A Hyderabad-based entrepreneur, Prashant Surana, plans to introduce his own cryptocurrency, one of the first in the city, for online gaming enthusiasts. The virtual currency, akin to Altcoins, will be issued in April through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Called the Universal Gaming Coin (UGC), the coins can be bought with Ethereum and Bitcoin cryptocurrencies.
The gamers can use these coins to play games such as Poker, Blackjack and Rummy. “Till date, we have tied up with one domestic game portal and 10 international sites, and this is expected to go up in the coming days,” Mr. Surana said.
The UGC would provide Blockchain chain-powered platforms to the online gaming industry. It aims to unify the gaming universe by bringing it onto an omni channel ecosystem. With Blockchain, Mr. Surana and his team want to bring 100% transparency across the ecosystem and help regulators keep track on real-time basis.
Steady growth
While there was a steady growth in the global market and an ever-increasing popularity of online gaming, there was still a lack of transparency and inability to provide sufficient liquidity among most of the providers, according to the team behind UGC. At the same time, the players were tied to their local Poker site and restricted by local currencies which resulted in a shortage of played tournaments and long waiting times for players.
Another issue faced by the players was the fact that funds were tied to the provider’s site or, in some cases, even held by a third party and could not be directly transferred to other Poker rooms.
“All this will be a thing of the past,” said Mr. Surana and added that the UGC wanted to utilise a single currency while giving total power to the end user.
