Crypto & Play-To-Earn Games

So I have been bombarded with ads on television, YouTube, and other platforms for various casino apps that show ridiculously huge payouts straight to PayPal. After seeing enough of them I decided to try them out. I grabbed my phone and began looking at the various apps deciding to try a few that pays straight to PayPal and a few that pays out in BitCoin.

The PayPal Games: Quick Money, Then Nothing

The first one I tried was called JackPot Piggy that paid cash straight to PayPal. The goal was to tap the screen A LOT and collect 500,000 gems. So I did it, and was bombarded with relentless ads but I eventually reached 500k gems. Payouts were at intervals of once every 3 hours. I waited the 3 hours, submitted my PayPal email, and was delighted to see PayPal notify me that $3.33 had been deposited. I collected more gems, waited the required amount of time, but this time the payout was $3.11. Not to be deterred, I played again but this time instead of a payout the gems I collected just vanished. Giving it one last attempt, the final payout was 64 cents. This was it for me as the scam became apparent. I was battling through tons of ads to play this game and watching my payouts dwindle or outright vanish. Gameplay was mind-numbing, obvious filler to get you to the next ad.

The Bitcoin Games: Better, But Still a Grind

Next, I moved over to the ZBD (ZEEBEDEE) network of games. These promise payouts in SATS which are just another unit of BitCoin. I tried 4 games being: Coin Factory, Merge & Drop, BitCoin Blasters, and Bits N Cash. The games were atleast a little more entertaining. Regular ads would sometimes payout SATS but ZBD restricts you to withdrawing 500 SATS per day per game. I collected 500 SATS in each game and cashed out straight to Kraken. Sure enough, I found $1.40 worth or so of BitCoin deposited to my account. I played the games for a few more days and found the SAT-per-ad dwindled, requiring more and more ads to earn the SATS.

The Math: Was It Worth It?

This was enough for me to confirm the advertisements I was seeing on TV to be horrendously misleading. I never expected the payouts of thousands of dollars to be real but the amount of time invested for the payouts I was receiving was not worth the effort. The “payouts” were real but whoever is collecting the ad revenue is the real winner. I made about $9.52 using these apps and it was an absolute grind to get there.

If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.

Better Alternatives

So what did I do instead?

I stopped chasing pennies. The time I spent grinding these games could’ve been better spent working an extra hour at my actual job, or even just enjoying my free time. If you value your time, you’re losing money playing these games.

For me personally: I set up automatic Bitcoin purchases on Kraken, set it and forget it. No ads, no grinding, and it actually accumulates instead of dwindling. But that’s just what works for my situation. Do your own research and make your own financial decisions.

If you still want to try play-to-earn: Stick with ZBD. At least their payouts actually hit your wallet. But don’t expect it to be sustainable or worth your time long-term.