The CoinParty 2020 flipstarter finish line lottery: 5 BCH

Fellow Bitcoin Cashers!

It's flipstarter lottery time again! I am opening a 5 BCH lottery, open to anyone who has already contributed to the https://flipstarter.coinparty.org/ flipstarter or pledges even a minimal amount toward a successful conclusion of the campaign, via

https://flipstarter.coinparty.org/

The flipstarter expires in about 2 days. The current minimum pledge is about 0.055 BCH, not yet a very low bar but the more of us pledge, the more that decreases!

I am setting no minimum pledge level for participation in this lottery because I'd like as many people as possible to have a shot at winning it. In other words, let's have lots of people making many small donations! p.s. The minimum pledge is automatically determined by the Flipstarter software, it's not under my control. But it does go down in number the closer we get to the finish line.

NOTE: I can only pass the prize to a winner who can prove they are the person who made that pledge, so your chances are best if you link to some known profile in the community which you control or link an SLP address which you can control. If you have pledged totally anonymously (which is also ok), the only way to prove that a pledge was made by yourself will be to sign an recognizable input linked to your donation, with a Bitcoin Cash signature.

If I absolutely cannot get hold of a chosen winner after some time, a next winner will be selected.

Read the "Lottery Rules" section below for more info!

Lottery rules

1. The 5 BCH prize will be awarded to ONE participant who made a pledge

2. It will only be awarded if the Flipstarter is successful (bear in mind that if the flipstarter is unsuccessful, you lose no money as your pledge is not collected!)

3. The winning entry will be chosen as follows:

   1. The list of pledger names will be collected if the flipstarter is successful, and collated (put into a standardized sort order) using the 'sort' program on Linux run under the 'C' locale.

   2. The sorted list produced above will be numbered in ascending order, starting from 0 for the first entry in the list.

   3. The winning entry number will be determined by taking the last "as many as needed" least significant bits from the hash of the block that confirmed the https://flipstarter.coinparty.org/ flipstarter crowd-funding transaction. A flipstarter can only accomodate about 600 entries, and the final number of entries is uncertain, but there are enough bits in the hash to take as many as we need so that we can do modulo-the-number-of-entries and get a winner number in the range 0...<number of entrants-1> .

   4. The winner will be announced on social media (readcash, Memo, Twitter, etc), and I will try to contact them to get a payout address for the 1 BCH prize. If they are not contactable within 5 days, a new winner will be chosen as follows:

      Take the next unused least significant bit in the hash. Call it a "movement bit". If it is a 0, the next choice is the one lower in the list than our previous (or wrap around if the chosen one was the last in the list). If the "movement bit" is a 1, we move UP in the list from the original choice. Again, I announce and try to contact. If unsuccessful, another "movement bit" is taken, and we pivot again (around the so far tried set of entries) to pick the next winner. Eventually we will find someone, or run out of bits, in which case I will take the block hash of the block *following* the flipstarter confirmation block, and we repeat the procedure to find a winner, based on the new block hash.

I wish you good luck, let's get this flipstarter over the finish line and see who wins back 5 BCH for helping with that!

Update 24 Nov 2020: Added an additional, unconditional prize for the funniest pledge message.

Mini-FAQ:

1. Q: How do I know you (btcfork) will really pay out?

   A: I have contributed to a lot of previous Flipstarters, am a well know community figure, have run several bounties honorably (you can check my readcash or Twitter account) and I'm good for the money. To prove it, I have published a BCH address holding 5 BCH until the end of the flipstarter campaign.

2. Q: The minimum amount is too high for me! How can I participate?
   A: Sorry, I can't do much about that, you will need to wait until more people have pledged so that the minimum amount comes down. I hope it will, soon!

3. Q: What if the flipstarter site stops working after I pledged?

   A: If the site breaks and the flipstarter is unsuccessful due to expiry, no-one's pledge is collected, and this lottery competition must unfortunately be cancelled. If that happens and the organizer decides to re-start the flipstarter, I will *consider* re-opening this lottery, but in that case you need to re-pledge on the re-opened Flipstarter to have a chance - your old pledges won't count again.

4. Q: Can I enter multiple times via several pledges?
   A: Yes. Just make sure that I can somehow get in touch with you if one of your entries comes up as the lucky winner.

5. Q: If I make a single pledge with a bigger amount, do I have a bigger chance to win?
   A: No, each pledge will have the same probability of being picked. You can put in multiple pledges to increase your chances - but leave some room for other too :-D

Any further questions? Please leave in the comments below. I may add them to the mini-FAQ below if I deem them important.

I welcome people to translate this article into various languages.

Lead image: based on photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash