Introducing PevPot.com The Bitcoin Lottery

[ComboChris]

lol @ the fact that you put a donald trump quote on the bottom of the site.
Love the idea in general though, seems innovative.

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[dooglus]

When someone wins the lotto, we get the block-height of their transaction and figure out:

Code:

(1000 - BLOCKS_SINCE_STARTING)/1000

You get this fraction of "Early bird bonus pool". What ever is left over, will be carried to the next months early bird bonus pool.

Just to be clear, this scales the sponsorship from 100% down to 0% over the 1000 blocks, instead of the 100% -> 50% you originally proposed.

Is that what you intended?

[RHavar]

lol @ the fact that you put a donald trump quote on the bottom of the site.

It was a close toss up between that and George Bernard Shaw's "The many must lose in order that the few may win"

Just to be clear, this scales the sponsorship from 100% down to 0% over the 1000 blocks, instead of the 100% -> 50% you originally proposed.

Is that what you intended?

Yup, although it has the undesirable aspect of the final block being EV0.  I think it's worthwhile though, as from talking to people it seems the appeal of a large-pot is much more than the appeal of a small amount of EV (when the probability of winning is so low). I've talked to a few people who have said that the pot as it is just too small to get excited about.  So by scaling it harder, it should mean the +EV hunters will want to bet much earlier, filling the pot up for the more recreational players. =)

[NLNico]

In theory it sounds good and I hope it will be good.

Alternative result: the "EV+ betters" find it too risky to bet at start and it's not EV+ anymore to bet in the end > resulting in an "even" lower prize.

But let's hope it works out

[RHavar]

https://www.pevpot.com/verify

I've made an in-browser verification tool!  It has the benefit of using completely different libraries, and data source than I actually use. So it's a nice way to cross-check the results.



(Technical note: Step 1 of the verification tool is a little fragile, because it uses the bitpay insight API to get transactions, but the API doesn't say the block-height of the transaction, but how many confirmations it has. So I get the current block-height, and subtract from it. But if there's a block confirmation during the fetching step, it could give wrong results. I plan to switch to blockcypher API when they fix missing-data bug that they confirmed exists)

[chaoman]

If I specify my lotto payout address will it pay automatically without me having to sign? Also, can I mine into my personal lotto address?

[dooglus]

https://www.pevpot.com/verify

I've made an in-browser verification tool!  It has the benefit of using completely different libraries, and data source than I actually use.

Typo: "Strech the block hash"

Also, the block hash isn't automatically filled in in the stretching tool, even after I have fetched it. I have to copy/paste it, which seems like a step that could be automated.

And it would be nice if there was some kind of progress indicator while stretching, so I know how far through it is.

[RHavar]

If I specify my lotto payout address will it pay automatically without me having to sign? Also, can I mine into my personal lotto address?

Correct, and yes

[RHavar]

Typo: "Strech the block hash"

Thanks

Also, the block hash isn't automatically filled in in the stretching tool, even after I have fetched it. I have to copy/paste it, which seems like a step that could be automated.

That's kind of intentional, as I was planning on adding a "Do everything" button.

And it would be nice if there was some kind of progress indicator while stretching, so I know how far through it is.

Agreed, although that would require me to modify the PBKDF2 function to expose some progress events, which makes it more difficult to people to see I'm using an unmodified/fair library

[RHavar]

Also, can I mine into my personal lotto address?

BTW if you pay with the coinbase from a fresh block, it should work but won't be pretty. The earliest that coinbase coins can be moved is after 100 blocks (due to coinbase restrictions), but my code won't handle it perfectly. My code is unaware of this bitcoin restriction will actually fail to send it, and start doing an exponential back off, so by the time it sends it to the lotto address will be likely hours after the 100 block restriction expires. If you're planning on mining direct into a forwarding address, let me know and I'll better support the whole thing.

[dooglus]

Also, can I mine into my personal lotto address?

BTW if you pay with the coinbase from a fresh block, it should work but won't be pretty. The earliest that coinbase coins can be moved is after 100 blocks (due to coinbase restrictions), but my code won't handle it perfectly. My code is unaware of this bitcoin restriction will actually fail to send it, and start doing an exponential back off, so by the time it sends it to the lotto address will be likely hours after the 100 block restriction expires. If you're planning on mining direct into a forwarding address, let me know and I'll better support the whole thing.

