Smart-contracts, game theory and a lottery that may never end
Blockchains let you write applications that no one owns or controls. Applications that are essential unstoppable.
One of the more dangerous yet intriguing smart contracts released recently I think could bear a wider introduction.
It's hard to sum up all at once but basically: part psychological experiment, part economic blackhole.
There is a large cryptocurrency prize pool. There is 12:00 hour time that is constantly decreasing. Once this timer runs out, the last 100 participants win a share of the prize pool Current this is around ~$17,000 USD per person in the top 100. To get in the top 100 list, you have to purchase "gift boxes". These are essentially tickets that increase in redeemable value as more money flows into the game. Every gift box purchase adds more money to the final pot, and also increases the timer by 2 minute + 30 seconds / box. For example, if someone purchased 10 boxes, then the timer would increase by an added 7 minutes (2 minutes plus 5 minutes). Ticker price is currently only ~$0.30 USD, making it fairly trivial for one player to add a large increment to the current time.
Obviously this is a variant of a pyramid scheme, as early investors are disproportionately rewarded.
How will this end?? How many people will pay $0.30 for a chance to win ~$17,000 USD? Also the more people that enter, the larger the pot is and the more attention there is preventing the clock from reaching zero...
Is all the money entering this game essentially stuck forever? Is this a lottery that gets bigger and bigger but no one every wins?
https://just.game/ https://justgame.hostedwiki.co/pages/FAQ