Call it. Then outlast the table.

There are three ways to play. You can do all three with one account.

• The boardTrade a roundCall UP or DOWN on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. A new round every 60 seconds. You play with paper dollars./trade →
• BlinkGauntletsRace a table4 to 10 players, 10 rounds, one pot. A seat costs 10 BlinkBucks./gauntlet →
• WatchBack a playerPut BlinkBucks on a player at a featured table. If they win, they take 10% of what was backed against them and you share the rest./watch →

What happens in one round

Every round is 60 seconds on one coin. You will see these five words everywhere on the site:

Strike

The coin’s price when the round opens. It is the number to beat: the dashed line marked TO BEAT on the chart. It does not move during the round.

Round end

The moment the round ends, 60 seconds after it opens. The round is decided then, and the next round opens at the same moment.

Lock

The last 3 seconds before the round ends. During the lock nobody can buy or cash out. What you hold stays in until the round ends.

End price

The price that decides the round: the coin’s last price at the moment the round ends. Nothing is averaged. This is the price compared with the strike.

UP and DOWN

The two sides of every round. UP wins if the end price is above the strike. DOWN wins if it is at or below the strike. Exactly on the strike is a DOWN win.

The board is at /trade. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana each run their own round, side by side, on the same clock. You trade with paper dollars, not real money.

1. 1

   Read the strike.The dashed TO BEAT line on the coin’s chart.

2. 2

   Choose your amount.The dollars you want to spend on this call.

3. 3

   Tap UP or DOWN.Your amount goes on that side, at the price on the button.

4. 4

   Hold or cash out.Hold until the round ends, or cash out any time until the lock, 3 seconds before the end.

Prices, payouts and multiples

Price

What $1 of payout costs on that side right now, in cents, always under $1. A side the market thinks is likely costs more; a side it thinks is unlikely costs less, and pays more if it wins. Prices move all through the round.

Payout

What your money pays when the round ends, if its side wins: what you put in, divided by the price. If its side loses, it pays $0.

Multiple

What each $1 you spend returns if you win: $1 divided by the price. At 46¢ the multiple is 2.17×. The board’s 50¢ | 2× switch shows prices either way. Both mean the same thing.

You put $46.00 on UP at 46¢. If the end price is above the strike, you get $100.00 back, a profit of $54.00. If it ends at or below the strike, you get $0 and lose the $46.00. The most you can lose is what you put in. There is no leverage and no margin.

Payout is bought a whole dollar at a time, so an amount the price does not divide spends a few cents less: $25.00 at 46¢ spends $24.84 and pays $54.00 if that side wins.

Cashing out and flipping

Cashing out sells what you hold at the price right now, any time before the lock. Each $1 of UP payout sells for $1 minus the price of DOWN, and each $1 of DOWN payout for $1 minus the price of UP.

Tapping the other side while you hold a position flips it: the board cashes you out, then buys the other side.

When the round ends

The winning side pays its full payout, and the losing side pays $0. The money lands in your balance straight away, and the next round is already open.

Your numbers on the board

Play credits

Your paper dollars, for trading and the tables. They are not BlinkBucks. You start with $1,000. Every balance is set back to $1,000 every day at 00:00 UTC. If your balance is under $100 when a round ends, it is topped back up to $1,000 before the next round.

Session

Your profit or loss since you opened the board in this browser tab. A new tab starts a new session.

Streak

Rounds in a row that finished ahead. A round you sit out does not change it. A round that does not finish ahead puts it back to 0.

Loss limit

On a computer or tablet, a stop you can set: Off, −$5, −$20, −$50. Once your session is down by that much, the buttons stop until you press Stopped · clear and continue. It then stops again at twice the limit, then three times, and so on. It goes back to Off when you reload the page.

BlinkGauntlets is the competitive mode, at /gauntlet. You sit at a table with other players and play 10 rounds. The best nets after the final round take the pot.

Table

4 to 10 seats playing the same 10 rounds together. Each table plays one coin for all 10 rounds, drawn when the table is dealt. One round is one of the board’s 60-second rounds, so a table takes 10 minutes.

Buy-in

What a seat costs: 10 BlinkBucks (BB). You pay it when you sit down.

Table stack

At the start of every round, every seat gets a fresh $1,000 to trade with. You trade it with the same UP and DOWN buttons as on the board. Your own paper balance is not touched while you play.

Round result

What your $1,000 stack ended the round at, minus $1,000. A round you do not trade is $0.

Net

All your round results added together. The table is ranked on net, and the order is updated after every round.

A good round does not carry into the next one, and neither does a bad one: round 2 starts on $1,000 again whatever round 1 did. Only the results add up. Here they add up to a net of +$121.00.

Winning the pot

Pot

Every seat’s buy-in at the table. House players (below) buy in for their seats too, so beating them wins their BlinkBucks.

