How a round runs
A round is a timed contest that adds the next coin to the chain. It opens when the first coin is entered. Every candidate trades against the head coin, the newest coin in the chain.1
Registration
Anyone can enter a coin by posting the bond, a refundable deposit. Registration lasts 1/5 of the round’s trading time. It runs from 3 minutes to 1 hour.
2
Trading
All candidate pools open together. Trading lasts 15 minutes on the first two rounds. It doubles every two rounds until it reaches 12 hours. On rounds of an hour or more, a coin can still enter during the first third of trading, and its pool opens when it enters.
3
The end
Each round has a public planned end. The real end is a random moment in the last 3 minutes before it. That moment comes from drand, a public source of random numbers, and is checked on-chain. Only trades made before the planned end count.
4
Scores and the result
Once the real end is settled, scores are tallied over the next 5 minutes, and the candidate with the highest score becomes the new head coin.