How it all works

Marbles runs a marble race every few minutes. Anyone holding at least $25 of the coin can put a marble on the line, the gate drops, and the first marble over the line takes a prize in SOL.

The prize comes from the coin's own trading fees, not from anybody's entry. Joining costs nothing but the coin you already hold.

There is nothing to join. Buying the coin is what puts a wallet on the grid.

BUY ANY AMOUNT WHILE A LOBBY IS OPEN and you are in that race, guaranteed. Every wallet's balance is noted at the start of the round and checked throughout the lobby; if yours went up, you bought. There is no minimum purchase — a dollar counts the same as a thousand. It is also the surest proof of ownership there is, because a buy is a signed transaction and nobody can buy out of somebody else's wallet.

YOU DO HAVE TO HOLD $25, though. Your position has to be worth $25 or more during the lobby, after your buy. Once that's seen, you're in for that race, and nothing is re-checked when the gate drops.

HOLDING ALONE ISN'T ENOUGH. A marble needs both: a buy in that round's lobby, with a position worth $25 during that lobby. Already holding $25? Buy any amount, even a dollar, and you're in. New to the coin? Buy $25 or more and you're in. Want the next race too? Buy again in the next lobby.

The only reason to come here is your name. Connect the wallet holding the coin, pick a racing name and a marble in the locker, and that is how you appear from then on instead of a shortened address. It asks for one free signature, because a name is kept for good and nobody else should be able to take it. The signature is not a transaction and moves nothing.

• A course holds 250 marbles. If more than that buy in, the round's blockhash picks who races.
• Once you're in, you're in for that race: nothing is re-checked when the gate drops.
• Prizes are sent to the wallet that raced, so there is nothing to claim.

Every race is run on a course that has never existed before. When the gate drops, the newest Solana blockhash becomes that race's seed, and the whole thing follows from it: where it happens, which obstacles appear, in what order, how they are set, which twist is in play, and every bounce from the gate to the line.

A course is 28 sections long and there are 40 kinds to draw from, so no two races even contain the same obstacles, let alone in the same order. Each one is set somewhere different too — a dozen places, from the inferno to the glacier to the abyss.

Because the seed decides everything, your browser runs exactly the same race the server does. Nobody has to trust a result: the race and the blockhash behind it are on the page while it happens.

• 40 kinds of obstacle, from trapdoors and windmills to whirlpools, wormholes, trampolines and gravity wells.
• A twist each race: moon gravity, heavy gravity, super bounce, overdrive or lights out.
• Regroup gates in the middle, so nobody can run away with it.
• Four different endings, including a squeeze barely wider than a marble.

The race stays on screen until everybody is home, then the podium comes up with the full finishing order.

Every trade of the coin pays a creator fee. 80% of that fee goes straight into the prize pool and the other 20% keeps the site running. The pool is a wallet you can open on Solscan, and its balance is on the front page.

A race pays 10% of whatever is in the pool at that moment, up to $100. More trading means a bigger pool, which means bigger prizes. A quiet hour means a small prize, and an empty pool means the race is for points alone.

The winner is paid automatically, seconds after the finish, to the address that entered. The transaction is listed on the winners page for anyone to check.

Prizes are not the only reason to race. The first five marbles home score 10, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points on the season table, and that happens whether or not there was any SOL to win.

The table runs for a calendar month and starts again on the 1st.

Your marble does not have to be the colour your address happens to give it. The locker has eight patterns, a dozen ready-made looks and two colour sliders, and what you pick is sent along with your entry, so everybody watching sees you in it.

It costs nothing and it is remembered for next time.

Streamers can run their own races. Paste your Twitch channel, pick a word, and everyone who types it in chat drops in as a marble, up to 250. You drop the gate, or it drops itself after two minutes.

Your room has its own leaderboard across the whole stream, a rematch button that keeps the same field, and a replay link for every race.

It needs no login and no bot: the page reads your public chat the same way a viewer does. Only the browser that opened the room can run it. A room closes itself ten minutes after the host leaves.

Hosted races are separate from the coin: they have no prize pool and never touch it.

Nothing about a race is decided before the gate drops. The seed is a blockhash that does not exist until that moment, and nobody, including us, can know it in advance or choose it.

The race is worked out the same way everywhere, from that seed alone, with no randomness of its own. Two browsers on opposite sides of the world see the same marble win at the same instant, and a replay run a month later comes out identical.

Holding more of the coin does not make your marble faster. Every marble is the same size and weight.

We never ask for your private key or your seed phrase, and there is nothing on this site that could use one. Connecting a wallet shares your address; signing shares a signature over a message you can read first. Neither can move anything out of your wallet.

There is no deposit and no approval to grant. The only money that ever moves is the prize, and it moves towards you.