Isaac Morehouse and Joshua Henslee on ‘Tiny Payments are a big deal’ Part 8: Gaming leads the way

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Part 8 of Isaac Morehouse’s “Tiny Payments are a Big Deal” YouTube series features Joshua Henslee as a guest with the provocative tagline of, “99% of Crypto Is a Joke.” 

So who is Joshua Henslee and why the title?

Josh Henslee is, according to Morehouse, “one of the best dudes out there in the crypto world”. 

Anyone who has dabbled in the BSV blockchain space is surely familiar with Henslee’s work as he’s one of the best resources for learning about blockchain and the ecosystem that surrounds it. Several years ago, Henslee quit his six-figure corporate world job to start working exclusively with BSV blockchain tech because he was able to see the potential surrounding it. 

Henslee opens up his conversation with Morehouse by pointing to the sad state of what’s made it to the mainstream with “crypto”—avatars of ugly apes, “key figures” wearing pajama bottoms and unicorn t-shirts, people buying up tokens with no utility and avoiding those actually serve a purpose.

“If you were an outsider looking in, you’d have to question, what are these guys doing?!” said Henslee. 

It’s 99% “garbage.”

It’s a long game

Morehouse agreed with Henslee’s assessment and asked how we can take this shocking reality of obsessing over “ugly apes” and continue to push the actual utility of tokens. Of NFTs. Of micropayments. 

“For me I’ve kind of resolved myself that its long term,” Henslee revealed.

Henslee said it’s frustrating for people who create something unique and useful, and the market rejects it if it isn’t going to 2x or 5x within days. Regardless of how frustrating it is right now, he is certain this type of behavior is not sustainable and eventually utility will prevail.

“I will say that the tiny payment thing is probably the biggest reason why I believe in it long term because that concept has just never existed in human history, the ability to send such a small amount so easily,” Henslee said.

“That’s not what got me into it, but that’s what will keep me here,” he added.

Start building before the tide goes out

The reality is the volume of people using BSV is small and as Morehouse says, until the “99% garbage” crashes and burns, no one is going to care about micropayment capabilities of BSV. Who wants to play around with fractions of a penny when you can mint a picture and make a thousand bucks overnight?

“If you want micropayment apps to succeed, stop buying NFTs,” Morehouse joked.

“The core value prop of NFTs is just being crapped on for the sake of short term profit…I do think it has to stop at some point due to natural market forces, it will be interesting to see how much longer it can go,” Henslee added.

For those who have the ability to build things now and wait out the storm, there is a real opportunity here, however.

“When the tide goes out, you’ll see who’s got their pants up. If you’re standing there with your pants up and you’ve got something real, suddenly everybody can see it and realize, ok, this washed away 90% of all this crap, but there are some real legitimate things happening,” Morehouse suggested.

Enterprises are not first movers

When it comes to jumping on micropayment capabilities and other unique functionalities of the BSV blockchain, the pair predicts enterprises will not be the first movers.

“They are just too slow and archaic…it’s a pipedream. They will come late to the party, I think,” Henslee said.

“I feel like it will be the consumer apps that dominate because they can be nimble, they can be more risk-adverse, especially if they only need a little bit to get started and they can really test stuff quickly,” he added.

While of course there are exceptions, Henslee said enterprises will look at these “little guys” and say, “we’ve got to jump in.” Morehouse agreed and confirmed this is the typical pattern—the consumer leads and B2B starts looking more like the consumer over time.

Gaming & gambling leading the way with micropayments

Both Henslee and Morehouse agree the BSV gaming and gambling apps are leading the way with utilizing micropayment functionality and the use cases are clear as day. Take CryptoFights, PowChess, PeerGame, Duro Dogs and Haste Arcade as examples. 

“To me, I feel like at least today, the company poised to have the most success in this arena is…Haste with that leaderboard payout stuff,” Henslee revealed. 

Morehouse added that people who are not into hard core gambling or risk taking could be enticed to bet a penny on something—the game they are watching with their buddies, prop bets—and with instant payouts, people can keep betting tiny amounts as the game goes on, adding an element of fun at a super low cost.

Growing the micropayments ecosystem

Henslee believes applications utilizing micropayments can be built right now using the tooling available, but people are not doing it for several reasons.

First of all, look at the “big names” who are “running the show”—there is a lack of professionalism in the whole blockchain space. Another issue is very few people have BSV to play around with, it’s difficult to get. HandCash’s recent addition of fiat on-ramps will help alleviate this legacy issue, but not necessarily solve it completely.

“You need a core value prop that’s really compelling and early on you need one that’s so compelling that people are willing to overcome a lot of friction,” Morehouse said.

BSV is hard to get, and this is a big hurdle…HandCash is helping…but on the other hand, if something is compelling enough, people will do it, the pair agreed.

The future is bright

While there are still hurdles to overcome and a bit of “waiting out” to do, Henslee is confident micropayments and the BSV app ecosystem space in general will eventually take off. 

“To me, it’s very hard for me to see a year from now how there’s less usage, less demand, less activity. Just because some of these guys, while they have apps, they have not even started with marketing because of some of the reasons we’ve talked about- because they realize this space is a huge clown show and the onboarding part,” Henslee explained.

The good news is some of these issues are being solved right now and features like referral links via micropayments are already starting to take off.

“If you want to onboard folks to Called It, they sign up through your [referral link], when they top up, you’re going to get paid. That stuff is just going to iterate and feed off itself and that’s what I’m happy with and excited about,” Henslee concluded.

Watch: CoinGeek New York panel, Online Games: Next Level on the BSV Blockchain