The Blockchain World Conference will end its three-day Atlantic City run—July 11-13—with an unprecedented event: a 100-player poker tournament conducted entirely in cryptocurrency. The tournament mark
The Blockchain World Conference will end its three-day Atlantic City run—July 11-13—with an unprecedented event: a 100-player poker tournament conducted entirely in cryptocurrency. The tournament marks the first casino-sanctioned all-crypto poker event of this scale.
The poker tournament runs July 14 at 11 a.m. ET at a casino venue in Atlantic City. Blockparty, a blockchain-based ticketing platform for live events, manages all tournament operations: registrations, cryptocurrency buy-ins, and payouts. Blockchain World Conference attendees can enter the tournament by paying $250 in cryptocurrency through the Blockparty platform.
First place wins two VIP passes to the next Blockchain World Conference—scheduled for December 3-5 in Hollywood, Florida—plus a three-night stay at the Diplomat hotel. The package totals $10,000. Blockparty offers bonus prizes to any player who eliminates a professional poker player during the tournament. Blockparty covers the entry fee for 10 additional players who want to compete.
Alex Falcone, chief operating officer of the Blockchain World Conference, said the poker tournament provides a fitting close to the three-day event. "After three days of discussions about blockchain and cryptocurrency, this is a fun and unique way to bring our event to a close – highlighting a compelling real-world application of this technology, in true Atlantic City fashion," Falcone said. "The Blockparty team are incredible leaders in blockchain-based live event ticketing and they are the perfect partners for us to work with for an event of this caliber."
Shiv Madan, CEO of Blockparty, said the poker tournament demonstrates that mainstream audiences recognize the value of blockchain-based ticketing solutions. "As one of the first true real-world applications of blockchain and cryptocurrency, we're excited to add another event category, like poker, to our ticketing repertoire," Madan said. "It's a great testament to what we've built that the mainstream music scene and crypto enthusiasts alike are recognizing the ease and convenience of our platform and this is a great taste of what the future holds as mainstream adoption of blockchain only continues."
In May, Blockparty launched a mobile application on the Apple App Store. The app enables users to purchase event tickets, transfer them to others, and collect rewards for inviting friends to events and sharing event information with their networks. The company built the platform to solve persistent problems in the ticketing industry. Fraudulent tickets harm consumers and cut into organizer revenue. Secondary market resellers capitalize on demand spikes to scalp tickets and drive up prices. Blockparty's blockchain infrastructure addresses both problems by creating a transparent, tamper-proof record of ticket ownership and all transfers between parties.
