference for merchants that have adopted crypto as a payment method. This is why you want to include digital currencies in your payment methods to appeal to this audience.

On top of that, crypto offers cross-border benefits. Think of it this way: You’re an online gaming site in Europe and want to expand into countries like Nigeria or the Philippines. Traditionally, this would involve tons of red tape, from new payment processors and local banking partnerships to currency conversions. Crypto gets ahead of all these challenges since it has no geographical limitations, allowing instant access to global players.

The power of improved security

At a time when cyberattacks have become prevalent, almost everyone is more attentive to their online safety. In fact, a good number of internet users often inspect whether a website is secure before doing business with it. The unfortunate thing is that when they perceive your brand as insecure, it may discourage further exploration.

It gets even worse if you’re involved in a security incident. According to statistics, you may discourage up to 21% of users from ever returning. This is why adopting more secure infrastructures like crypto can really improve your competitiveness, especially against those who don’t.

By decentralizing data, cryptocurrencies eliminate the chances of a single-point failure. This allows the network to continue running even if one centre is hacked. Besides that, crypto uses advanced encryption mechanisms that make it hard for attackers to compromise customer data. Plus, it is immutable, which prevents manipulation or alterations once the data is stored.

Akamai’s security researchers say cyberattacks targeting games increased by 94% between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024. Now that technology is advancing and threat actors always use it to improve their strategies, these attacks could increase even more in the coming days. That’s why you need more secure systems like crypto to get ahead of some of these attacks.

Therefore, crypto can actually benefit gaming companies in many ways. For example, it can help them cater to the increasing need for instant payments, which may lead to better business performance.

Its cross-border nature can be handy for companies targeting global audiences. Plus, at a time when cyberattacks are on the rise, crypto’s secure infrastructure can help these companies get ahead of threat actors.