Name of the Company: THNDR Game
Founder: Rafal, Greg Flor, Jack Everitt & Desiree Gawel
Date of Founded Re-launched in 2021| Re-launched in 2021
The location of the headquarters: London with Remote Team Members
The amount of Bitcoin held in Treasury “Not enough” (said Dickerson jokingly)
No. of employees 6
Website: https://www.thndr.games/
Public or private? Private Investigators
Desiree Dickerson is convinced that video games are an effective way of introducing people to Bitcoin.
In the recent past, She suggests that people have used games to become accustomed with new technologies.
“They put games on the original PCs to get users familiar with a mouse,” Dickerson spoke to Bitcoin Magazine.
“This is similar to Snake and Nokia,” Snake, she explained, was added as a game to the early Nokia feature phones “to get users familiar with the Nokia handset.”
Dickerson believes that games can play a similar part in getting users used to bitcoins on the internet. Lightning Network.
In 2021 she was instrumental in launching a new version of THNDR GamesA company which has created a series of mobile games that allow users to win sats You can play for free.
She was the ideal candidate for the position, considering her gaming background and experience with Lightning Network.
Dickerson’s History With Gaming And Lightning
Dickerson began gaming as a young child.
“I grew up gaming with my dad,” She recounted. “He had NES, and I grew up playing Duck Hunt with him.”
As her father had done, she has been exposed to many different types of games. “every single gaming console,” She stated that she views herself currently as “cozy gamer” And that she doesn’t play more consuming games (and scary ones) like HALO.
“It just has to be absolutely mindless like picking weeds in Animal Crossing,” Dickerson laughed as she described her gaming habits.
Dickerson has a rich history in gaming and she is also involved with Lightning Network almost since its conception.
She started working at Lightning Labs THNDR games was founded in June 2018.
Dickerson first met Jack Everitt when she worked at Lightning Labs. Everitt was working on THNDR, as a game developer. Dickerson had realized that gaming could be a great way to promote bitcoin.
Both began to work together on an initiative called MintGox A play on the now defunct Bitcoin Exchange Mt. GoxThey showcased what they like about companies. ZBDSatoshi’s Games and Donner Lab are building up in the Bitcoin gaming area.
Dickerson became CEO of THNDR in October 2021.
Build THNDR games
In the subsequent years, THNDR launched six new games. All of them were closer to cozy games as opposed to first-person extended play games or other games that require more sustained involvement.
Included in these games are Club Bitcoin: Solitaire, a classic Solitaire game; Tetro TilesA combination of tetris and sudoku; Bitcoin SnakeSnake is a variation of this game.
Club Bitcoin Solitaire, the 21st version of Club Bitcoin (is) due to be released in September 2022. numerical significance The THNDR Team was not unaware of the fact that the Apple App Store’s most popular app is the “ThnDR” App.
Lucky number 21!🤩
App Store #21⚰️
Numer 21
Thank you to our community & new friends who downloaded Club Bitcoin: Solitaire♣️
It’s just the start. Now it's time to help us bring #bitcoin Everyone you know.
Copy, paste, send, repeat:https://t.co/WvPTIDWLL6 pic.twitter.com/LqED2MWEWN
— THNDR (@THNDRGAMES) September 21, 2022
The year 2023 is October River’s Lightning Network report THNDR accounted for 3% growth in Lightning Network transactions.
Dickerson and his team were worried, however, that their success might not have been enough to bring the business to the level of profitability they desired.
“I think the problem that we saw was that we’d launched these mobile games and they were semi-successful, but does this really scale as a venture-backed company?” Dickerson Shared.
“We started thinking ‘Hey, we’ve created this new genre of Bitcoin reward games, but does it really solve a problem?'” She added.
Dickerson, along with the THNDR Team, pondered these questions and looked at the broader gaming industry. They found a segment that is ripe for change.
Next Frontier in Gambling: Skill-Based Betting and Clinch’s Next Frontier
Dickerson, along with the THNDR research team, found out that the current payment system used for online casinos and sports betting is antiquated. It’s also prone to friction.
“Payments in those spaces is just completely broken,” Dickerson, explained “There are super-slow withdrawals, high fees and not a lot of flexibility with buy-in and withdrawal thresholds — and Bitcoin solves that.”
THNDR refocused its efforts on creating a system that would use the Lightning Network’s fast settlement times and its capability to process microtransactions, in an effort to resolve the payment problems they discovered.
In October of 2023, THNDR launched ClinchAn API which facilitates peer-to-peer betting on Lightning, instantaneous and borderless with low fees. Clinch allows online gaming, gambling sites and sports books to improve the payment process.
THNDR built its own skills-based gambling version. Solitaire Users can bet a large amount of money.
“You couldn’t become a millionaire playing our [original] Solitaire game, but you can now if you start doing the skill-based wagering,” Dickerson does not necessarily encourage users to gamble more than their budget allows.
“85% of our users actually requested it, and it really uncaps the monetization potential of not just Solitaire, but a suite of different games,” She added.
Dickerson said that to give some context on the monetization possibilities, the company that is most successful with a Solitaire-based skill game earns $25 million per year from just that game.
THNDR is also looking beyond the business-to-customer (BSC) model, as it works to create white label solutions — pre-built products that a company develops and then sells to another company which then uses the product under its own name — especially for sports betting platforms.
“It’s an engagement and retention tool specifically for sports betting because, in between matches, users just leave the app because it’s like, ‘Okay, this game’s not gonna be finished for like another two hours. I’m just gonna close the app. There’s nothing to do,'” Dickerson, explains “They wanna keep people in the app and keep them betting on more things.”
More than Bitcoin
The team of THNDR also looks at other assets that they could use in games.
“We’d love to explore Taproot assets or other assets and like stablecoins,” Dickerson said to me.
You won’t see THNDR using tether on Tron any time soon.
“Users don’t actually need to see the Bitcoin piece,” began Dickerson.
“They can bet in fiat or USD, and it all happens on Bitcoin. I’d love to expose them to bitcoin, but it’s really the properties of Bitcoin that are solving the payment issues in sports betting and skill-based wagering,” She explained.
Dickerson, and his team at THNDR are not fiat-maximalists. They are Bitcoiners and a particular feature of THNDR proves that.
Disappearing Sats — For Your Own Good
Dickerson stated that many users of THNDR end up falling down the Bitcoin rabbit hole in part due to THNDR.
“We have a three day expiration on prizes, and if you don’t cash those prizes out, you lose them,” Dickerson, said
“You have to download a [Lightning] wallet if you want your prizes. We are getting people partially down the rabbit hole where they’re getting a wallet on their phones. This is a big step, because 80% of our users are totally new to Bitcoin,” She added.
Dickerson said that THNDR would happily refund sats for those who have had them expire. She said users should contact THNDR if this is a request.
Having said that, Ms. Yin also stated that THNDR would have been able to easily write in the Terms and Conditions of their service that sats which disappear after three day are lost forever. It doesn’t do this because THNDR wants to teach its users how Bitcoin and Lightning work.
“We just want people to cash out and have the sats for themselves,” Dickerson, said “That’s not a business move — it’s a Bitcoiner move.”
“This article is not financial advice.”
“Always do your own research before making any type of investment.”
“ItsDailyCrypto is not responsible for any activities you perform outside ItsDailyCrypto.”
Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