After the final round the pot is paid by place, by the size of the table: up to three seats the winner takes all; at four and five seats the top two are paid 70/30; from six seats the top three are paid 50/30/20. It is paid when that round settles. Players who tie share the places they cover. A paid place a house player finishes in is paid to nobody: it does not go to the next player down.

House players

Seats that no player takes are filled by house players: bots run by BlinkMarkets. Each keeps one style for good, shown on its seat, such as “Rides the trend”, “Fades the last round”, “Bets big” or “Always up”. They trade the same rounds, at the same prices, on the same kind of $1,000 stack as you. They can win a table, and they have ratings like everyone else.

Rating and tiers

Every finished table moves your rating, win or lose. Everyone starts at 1200. You gain points for each seat you finish above and lose points for each seat that finishes above you. Finishing above a higher-rated seat is worth more. Your first 30 tables move it faster, and until then a ? follows the number.

Your rating sets your tier. Each tier below Diamond has three divisions, III, II and I, from its floor up. A new player starts in Silver III.

Titles

A finish can earn one title. It names what happened at the table. Some finishes earn none.

• Wire-to-wire

  You won, and you were 1st after every round.

• Comeback

  You won after being in the bottom half of the table after a round.

• Photo finish

  You won by less than $5.

• So close

  You came 2nd by less than $5, or you were 1st after a round but did not win.

• Giant-slayer

  At a table of three or more, you finished above its highest-rated seat, who was rated higher than you.

The hub at /gauntlet offers two kinds of table. They play the same way. They fill differently.

Featured table

A table announced ahead of time so the room can watch and back it. It is the only kind of table that takes backs.

You can sit at one table at a time. If you are waiting for a quick table and take a featured seat, you leave the quick queue and its buy-in comes back to you. Once a table is dealt you cannot leave it; a round you do not trade counts as $0.

On /watch you can back a player at a featured table with BlinkBucks. If the player you backed wins the table, they take 10% of what was backed against them, and you get your back returned plus your share of the rest.

Back

BlinkBucks you put on one seat at a featured table, to win. You can back a house player too. You cannot back a table you are playing at.

Pool

Every BlinkBuck backed on that table, on every seat. Whoever wins takes 10% of what was backed against them, and the backers of the winner split the rest in proportion to their backs. The pool pays out exactly what went in.

Winner's share

10% of the BlinkBucks backed against the winner, rounded down, to the player who wins a featured table, on top of the pot. It comes out of what the winner’s backers would win, never out of their own backs. If a house player wins, the house keeps it. A full pool of 1,000 BB with nobody on the winner makes it 100 BB, ten buy-ins.

Pays

The figure beside each seat, such as “pays 2.0×”: what that seat’s backers would split (the pool less the winner’s share) divided by the BlinkBucks on that seat. It is what each BB on that seat returns if it wins. It moves as people back, until backing closes.

When you can back, and when you can cancel

• Back from the moment the table is announced until round 5 locks, 3 seconds before it ends. Rounds 6 to 10 are locked: nobody can back during the second half.
• Cancel a back only before the table starts, and you get it all back. From round 1 every back is final.

Limits

• Each back is 5, 10 or 25 BB. You can add more to a seat you have backed.
• You can back up to half of a table’s seats: 3 of 6, 5 of 10.
• A table’s pool holds up to 1,000 BB at a 10 BB buy-in. Once it is full, nobody can add to it.

Worked example

Three backers. Ana puts 10 BB on Kai. Ben puts 20 BB on Lu. Cy puts 30 BB on Lu. Nobody backs Mo. The pool is 60 BB. If Lu wins, 10 BB was backed against Lu, so Lu takes 1 BB and Lu’s backers split the other 59 BB.

• Lu wins. Lu takes the winner’s share, 1 BB: a tenth of Ana’s 10. Lu’s backers put in 50 BB and split the other 59 BB: Ben gets 23 BB and Cy gets 36 BB. Ana loses her 10 BB.
• Kai wins. Kai takes 5 BB, a tenth of the 50 BB on Lu. Ana is Kai’s only backer, so she gets the rest: 55 BB for her 10 BB.
• Mo wins. Nobody backed Mo, so all 60 BB was against Mo: Mo takes 6 BB, and the rest goes back by back: Ana 9, Ben 18, Cy 27.

Before you back, /watch shows what your back would return if that seat wins, at the pool as it stands with your BB counted in. Before Cy backed, 30 BB on Lu showed a return of 35 BB. That figure moves as others back, so it is a guide until backing closes.

Every back is returned in full if the table is void (it could not be played). If nobody backed the winner, the winner (or the house, for a house player) takes 10% and every back gets the rest back by size. If seats tie for first, the backers of all of them share what the pool pays, and the players among them split the winner’s share. Shares are rounded down to whole BB; the few left over go to the biggest winning backs.