Welcome...to the Web 210 Raffle

The TL;DR

Since most of bitbanter will be cryptocurrency satire, it stands to reason that I have a loosely associated, harebrained degenerate regenerative financial scheme hastily bolted onto it. So I'm running a smart contract raffle to win a pixelated golden "tulip" (as an NFT).

Entering the raffle is like spending a small amount of ETH for a chance to own a long-delayed satire of dubious quality. If you fail to win that, you get a shade of the poorly drawn tulip. If the raffle fails to reach its arbitrary 10000 participant goal, then some ETH is burned for no good reason, some ETH goes to a few good causes, and I get nothing. If it does reach its goal (or someone rich rugpulls it), some more ETH goes to a few good causes, and I get the remainder, but then I'm obligated to write a book for the holder of the pixelated golden tulip.

Nothing here is something a well-adjusted person would do.

image of the golden bitbanter tulip
The Golden Bitbanter Tulip

Intrigued or disgusted? Read on for details!

Wow, a pixelated golden tulip! So cool. Perhaps the best NFT that exists, or will ever exist. How can I win it?

Simple, enter the bitbanter raffle! I'm using the very latest in Sybil-resistant, soulbound token mechanics to keep the raffle as fair as theoretically possible, which means your chance of winning goes up the more you participate.

The price to enter the raffle starts at 0.0001 ETH, but it increments upwards by 0.0001 ETH each time someone participates, with the goal to have 10000 participants. So the very last participant would pay 1 ETH to get a spot. I'd say it pays to be early, but honestly you're wasting your ETH either way.

To provide an extra (dis)incentive, the Golden Bitbanter Tulip holder gains an additional privilege: I will write a book for them, and publish it here four years after the raffle is concluded. The book itself will be encrypted against the public key of the Golden Bitbanter Tulip owner at that time. (assuming I can derive it) I will never publish another book again, and they can choose when and if their bespoke book ever sees the light of day — but either way I'll keep a copy for myself. Consider it the Once Upon a Time in Shaolin of crypto-satire.

...the winner will, as a matter of course, have zero creative control over what I write. And if they are not anonymous and I don't particularly like them, I will — in all likelihood — make the entire thing an epic literary roast of whoever they are.

Huh okay, a book too. Not really my thing but I really like the golden pixelated tulip. Surely if I wind up spending more ETH to get a ticket I'll have a higher chance of winning?

Surprisingly, no it does not. Your chance is scaled against the number of participants, not how much ETH you submit. That said, my "sybil-resistant" mechanism doesn't seem particularly robust, so it seems you can participate multiple times to up your chances. Why you'd want to do that I have no idea.

Ugh I am already way too long in crypto and sick of exceptionally random outcomes. Is there any way I can guarantee winning this amazing, one-of-a-kind golden pixelated tulip?

Why, yes! You can. If you are an avid collector of digital, on-chain rubbish, you have the option of "buying it now" for the market price of 10000 ETH, subverting the raffle and rugpulling everyone else...just as a premium-tulip-buying whale would expect.

Against all better judgment I entered the raffle. When does the smart contract decide the winner? And what happens to the ETH?

A winner can only be declared after 10000 people participate — or if one person participates 10000 times, or anywhere in between — or when someone rich rugpulls everyone else. I can also choose to end the raffle early — if I get bored with the concept or someone tries to turn this into a god-forsaken community or DAO. But if I do, my portion of the ETH is burned, and the pixelated golden tulip returns to me.

No matter what the outcome, a portion of the ETH is hard-coded to benefit four groups doing good things: ZachXBT, Coin Center, the Internet Archive, and Give Directly. And take heart, all participants will receive these not-golden Bitbanter Tulip ERC-1155s as a consolation prize — 1 for each time they contributed. The ERC-1155s are minted as you enter the raffle, and they are immovable (aka the ERC-1155 contract is paused) until the raffle has concluded. Just consider yourself a forced tulip HODLer or something.

image of a not golden bitbanter tulip
A Not-Golden Bitbanter Tulip

As for the rest of the ETH? Originally I wanted to put it into a loan protocol and lever it up as a joke, but upon reflection that was even too Rube-Goldberg for me. I suspect the funniest thing will be to put most of the proceeds toward the most ironically productive, crypto-triggering investment I can imagine. Might do that anyway, raffle or not. Either way the outcome will be humorous (to me).

Cool, that sounds cursed, good for you. So other than maybe winning a book that I don't want to read, what else do the tulips do?

Absolutely — and I cannot stress this enough — nothing. I don't even personally find them aesthetically pleasing; I spent 20 minutes whipping them up. They are intrinsically worthless, unless you are deranged enough to believe wasting space in Ethereum's state trie is valuable.

Hmm so is there a roadmap or a discord–

I'm going to stop you right there. Under no conditions in this (or any other) universe am I going to encourage, endorse, participate in, or cater to any kind of "community" — particularly if it consists of members who expect a roadmap.

There is no roadmap. There is no community. If any one of you suggests or hints at the prospect of "governance," I swear to God I will nuke the contract and burn the ETH early. Don't test me.

...do I get to have any input in bitbanter or any kind of special privileges or–

NO. No no no no no no. You get nothing but a weird pointer to a stupid pixelated tulip bloating the Ethereum blockchain, or that AND a vague claim on a book that will invariably disappoint you. I am not lying. There is no utility in these; if anything, I will probably think less of you if you have one. Especially if you win the golden one.

Well then why would I enter?

I HAVE NO IDEA. Nothing makes sense anymore. Enjoy!