y4x.com: BTC awarded on first block that has a bid

[dooglus]

OK its not so cool after all....big miners could easily cheat ;/

Interesting.  I guess they could.  Just exclude any transaction of higher value to the same address.

I don't see a way around that, either.

In other news, I won! 



Not that anyone else was playing mind you...

[dooglus]

In other news, I won! 

I just noticed that you didn't pay the winnings to the address that I sent my bid from, you paid it to the address that the change from my bid went to.

In general that might be a dangerous way to do it.  You can't be sure what's change and what is a payment to someone else in the same transaction.

Suppose I sent my bid to you and paid a debt to a friend in the same transaction.  Then my transaction would have 3 outputs and you couldn't tell which was my friend's address and which was my change address.

It's better to pay the winnings to any one of the addresses in the inputs of my winning bid transaction.

My bid:



Your payment to me:

[BitcoinHoarder]

Nice win!  Yea playing a one man game though...

I will check the polling script for how it is determining the return address.  I admit its a protocol that can leave you doing research 

I have thought about how to do continuous games considering its automated... I think what I'm getting to is that when a game is closed the system sets the next one to start five minutes later.  That way a game can safely run on and still be continuous.

[dooglus]

Nice win!  Yea playing a one man game though...

It is easier to win when you're the only one playing...  

Have you considered what happens in the event of a blockchain reorganisation?  It's not unheard of for some blocks that have been found to be replaced by completely different blocks with different sets of transactions.

See http://blockchain.info/orphaned-blocks for a list of when this has happened.  It happens on a daily basis, and can easily change the result of your game.  History gets rewritten and the big payment that you thought hadn't made it into the first block now is in the first block...

Edit: the obvious solution is to wait for 6 confirmations before paying out the winner.  Reorgs almost never rewrite that much history.  Can your script handle starting a new game while the previous one is still awaiting confirmations to be sure you got the correct winner and prize amount?

[BitcoinHoarder]

Edit: the obvious solution is to wait for 6 confirmations before paying out the winner.  Reorgs almost never rewrite that much history.  Can your script handle starting a new game while the previous one is still awaiting confirmations to be sure you got the correct winner and prize amount?

I currently have it written that 1 confirmation is enough, so yes, orphaned blocks should be considered.  However, the rules do not state that it's the first block that survives the main chain, it's just the first block my server gets its hands on.  So a block is a block, even if it is eventually orphaned.  My thought for now is to leave it with 1 confirmation.

[BitcoinHoarder]

OK its not so cool after all....big miners could easily cheat ;/

I actually didn't think that was cheating.. part of playing the game is while the window is open you should mine with your ASICs so you can control the next block

[Nite69]

Using these tagged addresses might not be a good idea ;-)

http://blockchain.info/address/1K9Wv6xRKE5HdnK2jQ1W1d2Tza3iSwQ8gB

[Nite69]

some competition please! I'm getting free bitcoins!

[Nite69]

It is easier to win when you're the only one playing...  

That's very true.. maybe there should be some intelligency to optimize game at times when there is more players?
For example, normally at regular intervals, but if there is more than 1 player, then start next immediately?

[BitcoinHoarder]

It is easier to win when you're the only one playing...  

That's very true.. maybe there should be some intelligency to optimize game at times when there is more players?
For example, normally at regular intervals, but if there is more than 1 player, then start next immediately?

The algorithm currently calls for beginning games everyday at 2am and 2pm UTC/GMT.  When a game ends another begins 10 minutes later for a total of 4 games.  There is 2 rounds of games, 8 total games in a day.  If the game gets players then those parameters will be tweaked to allow for more games.

EDIT:  A couple minor changes to how return addresses are detected.  We shouldn't have any problems sending to part of a multi-address transaction.  Also, I am waiting for more confirmations because I want people to be able to look back and confirm that the correct winner was determined.  So even though blockchain.info shows the winner confirmed the payout will not occur until more confirmations have come in.

[Nite69]

Ok, sounds good. Some thought how possibly get more traffic to your site:

1. Tweet account with alarms some time before next game starts (maybe worthless, if you have regular times)
2. Some http code to be shared so others could include your game to their site.

When I think the psycology behind my own participance on the game, I think the initial prize could be smaller. With 0.1 initial bid, I hesitated participating to the game. When someone bidded 0.2, I ended up stopping, because I was afraid I could lose much.

