Zach Bruch, the Founder and CEO of online crypto casino MyPrize, sat down with Cryptonews Podcast’s Matt Zahab for a comprehensive interview.
He talked about MyPrize emerging from stealth and already onboarding nearly 100,000 users.
Bruch also discussed why online casinos are a perfect vehicle for bringing more people into the crypto space.
Moreover, the CEO explained how the MyPrize team enables content creators to become small businesses, properly monetize their content, and gamble with their audience.
Onboarding Thousands of Users
Bruch entered the crypto space in 2010.
He worked in the startup world before moving to crypto-related companies, holding positions in Kraken, Cumberland Labs, and JST Capital.
This was a “really exciting time”, the CEO said, because it allowed him to observe the entire 2017 bull run, “which was wild to participate in.”
Bruch also co-founded the NFT platform Recur, which shut down last August, a month before the start of MyPrize.
MyPrize emerged from stealth in late March.
The first two weeks were “really exciting,” he said. “We’re onboarding tens of thousands of users. We’re about to cross 50,000 users.”
As of April 25, it has surpassed the 70,000 mark.
SEVENTY THOUSAND USERS ON MYPRIZE
Good thing there's no max capacity in this casino, bring ALL your friends with you.
Can't wait to let everybody in! 🎰 pic. .com/b0DGQVLqbW
— MyPrize (@myprizecom) April 25, 2024
The actual casino product hasn’t launched yet, but there is an early access product available for users to start earning points.
The product will come to market “in the coming weeks.”
Notably, MyPrize had the highest-ever pre-launch valuation for an online casino of $140 million.
The project raised $13 million in funding over two rounds ($5 million in October 2023 and $8 million in March 2024) from major players, including Dragonfly, Boxcars Ventures, a16z Scout, Mechanism Capital, Arrington Capital, Breed VC, JST Capital, 2 Punks Capital, and angel investors, among others.
Bruch met with all the teams that wanted to invest in the company to ensure that they were the right partners for this “long journey.”
He said the broader gambling space will experience a lot of growth, and MyPrize is likely to be a decades-long business.
“I really wanted to make sure that whoever we brought onto the cap table was super aligned with our long-term vision – not only for the gaming and gambling space but also for the crypto space.”
Bringing Users Into Crypto Through Gambling
Bruch was “obsessed” with Bitcoin in 2010, and that obsession shifted to “pretty much all crypto and the ethos behind it.”
One of his personal goals has been to onboard as many people as possible into crypto, “period.”
To understand how he’s accomplishing this goal, we first need to understand the online casino space more broadly, Bruch argued.
Less than 10% of the trillion-dollar global casino and gambling market is online. Therefore, “gambling has not had its internet moment yet at all.”
However, most online casinos today actually accept crypto as an on-ramp. MyPrize, too, started with crypto and will eventually add fiat.
Meanwhile, the Web3 world is filled with great products – but not many are interesting to a wide range of people.
At the same time, “everybody enjoys gambling.” It’s exciting, engaging, and entertaining.
Don't get us wrong, we love a good casino trip.
That's why we're taking the best parts— the social aspect and feeling of winning with your friends— and combining them with the comfort and convenience of playing online. 🎰 pic. .com/uxqRXhNLGB
— MyPrize (@myprizecom) April 25, 2024
Additionally, gambling has the most product market fit in history, Bruch remarked. “From day one of civilization, people wanted to speculate.”
Therefore, the combination of these two points – a massive industry and user interest – represents a huge opportunity.
And it can go further, the founder argued. This type of application presents an opportunity to onboard many new users to the crypto ecosystem.
“Our view is if we can build a killer application that onboards millions of users and then from there expose them to crypto, and also build a big decentralized GambliFi ecosystem over time, then we’re doing something very special.”
Therefore, MyPrize is starting as a centralized business and will build a much larger, fully decentralized GambliFi ecosystem.
This will enable regular people to get into the crypto space for the first time, but “it all starts with having a killer application that people can go and engage on.”
Turning Creators Into Small Businesses
Bruch also discussed MyPrize’s plan for the creator economy.
He argued that creators are not monetizing their content in a meaningful way.
So the team has been searching for a way to “effectively turn every single creator into their own small business.”
They would have no need for a large workforce but would still be able to monetize their content through engagement with their audience.
For example, a creator can stream their gambling content while interacting and betting with the audience, enjoying and participating in the event together.
As a creator you set up a dedicated room for your community to watch, interact, and play alongside you.
If you're hosting your own room in the casino, we feel that you should be part of the house.
— MyPrize (@myprizecom) April 15, 2024
This completely changes the interaction between creators and the community.
This is why the team is building the Bet Together feature. Ultimately, betting is a social experience, Bruch said.
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There is more!
In this interview, Bruch also discussed:
- his background and career before entering the crypto space;
- being one of the largest individual creditors to FTX, selected by the US DOJ to serve on the creditors’ committee;
- story behind the ‘MyPrize’ name;
- bringing new social capabilities to online casinos that capture the feeling of playing with friends;
- new streaming tools and monetization structures that better reward streamers;
- the evident development of the crypto.
Head on to the podcast episode to hear the rest of this fascinating interview.
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About Zach Bruch
Zach Bruch is the Founder and CEO of MyPrize, an online crypto casino.
Bruch previously held positions at Kraken and Cumberland Labs, where he ran their sales trading desk.
He later created his own trading operation and became one of the most profitable individual traders of all time.
Prior to founding MyPrize, Bruch served as an advisor at JST Capital, a financial services firm specializing in digital asset markets.