Some tournaments on lichess have price money. You might have seen that this price money is usually sponsored by bitchess and handed out in Bitcoin. So what is Bitcoin and why would you use this instead of Dollars?
Bitcoin is a currency. It is peer to peer and works thanks to some very nice mathematics that makes it impossible to fake Bitcoin. But more importantly, it's an internet-native system. You can receive it on a Bitcoin address using a Bitcoin wallet (when you win Bitcoin in a tournament this should be explained in the winning message) and then convert it e.g. on a Bitcoin exchange to local currency. Most of lichess players are not American, so Dollars would be a poor choice. Also systems like Paypal would work, but there are countries where Paypal actually doesn't work. Bitcoin works everywhere, and even if for some reason you cannot convert it to your local money, you can use it for things on the internet.
Want to learn more? Want to try it yourself? Bitcoin.org has more information and a tool to choose a wallet. A wallet not mentioned there but my personal favorite because I mostly use Chromebooks is the Blockchain.info wallet. Don't use it for too big amounts, but as it even has a client on iOS it's probably the one you will love the most in practice.
Why limit lichess betting using price money from a sponsor?
It would be much more interesting seeing blockchain smart contracts incorporated in chess games. This way anyone could choose to play for 'coins'.
It seems like firstblood will use Ethereum contracts for gaming contracts.
https://steemit.com/firstblood/@jasonmcz/firstblood-the-esports-rewards-platform-built-on-ethereum-gets-down-to-business-with-white-paper-release
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