With 0.001 or 0.01 bids, I could play that just for fun. Now the cost is a bit too big (~1€). Also with lower initial bid, the users who has only free BTC they have collected by watching youtube videos, could also play.

I think in the end it would not drop the income; when there are enought players, the bid will rise just as high as the players have guts to rise it.

One possibility to test good initial bid is just try several amounts. First game 0.1, next 0.01 etc?

Of  course, these are just one player's thoughts..

[Nite69]

One more thing; you should warn not to use web wallets, such as Easywallet.org or instawallet.org. They do not necessary have correct sending address.

[Yuhfhrh]

Ok, sounds good. Some thought how possibly get more traffic to your site:

1. Tweet account with alarms some time before next game starts (maybe worthless, if you have regular times)
2. Some http code to be shared so others could include your game to their site.

When I think the psycology behind my own participance on the game, I think the initial prize could be smaller. With 0.1 initial bid, I hesitated participating to the game. When someone bidded 0.2, I ended up stopping, because I was afraid I could lose much.

With 0.001 or 0.01 bids, I could play that just for fun. Now the cost is a bit too big (~1€). Also with lower initial bid, the users who has only free BTC they have collected by watching youtube videos, could also play.

I think in the end it would not drop the income; when there are enought players, the bid will rise just as high as the players have guts to rise it.

One possibility to test good initial bid is just try several amounts. First game 0.1, next 0.01 etc?

Of  course, these are just one player's thoughts..

Agreed

[BitcoinHoarder]

Ok I'll run 0.01 for a few and see what happens.

[Nite69]

Ok I'll run 0.01 for a few and see what happens.

#9 seemed to get some action, and you got some profit also, congrats! It was at 0.1 initial bid, thought (by accident?).

[BitcoinHoarder]

Ok I'll run 0.01 for a few and see what happens.

#9 seemed to get some action, and you got some profit also, congrats! It was at 0.1 initial bid, thought (by accident?).

That was set at .1 and I had the next one at 0.01.  I wasn't home for the last two runs and everything appears good.  The timing algorithm is that it runs five auctions that begin ten minutes after each other and then a four hour gap.  That one was #9 and #10 so there is a four hour gap now (10 is evenly divisible by 5).

[Nite69]

Ok I'll run 0.01 for a few and see what happens.

#9 seemed to get some action, and you got some profit also, congrats! It was at 0.1 initial bid, thought (by accident?).

That was set at .1 and I had the next one at 0.01.

Ok, but the site said "initial bid 0.01000000 BTC" for both bids.

One thing; there seems to be some delay before the initial bid is seen on blockchain.info. I think it depends on when the payment reaches that site. AFAIK, you should be able to force some of the connections to the network; if so, you could assure you have direct connection to blockchain.info to get your payment in the list quickly. Not sure if this is possible, thought.

[BitcoinHoarder]

Ok I'll run 0.01 for a few and see what happens.

#9 seemed to get some action, and you got some profit also, congrats! It was at 0.1 initial bid, thought (by accident?).

That was set at .1 and I had the next one at 0.01.

Ok, but the site said "initial bid 0.01000000 BTC" for both bids.

One thing; there seems to be some delay before the initial bid is seen on blockchain.info. I think it depends on when the payment reaches that site. AFAIK, you should be able to force some of the connections to the network; if so, you could assure you have direct connection to blockchain.info to get your payment in the list quickly. Not sure if this is possible, thought.

I am connected to blockchain.info for the broadcast.  I actually see the 0.01 immediately (it's already there by time I click the link to check).

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

The reward is only player-created bids? It says 0.011, but shouldn't it include the initial bid and be 0.021?

[dooglus]

The reward is only player-created bids? It says 0.011, but shouldn't it include the initial bid and be 0.021?

The reward is all the payments that get into the first block.

In the case you're looking at, the first player-created bit got confirmed *before* the initial 0.1 bid!

See http://blockchain.info/address/1Y4xaSKCVmRCxP5a9Lfp85SwNP4zocQCZ?filter=2

I notice that the website is still linking to blockexplorer.com for the 'bid address' column.  The above type of link is much nice - it only shows deposits from the given address, and is as a result clearer to read.

Also, the table on the website doesn't list the 'initial bid' amount.  That would be interesting to see.  Also consider adding "start time" (or "game duration") and possibly "number of bids in winning block", "total number of bids", "value of late bids" (where the last 2 would possibly continue to rise after the game was over).