Sup fellow degens, 

Hope you had a great weekend watching the market (silent sobs). 

Let’s not look at the red candles no more and talk about a good ol’ standoff.

Usually, in this degen market, standoffs are the Bulls vs. Bears or the SEC vs. Utility.

This week is a bit different.

We are experiencing Crypto Casino Capital vs. Web2 Compliance. 

Budapest Major is the Super Bowl of Counter-Strike. Millions of viewers tune it to watch 2 teams of online maniacs shoot each other in an online game, insane energy, chats going ballistic, and a massive cultural engagement and profit.

You’re gonna ask me: “Dima, what does that have to do with iGaming?”

Hold on, let me explain what kind of a bomb the organizers of the event detonated: they signed Rollbit. Yes, that Rollbit. They just bought the headline sponsorship. 

To understand why this is such a degenerate topic to discuss, we need to first learn about the ugly breakup of Twitch and Rollbit.

Context: Twitch loves to give out permabans with or without any serious reason.

The big ban streak was in 2023, when following pressure from advertisers and angry parents from Facebook, Twitch rewrote its terms of service to nuke “unregulated crypto gambling.”  

Rollbit got all the hate: 

Understandably, streamers didn’t show anything even close that looked like the Rollbit logo.

Fast forward to this week.

Rollbit made a menace move and put Twitch in a huge pickle.

Rollbit is everywhere in one of the biggest esport tournaments in the world:

If a camera moves, Rollbit’s logo will be in the shot. If a pixel lags, it's because Rollbit said so. 

Now, imagine you're a Twitch streamer for whom streaming the event means lots of views and hype.

For Twitch, that means a lot of ad revenue.

Now because of their own rules, showing Rollbit will get everyone banned.

Thousands of streamers that generate enormous amount of money for Twitch and sponsors now face two choices. Both makes Twitch look horrible. 

It’s also all crashing down at the worst possible moment, Twitch is in a knife fight for attention with YouTube and Kick. The Major is a top-tier traffic event.

How do you ban the top streamers during the biggest streaming event of the year? 

That's how you hand your Q4 to your competitors on a gold platter. 

What does Twitch do? They capitulate. 

This wasn't an updated Terms of Service. It's a power acknowledgement 

Twitch quickly realized 3 things: 

So they did the logical thing: 

They silently chose traffic over their own terms of service.

Engagement over enforcement. Crypto money over advertiser optics.

Twitch emphasised that while Rollbit remains prohibited for direct promotion, “physical branding” like jersey logos or arena signs is permitted during streams.

How degenerate is that?!

Brands that pushed Twitch into compliance just watched their victory dance end.

Esports money was louder. 

We just watched a decentralized money sponsor force a centralized platform to fold. 

Crypto casinos are no longer fringe villains in esports. They are major sponsors with enough economic power to bend the rules. 

The money isn't compliant. The money isn't onshore. The money isn't brand-safe. 

The money is on-chain. 

The revolution is being televised. And it's sponsored by a crypto casino.

TL;DR: Twitch earlier banned crypto casino platforms like Rollbit from their platform, citing audience protection and advertiser integrity. But as the Budapest Major tournament approaches, and with Rollbit being the headline sponsor, Twitch has made a U-turn, allowing some form of crypto advertisement on its streaming platform.  

Stay degen,

Dima