The payout rule

How much a draw pays

Each draw pays a share $f$ of the free pot:

$$f = 1 - e^{-\Delta t / \tau}, \qquad \tau = 4.5 \text{ hours}$$

• $\Delta t$ is the time since the previous draw’s commit, which is how long this round took.
• The free pot is the pot’s USDC minus the jackpot.
• The three prizes split the payout 60% / 25% / 15%.

Time since the previous commit	Share of the free pot paid
5 seconds	0.03%
10 minutes	3.6%
1 hour	19.9%
4 hours	59%
12 hours (the fallback)	93%

Short rounds pay a little, long rounds pay most.

Why forcing rounds can’t drain the pot

A draw leaves the share $e^{-\Delta t/\tau}$ of the free pot in place. Two rounds of lengths $a$ and $b$ leave

$$e^{-a/\tau} \times e^{-b/\tau} = e^{-(a+b)/\tau}$$

which is exactly what one round of length $a + b$ leaves. So an hour cut into many short rounds pays out the same total as one round lasting an hour, about 19.9% of the pot before new fees. Forcing quick rounds only spreads the same money over more draws. The one exception is the small reveal bounty each draw pays (see Bounties).

As trading fades

• Gaps between draws grow, so each draw pays a bigger share.
• With no trading at all, a draw happens when someone calls the 12-hour fallback, and each one pays about 93% of what is left.
• The free pot clears itself. With no new fees, a $10,000 free pot is empty after three 12-hour draws.
• While anyone still trades, the jackpot keeps building. It pays by its odds, and its cap shrinks as activity fades, so the excess spills into the free pot. Once trading stops completely, the next dust draw sweeps it too.

The dust rule

If a draw would leave less than $5 in the free pot, it pays out the whole free pot instead, so the free pot reaches exactly zero.

The jackpot is swept into that draw only when the market is dead: the round closed on the 12-hour fallback with no swaps of any size. In a slow but live market, a dust draw pays the free pot only, and the jackpot keeps building. One swap by anyone in those 12 hours is enough to keep it.

Delivery: nothing to claim

• Whoever reveals, called the liquidator, sends each prize straight to the winner’s USDC account (its associated token account), inside the reveal transaction. The winner is the wallet that owns the winning token account.
• The reveal transaction carries one memo listing every delivered prize, for example 777 · round 41 · 1st 1234.56 · 2nd 514.40 · 3rd 308.64 USDC, with · jackpot 9876.54 added when the jackpot pays. Prizes that aren’t delivered are left out. Each winner sees the memo in their own wallet history, because they received a transfer in that transaction.
• If a winner has no USDC account, the reveal creates it and takes an account fee from that prize: min($2, max($0.60, 1% of the prize)). The fee repays the rent the liquidator paid.
• A prize stays in the pot, returned for the next draw, only when:
  • the winning token account can’t be read, for example because it was closed;
  • the winner’s USDC account exists but can’t receive it, for example because it is frozen;
  • the winner has no USDC account and the prize is under about $0.61, too small to cover the account fee.
• There is no claim step, no claim window, and nothing expires.

Bounties

Every step is permissionless and pays whoever does it, from the pot. There is no admin and no upgrade path.

Step	Bounty
Reveal: draw and deliver the prizes	The larger of $0.05 and 0.25% of the three regular prizes. A jackpot paid in the same draw doesn’t count.
Close a round after 12 hours (fallback commit)	$0.05 from the free pot, never more than it holds
Collect curve fees into the pot	0.5% of what it collects

The jackpot

The jackpot is kept apart from the free pot, and 20% of the pot’s inflow goes into it. Each draw pays it with the chance

$$J = 1 - e^{-\Delta t / 48 \text{ hours}}$$

• An hour’s round has about a 2.1% chance, a 12-hour round about 22%. By the same identity as above, cutting time into rounds doesn’t change the chance, so the jackpot hits about once per 48 hours on average. It is random, not a schedule.
• It is capped at 5 times its mean size. The cap follows recent inflow, so it shrinks as activity fades, and anything above it flows to the free pot.
• Its winner is one more weighted pick over the same frozen tickets, paid in the same reveal.
• A dust draw also pays out the jackpot, but only when the round closed on the 12-hour fallback with no swaps of any size. Then everything ends at zero.
• Both $f$ and $J$ use commit times, which are fixed before the random seed exists. Nobody can hold back a reveal to get a better share or a better chance.