I guess he isn't really mining to the address, but withdrawing from a mining pool to that address, in which case it would work fine anyway.

But maybe he's using p2pool or something that actually pays out coinbase coins.

[RHavar]

Only 6 blocks to go! Get your tickets in!


And remember, STARTING FROM NEXT DRAW (#3)

10% of sponsorship money goes to me (commission), and the remaining 90% goes to the: "Early bird bonus pool".

When someone wins the lotto, we get the block-height of their transaction and figure out:

Code:

(1000 - BLOCKS_SINCE_STARTING)/1000

You get this fraction of "Early bird bonus pool". What ever is left over, will be carried to the next months early bird bonus pool.


(Or in short: You'll be rewarded more for buying tickets early)


[Note: the 10% commission is only charged on sponsorship money, not players tickets. So you always win at least the sum of all lottery tickets)

[Dannie]

Just want to make sure I get it right: If I want to get all 90% of the sponsorship in draw 3, my bet transaction has to be confirmed in 385001 but not 385000 (in which my bet will go to draw 2), right?

[RHavar]

Just want to make sure I get it right: If I want to get all 90% of the sponsorship in draw 3, my bet transaction has to be confirmed in 385001 but not 385000 (in which my bet will go to draw 2), right?

Yup. If you hit 385000 you'll be draw #2.  (where you'll also get 90% of the sponsorship of draw #2). But if it lands on 385001 you'll qualify for 90% of the sponsorship of draw #3

I take it this: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/fe0950ba460a14466b2d7fa928c7fba856e502f3eebfd5ad94996c0ee08ad860?txoutIdx=0  is yours?  (cutting it close, I must say)

[Dannie]

Just want to make sure I get it right: If I want to get all 90% of the sponsorship in draw 3, my bet transaction has to be confirmed in 385001 but not 385000 (in which my bet will go to draw 2), right?

Yup. If you hit 385000 you'll be in the previous draw.

I take it this: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/fe0950ba460a14466b2d7fa928c7fba856e502f3eebfd5ad94996c0ee08ad860?txoutIdx=0  is yours?  (cutting it close, lets see if it makes it in)

Okay, thanks for the confirmation.

Nope that bet is not mine. I wish I am rich enough to be able to casually spend 10 btc on a bet like that lol.

[Rilla]

Hi,

when will be the results published?

Also, can you explain the "Early bird bonus pool" a little bit more? Is this something new?

[dooglus]

Hi,

when will be the results published?

Also, can you explain the "Early bird bonus pool" a little bit more? Is this something new?

I can explain:

if you bet right at the start of the lottery, you get the full bonus pool if you win.
if you bet half way through, you get half of it
if you bet right at the end, you get none of it

It goes down linearly. If you bet X% of the way through, you get (100-X)% of it.

[RHavar]

Yeah, Dooglus is correct. Tomorrow I'll update the homepage to make things a lot clearer about the early bird bonus pool.


The results of draw #2 are in:

https://www.pevpot.com/draws/2

The tentative winner 16.52418779 BTC is from 62008f827880930fce02a7d31d71fe7380ec9b5c86160d039bd96dd1d6a21fa2  ( sending 5.555555 BTC )

[Rilla]

Gratz to the winner and thanks for the explanation.

Why do you take 5000000000 iterations? I cant verify it using the tool (my browser freezes). Why not just one iteration? Or 10? Or 5.000? Why so many?

Thank you!

[RHavar]

Gratz to the winner and thanks for the explanation.

Why do you take 5000000000 iterations? I cant verify it using the tool (my browser freezes). Why not just one iteration? Or 10? Or 5.000? Why so many?

Thank you!

Basically the only point of this step is to waste time.


The attack it's designed to prevent, is if a bitcoin miner bought lots of tickets in the lottery, when they solved a bitcoin block they could check to see if they won the lottery or not. If they didn't win the lottery, what they could do is throw away that block (and its 25+ btc of rewards) and never mine it. Which would effectively give them a 2nd chance at winning.

So what we do, is make the check take a long time. Like an hour-long. So the hypothetical miner, if they found a xxx006 block would have to spend an hour to check if they won the lottery. During this hour they have a MASSIVE risk of having their block orphaned (even a large pool, even if they were burning money privately mining on top of it) so the economics become pretty infeasible.