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All of the round data referenced below can be downloaded from here. The data is part of a project that downloads round data periodically and uploads the csv.
Tutorial Series
Yesterday I released the first of a tutorial series on how to play the games. I'll be going over technical basics on the mechanics of the game, with some strategy sprinkled in. This is essential reading for anyone that seriously plays the games. You should really know the terminology, basics of the contract and how to query the contract.
I get a lot of emails from people asking me technical questions or advice so I wanted to share my thoughts more broadly. If you have any topics you'd like me to cover email me at contact@bscpredict.com.
Post-Armageddon
We made it. After a brutal last week in which most crypto was down 20+%, we're starting our recovery. A lot of weak hands liquidated, haters did their bi-annual victory lap, and now we're starting climb up again. Bitcoin and Ether are up around 7% this week, although BNB is still around the same level (mh-300s). Unfortunately you see this pattern a lot in the space. The market "corrects" 20% then takes a month to climb back up, and ideally pass the last high. Then it starts all over again.
I see some upside in BNB as it tends to lag behind Ether, although looking at a comparison chart between the two, I'm not entirely sure. But its a viable alternative. It's not perfect and I don't like that its essentially controlled by an exchange, but Ethereum is unusable with its gas fees. Binance Smart Chain does have a lot of scams and shit coins which I'm not crazy about. But I hope one day to build out a prediction contract in Ethereum when they get their shit together.
Solana is still down and I'm kind of happy? I own some SOL from my experiments with the chain. But considering that pretty much every app is closed source, the network went down for days last week and my experience in transacting left a lot to be desired, I hope a more worth competitor chain takes its place as a leading contender to EVM.
Action
Even in the market turmoil, from what I can tell BSC Chain carried on as did the games. This week was pretty normal with a brief pause (first of the year!) on Wednesday. Although we did get hit with 11 (!) draws. In a draw the house takes 100% of the pot. I got swept up in a few of those, so I'm not too happy about it. PancakeSwap admin lurker reading my blog, please make draws refundable or figure out why tf there are so many draws when the number goes out to 11 places (e.g. 50399415626).
Volume picked up a lot in the beginning of the week but fell back down towards the end. It's also important to note that the price of BNB is off so much, if you look at the volume in fiat terms, its down a lot. Volume of last two weeks can be seen below.
We had some nice payoffs this week, the biggest winning payoff being 6.22 on epoch 39863 (start time UTC 2022-01-26 16:24:29). One payoff above 4, and a few in the high-3s. Can't complain about that...
Winners and Losers
Last week with all the market turmoil we saw very low winner numbers. My theory was the during market turmoil all normal relationships break and models are pretty much worthless. The smart money takes their chips off the tables and waits for it to subside. This week I expected the big winners raking in big profits and I was ... sort of right?
| Place | account | games played | won | won USD | Winnings Even Money | Average bet size |
| 1 | 0xcd5a4c387ec161c1489d72a6f989c950b72ba55e | 4 | 110.74 | 63270.0 | 2.36 | 47.5 |
| 2 | 0x9d97d26275269f050ed893e94085bf74a71519c3 | 7 | 100.82 | 57570.0 | 3.0 | 35.0 |
| 3 | 0xefce36efcf3e13840634d71145caf850fe6b2e15 | 8 | 91.68 | 52440.0 | 1.33 | 15.0 |
| 4 | 0x32645fdd4f72c596ae9394707b3d5ec2b4544326 | 3 | 83.85 | 47880.0 | 2.31 | 36.63 |
| 5 | 0xaa7228db19d0c7fff9c466ec2ffe724b547dc24e | 10 | 51.86 | 29640.0 | 3.38 | 21.0 |
| 6 | 0x16503080e7f1d11ec631c80fe9a7cabd20384370 | 76 | 38.08 | 21660.0 | 7.24 | 2.3 |
| 7 | 0x654c18863c68de618adf28589205e3e61ea07bb7 | 245 | 35.41 | 19950.0 | 36.01 | 0.92 |
| 8 | 0x29994ac07eaeeb507e63de1f304dbca8037b32e1 | 1073 | 31.74 | 18240.0 | 55.08 | 0.39 |
| 9 | 0x0a5281c6e57a17f2de4120c907edf43ec13f810c | 440 | 27.15 | 15390.0 | 32.9 | 0.53 |
| 10 | 0x2e4c5c4b0b7c6b8c02d3c30cb59629d01ec8f074 | 122 | 25.45 | 14250.0 | 28.71 | 0.76 |
The big winners were lucky whales that threw down large, something I strongly advise against. Our top dog threw down a total of 4 bets for either 40 of 50 BNB each and won all 4 of them. As did our #2.
Hell of a show. How about 3, 4 and 5? Yeah, pretty much the same thing.
