the tables
How the water moves, how a ride is paid, and what the contract can never do. None of it can be changed — there is no function for it.
| band | each cm your way | high water (×2) | aground (×0) | typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ±5 cm | +20% | +5 cm | −5 cm | a mark in ~7 min |
| ±10 cm | +10% | +10 cm | −10 cm | a mark in ~30 min |
| ±20 cm | +5% | +20 cm | −20 cm | often slack at 200 |
| ±40 cm | +2.5% | +40 cm | −40 cm | almost always slack |
the water
One tide gauge, in centimetres above chart datum. After every chain block the gauge takes one step — up a centimetre, down a centimetre, or none, a third each — read from that block's own hash. Nobody trades it and nothing outside the chain moves it. It moves with nobody here. A stretch nobody writes down within the ~256 blocks the chain remembers is slack water: it simply did not move.
the ride
Pick flood (you want it to rise) or ebb (you want it to fall), a band, and a stake. For every centimetre the water moves your way your stake gains 1/band of itself; against you it loses the same. Reach the far mark and the ride stops there, paid double: HIGH WATER. Reach the near mark and it stops there, paid nothing: AGROUND. Come ashore whenever you like before then, paid where the water stands. After 200 blocks (~40 min) it is SLACK WATER, paid where it stands.
why nobody can beat the walk
A ride is paid only on steps from blocks after it opened, each step is at most one centimetre so the marks are hit exactly, and the steps are symmetric. That makes a ride a fair walk: no rule for when to come ashore changes what it is worth on average. What the house keeps is the fee, and only the fee.
the fee
3% of the stake when you open: 2% burned to the dead address, 1% into the pot. Nothing on the way out, except that a ride brought in by somebody else pays them 1% of it.
the pot
Anybody can fill it; nobody can withdraw from it. Losing stakes go in, winnings come out. Every ride reserves its full possible win (its own stake again) from the pot the moment it opens, and no ride may be bigger than a 25th of what is free — so the pot can pay every ride at sea, always.
bring it in
A ride must be settled within 250 blocks (~50 min) of opening — the window in which the chain still remembers its steps. This site does it for you when you are here. Anybody may settle a finished ride (the rider is paid; the settler gets 1%). A ride nobody settles in time is LOST to the pot.
what the contract cannot do
Hold ETH (nothing is payable). Pay anybody out of the pot but a rider. Move the water. Take a royalty. Pause. Upgrade. The owner key names the $TIDE token once and is inert forever after.
the plain risk
This is a wager. The steps come from block hashes, which the network's sequencer produces — whoever runs the sequencer could, in principle, see them first. Unaudited. Ride what you can lose.