{"id":26177,"date":"2024-06-25T18:08:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T18:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/2024\/06\/25\/play-games-win-bitcoin-with-thndr-games-ceo-desiree-dickerson\/"},"modified":"2024-06-25T18:08:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T18:08:30","slug":"play-games-win-bitcoin-with-thndr-games-ceo-desiree-dickerson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/2024\/06\/25\/play-games-win-bitcoin-with-thndr-games-ceo-desiree-dickerson\/","title":{"rendered":"Play Games, Win Bitcoin With THNDR Games CEO Desiree Dickerson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Company Name:<\/strong> THNDR Games<\/p>\n

Founder:<\/strong> Desiree Dickerson, Jack Everitt, Greg Flor and Rafal Gawel<\/p>\n

Date Founded:<\/strong> Originally founded in 2019 | Re-launched in 2021<\/p>\n

Location of Headquarters:<\/strong> London, UK with remote team members<\/p>\n

Amount of Bitcoin Held in Treasury:<\/strong> \u201cNot enough\u201d (said Dickerson jokingly)<\/p>\n

Number of Employees:<\/strong> 6<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.thndr.games\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Public or Private?<\/strong> Private<\/p>\n

Desiree Dickerson believes that games are a powerful way to onboard people to Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

She posits that, in recent history, games have been used to get people accustomed to using new technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put games on the original PCs to get users familiar with a mouse,\u201d Dickerson told Bitcoin Magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is similar to Snake and Nokia,\u201d she added, explaining that the game Snake was added to early Nokia feature phones \u201cto get users familiar with the Nokia handset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickerson sees games playing a similar role when it comes to getting people used to using bitcoin on the Lightning Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is why, in 2021, she helped launch a revamped version of THNDR Games<\/a>, a company that has developed a suite of mobile games through which users can win sats<\/a> just for playing.<\/p>\n

And she was the perfect person for the job considering both her background as both a gamer and her experience in working with the Lightning Network.<\/p>\n

Dickerson\u2019s History With Gaming And Lightning<\/h2>\n

Dickerson has been gaming since she was a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up gaming with my dad,\u201d she recounted. \u201cHe had NES, and I grew up playing Duck Hunt with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she\u2019s been exposed to a variety of different games over the course of her life, as her dad had \u201cevery single gaming console,\u201d she said that she currently thinks of herself as a \u201ccozy gamer<\/a>\u201d and that she isn\u2019t into more consuming (and frightening) games like HALO.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just has to be absolutely mindless like picking weeds in Animal Crossing,\u201d said Dickerson with a chuckle of her current gaming preferences.<\/p>\n

Not only does Dickerson have a long history with gaming, but she\u2019s also been involved with the Lightning Network since just about its inception.<\/p>\n

She began working at Lightning Labs<\/a> in June 2018 and stayed there for three years before starting at THNDR Games.<\/p>\n

Dickerson met THNDR\u2019s original founder, Jack Everitt, while she was still at Lightning Labs. She\u2019d come to the realization that gaming was a way to spread bitcoin, and Everitt, a gaming developer, was already hard at work developing THNDR.<\/p>\n

The two started working together on a project called MintGox<\/a> (a play on the defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox<\/a>) in which they showcased what companies like ZBD<\/a>, Satoshi\u2019s Games and Donner Lab were building in the Bitcoin gaming space.<\/p>\n

By October 2021, Dickerson was CEO at THNDR.<\/p>\n

Building THNDR Games<\/h2>\n

In the following years, THNDR rolled out 6 games, all of which were more akin to cozy games than they were to extended-play first-person shooters or other types of games that required more prolonged involvement.<\/p>\n

These games included\u00a0Club Bitcoin: Solitaire<\/a>, a classic Solitaire game; Tetro Tiles<\/a>, a combination of sudoku and tetris; and Bitcoin Snake<\/a>, a version of the aforementioned Snake.<\/p>\n

By September 2022, Club Bitcoin: Solitaire was the 21st (the numerical significance<\/a> of which wasn’t lost on the THNDR team) most downloaded app in the Apple App Store.<\/p>\n

Lucky number 21!\ud83e\udd29<\/p>\n

#21 in the App Store\u26b0\ufe0f<\/p>\n

NUMER 21!<\/p>\n

Thank you to our community & new friends who downloaded Club Bitcoin: Solitaire\u2663\ufe0f <\/p>\n

This is just the beginning. Now it’s time to help us bring #bitcoin<\/a> to everyone you know.<\/p>\n

Copy, paste, send, repeat:https:\/\/t.co\/WvPTIDWLL6<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/LqED2MWEWN<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 THNDR (@THNDRGAMES) September 21, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

