Whale Game - winning ETH in an exciting way
Whale Game is an interesting experiment combining DeFi and game theory. If you have ETH tokens sitting idly in your wallet, then you can consider playing Whale Game. This is an exciting way to win some ETH if you are smart and lucky. Even if you lose, you’ll learn a bit of game theory by observing how other participants behave.
Here is how the Whale Game works. The game begins with the first player depositing 0.05 ETH into a pot. The depositor becomes a claimer of the pot and can claim the pot after the deadline. After the first deposit, the rate goes by some rate, which is 3.3% at the time of writing. It means that the next player has to deposit 0.05 * 1.033 = 0.0517 ETH into the collective pot.
Each player gets 100,000 $WHALE tokens for his deposit in the first round. $WHALE emissions decrease by a decay factor which is 15% at the moment. What it implies is that at the second round each depositor will be rewarded with 85,000 $WHALE tokens; during the subsequent round they will receive 72,250 (85,000 * .85) tokens and so on. This is where game-theoretic considerations enter the game. On the one hand, entering the game within the earlier rounds make economic sense because you’ll get more $WHALE tokens for your deposit. On the other hand, keeping you ETH until later rounds will give you more chance to win the game. This is because as the game progresses, the deposit cost increases which means that there are fewer and fewer participants to play the game.
Part of the amount the depositor puts in the pot is directed to the fee pot. Funds in the fee pot are used to back up $WHALE tokens, the token of Whale Game. The fee is 50%. Let’s say, the first player deposits 0.05 ETH into the collective or claim pot. Half of that amount will remain in that pot, but half of it, i.e., 0.025 ETH will be streamed to the fee pot. All $WHALE holders have a pro-rata claim on this pot.
The interesting part is that the game never finishes! Once the claim deadline passes, a game round ends. A new round begins with initial deposit and decreased $WHALE supply. The claim timelock is 1 day — the current pot claimer should wait for 24 hours to claim the full amount of the pot. Note that the winner doesn’t receive the claimed amount immediately. To encourage long-term participation the amount is sent to the smart contract called RewardsVesting. Only after five rounds have passed, the winner can claim that amount.
An example will clarify the idea of the game. Suppose the game has reached the 10th round. Nine rounds have passed without anyone winning the pot. Now, at this round a player makes a deposit of 0.067 ETH. If during the next 24 hours no one deposits the required amount of 0.0692 ETH, the last player depositing 0.067 ETH will be the winner claiming 0.2906 ETH vested over 5 rounds. This is 334% profit! Other players can claim the fee pot on a pro-rate basis according to their $WHALE amounts.