Chatbot: Chris Moss of Zebedee Interview

I'm Christian moss I am a co-founder of Zebedee. My role at Zebedee is head of game development.

Tell me about the product you working with today?

At Zebedee, we make a range of tools for game developers to easily add bitcoin into their games.

Our main product is A API (application programming Interface,) SDK (Software Development Kit,) using any engine like unreal, Unity or Sgs.

We also have some consumer tools; a gaming stylized bitcoin wallet to make bitcoin easier for gamers.

Then we have bots for discord and twitch bots we have a lot of integration with consumers.

Our main core product is the API or SDK for developers.

Tell me about your background and how you got involved in gaming and bitcoin and how those two paths marry together?

In 2013 I was an app developer in Australia and I was developing ios games for clients, at the time apple had released a programing language called swift.

I had to learn to make a game in the language, swift so I just made a new game out of it.

Kind of a flappy birds style clone game.

I heard of bitcoin at the time and I thought this is programmable money.

I can just easily add this into the game.

I don't have to ask permission to use the open bitcoin technology I added that.

People would play that flappy bird clone and the game would just send them a tiny amount of bitcoin.

a penny or a cent people like to play it because people have the chance to earn money.

That game took off and I became the first game developer, who began to play with monetization via bitcoin.

Talk me through how bitcoin relates to the game and how that going to pan out in the future?

Zebedee Demo

At Zebedee, we developed some sample games to show how bitcoin works in gaming.

One of the games we made is a Mario cart style game.

Everyone is familiar with Mario cart and the idea that we have coins on the track in the game.

But the coins don’t have any value just superficial trinkets to get.

Since bitcoin was digital money it was easy to change those coins, for actual bitcoin.

People who play the game instead of getting coins that are worth nothing can get coins that are worth something in bitcoin.

This changes the dynamic of the game in a really simple way.

To showcase to people that if you have collectables in a game that can be monetized into value…people seem to get that.

Tell me about the relationship between bitcoin and money and how that whole thing works?

Nintendo started off as a company that made gambling cards in an old Japanese game called hanafuda.

People were playing during the samurai period you would play that game with gold coins.

Ergo it made sense that the coins you played within the game earned you money.

However, when games became digital there was no way to add money to the games.

Eventually, we had in-app purchases but it wasn't quite money as we know it

It wasn't cash, it wasn't something you could hold you'd have an account somewhere.

It was kind of perverted but now with bitcoin.

I kind of see we are going back.

By playing physical games with physical coins now people can play digital games with digital coins.

It may seem strange to people as a new concept but I see it as the return of an old concept.

Because people like to play games and people like to collect coins.

Because bitcoin Is open and non-propriety it can be transferred from platform to platform.

An example of this is we added bitcoin to counter strike and people can earn up to $10-20 dollars a game in counter strike.

They can use their money to pay their rent or buy a keyboard at the end of the day it just becomes money really.

What is the most anyone has earned by using this system?

The most we have made is when we had sponsored e-sports tournaments.

They gave us a whole bitcoin to give away to a young person in brazil.

The beauty about bitcoin is we don't know much about them but that is a lot of money for someone in Brazil.

We had the counterstrike service, which ran 24/7, and you actually had to pay to enter and you win more by playing the game.

We have had a few people quit their jobs in south America; because they earn more playing this than they do working a regular job.

They are earning two to three times more than they would in their regular jobs

Bitcoin can appreciate over time someone saved $200 in bitcoin, which is worth $200,000 now.

RR: So the amount you earn in bitcoin appreciates over time?

That's what we're finding I think young people aren't familiar with this concept

Most people I say in England like my grandfather he would have a job and earn money put it in a bank account and the money would appreciate over time and get 10% interest.

We don’t have that in the modern age you earn money because inflation is 5%

People are realizing now if you earn a bitcoin it goes back to the old-style bitcoin where it goes up and down.

Eventually, if you hold over a long period it tends to go up because it's a scarce asset people are begging to see its attractiveness.

So if you have a hundred pounds in bitcoin in 2017 how much is it worth today.

2017 was the peak of bitcoin at $20,000 now the peak is $60,000 so its 3x time more valuable

Again it's 2013 it was $200 nobody knows where the price is going but in my experience, it has ups and downs because it's quite a new currency.

But over the long term, it goes up there is only.

21 billion bitcoin in existence if it really takes off and everybody wants some there’s not enough to go around but it will have to be worth more.

RR: yes off course the more people will want it the lower the value will be

Exactly supply and demand

What about here in the UK?

It's completely fine to use it the only thing you have to be careful of is you get a bitcoin at $1000 it goes up to $100,000 you have to pay your tax to HMRC right. Most bitcoin wallets and exchanges keep all that information for you so you know when you pay your taxes print something out and give it to your accountant.

How does the Zebedee app works?

We made a bitcoin wallet app that is focused more on developers we tried to make it easy so people don't have to worry about the techy side of bitcoin.

But you download the wallet you log in via email or discord, you press a button it logs you in and then you have a screen and it will say you have 0.00 bitcoin.

But we don’t actually call it bitcoin. we call it sats so 1 bitcoin is worth $60,000.

if I want to send you a dollar I have to send you $0.00 in the same way that pounds have pennies and dollars have cents bitcoin has sats.

say you have zero sats and then you can request sats from someone else like cash app you can request sats from somebody else type in 1000 sats requests, and then you can have a QR code, somebody will scan it there and send you the sats.

You can play a game at the end of the game they can have a QR code and the game will send you sats and we have a gamer tag.

When you download the app and install it you will be asked to choose a nickname and in the app, they can just send to a nickname send one $1 worth of bitcoin to a name tag.

It works like a cash app, but instead of saying dollars, it says sats.

what current games Zebedde is working with?

The most popular one is counter strike cs go we added a bitcoin into that we also have a gaming studio called Vika which makes some mobile games.

They release one called the wheel of trivia you can download and you answer trivia questions and after some questions, it will just send some sats automatically to your Zebedee wallet.

And the way they fund that is through advertising they make ads revenue and we give back some of that ad revenue to the player people can make money by literally just answering trivia questions.

Mobile games are the most popular one at the moment they can win bitcoin playing these games.

Talk us through the legal ramifications of bitcoin. How's it regulated how's it controlled?

Famously El-Salvador has made it one of their national currencies you can pay your taxes it's completely legal in another country.

like china is starting to clamp down on it.

But at Zebedee, we make it easy for people so they don't have to worry about the regulation.

In most free countries it's completely fine to have a bit coin however if you sell it you have to pay capital gains tax on it.

Its property a democracy that has property rights it's completely fine to use.

Is there anything else I should know?

Why bitcoin? Why didn't we make our own? It was the most well known it's the most liquid it's the easiest for people to use its easy for them to find a way to turn it into pounds or dollars.

It's easy to buy bitcoins it's most regulated so if your games studio wants to use blockchain in your game bitcoin is the most understood.

Its been around since 2008 new crypt currencies come and go but bitcoin has been the first one and it is the most stable one.

Thanks so much for sitting down with me at developing its been great meeting you.

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