In October 2023, River\u2019s Lightning Network report<\/a> highlighted the fact that THNDR was responsible for 3% of the Lightning Network\u2019s transaction growth.<\/p>\n

Even with this success, though, Dickerson and the team at THNDR still worried that it might not be enough to make the business as profitable as they wanted it to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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?\u201d Dickerson shared.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started thinking \u2018Hey, we’ve created this new genre of Bitcoin reward games, but does it really solve a problem?\u2019\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

While pondering these questions, Dickerson and the THNDR team looked to the broader online gaming space and found a dimension of it that was ripe for disruption.<\/p>\n

Gambling and Skill-Based Wagering: Clinch and THNDR\u2019s Next Frontier<\/h2>\n

In their research, Dickerson and the THNDR team found that the payment system for virtual casinos and online sports betting was antiquated and full of friction.<\/p>\n

\u201cPayments in those spaces is just completely broken,\u201d explained Dickerson. \u201cThere are super-slow withdrawals, high fees and not a lot of flexibility with buy-in and withdrawal thresholds \u2014 and Bitcoin solves that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, THNDR shifted its focus to developing a system that employed the Lightning Network\u2019s near instant settlement time as well as its ability to process microtransactions in efforts to solve the payment problems it had discovered.<\/p>\n

In October 2023, THNDR launched Clinch<\/a>, an API that facilitates instantaneous, borderless, low-fee, and peer-to-peer wagering on Lightning. Using Clinch, online casinos, sports books and competitive gaming platforms could level up their payment systems.<\/p>\n

THNDR also built its own skill-based wagering version of Solitaire<\/a> that lets users bet notable sums of money.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou couldn’t become a millionaire playing our [original] Solitaire game, but you can now if you start doing the skill-based wagering,\u201d said Dickerson (not necessarily encouraging users to bet more than they can afford to lose).<\/p>\n

\u201c85% of our users actually requested it, and it really uncaps the monetization potential of not just Solitaire, but a suite of different games,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

(To provide some context for just how much monetization potential it unlocks, Dickerson shared that the most successful company with a skill-based Solitaire game makes $25 million per month from that one game alone.)<\/p>\n

THNDR is also looking beyond the business-to-customer (BSC) model, as it works to create white label solutions \u2014 pre-built products that a company develops and then sells to another company which then uses the product under its own name \u2014 especially for sports betting platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an engagement and retention tool specifically for sports betting because, in between matches, users just leave the app because it’s like, \u2018Okay, this game’s not gonna be finished for like another two hours. I’m just gonna close the app. There’s nothing to do,\u2019\u201d explained Dickerson. \u201cThey wanna keep people in the app and keep them betting on more things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond Bitcoin<\/h2>\n

The team at THNDR is also looking at which other assets they can use within games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’d love to explore Taproot assets or other assets and like stablecoins,\u201d Dickerson told me.<\/p>\n

However, don\u2019t expect to see THNDR employing tether (USDT) on Tron anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsers don’t actually need to see the Bitcoin piece,\u201d began Dickerson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey 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,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

With that said, Dickerson and the team at THNDR have hardly become fiat maximalists. They\u2019re Bitcoiners at heart and one particular element of THNDR\u2019s design proves it.<\/p>\n

Disappearing Sats \u2014 For Your Own Good<\/h2>\n

Dickerson said that many THNDR users end up going down the proverbial Bitcoin rabbit hole, in part because THNDR prompts them to.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a three day expiration on prizes, and if you don’t cash those prizes out, you lose them,\u201d said Dickerson.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Dickerson added that THNDR will happily refund sats to those who\u2019ve had theirs expire. She mentioned that users can contact THNDR to make this request.<\/p>\n

With that said, she also noted that THNDR could have very easily written into the terms and conditions of its service that the sats that disappear after three days are gone forever. The reason it doesn\u2019t, though, is because it wants its users to learn how Bitcoin and Lightning actually work, not just maximize profits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want people to cash out and have the sats for themselves,\u201d said Dickerson. \u201cThat\u2019s not a business move \u2014 it\u2019s a Bitcoiner move.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Company Name: THNDR Games Founder: Desiree Dickerson, Jack Everitt, Greg Flor and Rafal Gawel Date Founded: Originally founded in 2019 | Re-launched in 2021 Location of Headquarters: London, UK with remote team members Amount of Bitcoin Held in Treasury: \u201cNot enough\u201d (said Dickerson jokingly) Number of Employees: 6 Website: https:\/\/www.thndr.games\/ Public or Private? Private Desiree […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crypto-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoins-101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}