It's curious that they didn't play any of the same epochs. Let's see which epochs they did play:
| Epoch | Player |
| 40805 | #5 |
| 40804 | #5 |
| 40803 | #5 |
| 40802 | #5 |
| 40801 | #5 |
| 40800 | #5 |
| 40799 | #5 |
| 40798 | #5 |
| 40797 | #5 |
| 40796 | #5 |
| 40795 | #2 |
| 40794 | #2 |
| 40793 | #2 |
| 40792 | #2 |
| 40791 | #2 |
| 40790 | #2 |
| 40789 | #2 |
| 40788 | #1 |
| 40787 | #1 |
| 40786 | #1 |
| 40786 | - |
| 40784 | #1 |
| 40783 | #4 |
| 40782 | #4 |
| 40781 | #4 |
| 40780 | #3 |
| 40779 | #3 |
| 40778 | #3 |
| 40777 | #3 |
| 40776 | #3 |
| 40775 | #3 |
Very interesting! I wonder if there's any connection between the accounts... Surprise surprise, they're all the same account! There are even more but these were the big winners. Overall the account has accounts totaling millions. His workflow is to fund an account with 20 - 40 BNB, play a few rounds and 3-4x the money, and send it back. Rinse and repeat.
The win rate struck me as odd. To be that consistent tells me the games are being manipulated. I've been studying these games for months, and this is the first time I've seen something so blatant. I can understand when one person throws down a dozen bets and comes out ahead, but this seems wrong.
Whales are also less sophisticated with managing multiple accounts and moving money around. They can't really be sophisticated because their lifespan is so short. Lose 3 games in a row and you're down $50k. Everyone has a limit.
But this is weird. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand there appears to be an exploit which maybe I can figure out. It may be the person has access as a ChainLink node and can manipulate the price. Or he found some other exploit. It's possible that he has a great signal that no one else has discovered, but it's unlikely. If you had an edge, it would be a statistical edge. You wouldn't throw down huge amounts because regardless of your edge, you'll likely hit an absorbing barrier (0 balance) before long and then its game over. And you'd keep playing!
On the other hand, the game may be rigged. Throw everything out the window if someone has their finger on the trigger and can manipulate prices. I have to think about this some more and will report back. If you don't hear from me, I've learned how to leverage the exploit and clean up. In which case, this conversation never happened!
Let's look at the losers
| Place | from | games played | won | won USD | Winnings Even Money | Average bet size |
| 1 | 0xc8923536f8c1a348f15e87315740bb5933aeb4c9 | 138 | -190.69 | -108,870.0 | -17.64 | 10.69 |
| 2 | 0xad483dc8c4482eafdbebbc98ea66a89e461cfbd9 | 1000 | -129.94 | -74,100.0 | -79.08 | 1.89 |
| 3 | 0x853b11c713997c7dfd367128992254d6f15e2baa | 392 | -96.71 | -55,290.0 | 5.06 1 | 42 |
| 4 | 0xcd04775c7b1a690b0a9c76774fae1239ec1baa3e | 6 | -63.87 | -36,480.0 | -3.33 | 10.73 |
| 5 | 0xac73b859707d2a64a3fede12992301e162e45dbf | 63 | -44.56 | -25,650.0 | -10.88 | 1.16 |
| 6 | 0x5bbb748721589fd292d508662fd872366b1dbfcd | 56 | -44.55 | -25,650.0 | -10.65 | 1.26 |
| 7 | 0xdd0c7c6fbb415e685785f0f3027f77e461f65468 | 42 | -40.96 | -23,370.0 | -5.87 | 4.23 |
| 8 | 0xf36aedc561af12d427561d14e10507be2e3f15e6 | 82 | -40.24 | -22,800.0 | -5.27 | 2.12 |
| 9 | 0x83460c08e72b96f812c22f05a4065e83ec722fa4 | 348 | -36.93 | -21,090.0 | -19.78 | 1.14 |
| 10 | 0xe509034fa973423c86c509a4029dbdf94bd35373 | 169 | -35.61 | -20,520.0 | -28.55 | 1.33 |
The losers are back! When you have big winners you'll have big losers.
#1 (0xc8923) is a frequent player in our biggest loser and is marking his 5th appearance on the blog (often a winner!). His lifetime losses just topped 1,000 BNB or around $388k. If we love our losers, then this guy is practically royalty.
#2 (0xad4) is a typical algo-account that can't quite crack it. His bet sizes are large, but not crazy. But he's persistent.
Our #4 loser (0xcd047) is kind of the reverse of our big winners. Losing 5 in a row
The rest are kind of what you'd expect. Nothing but love for the losers. Please keep playing and better luck next time.
And that's all for this week. It may feel like we're out of the woods in crypto land, but remember to take profits regularly and bet responsibly.
As always, feel free to reach out with questions or comments or want my to highlight anything different on my weekly market recaps. If you like what you read and want to subscribe to receive an email when a new post is published, click here.
Good luck and bet responsibly!