Bitcorn is a game based on the Counterparty platform, where Bitcorn farmers hold CROPS that get harvested seasonally. Yes it’s a game, involves cryptocurrency, requires patience, and best of all is totally useless. Trust me, just read a little more before dismissing it out of hand – you may like it.
TL;DR – Hodl CROPS tokens and get Bitcorns airdrops four harvests a year. Like I said, this is for patient farmers. The game runs at least until 2022, when some final prizes will be awarded to farms and coops. Read on to make sense out of all this bitcorn farming and how to get started with your very own Bitcorn farm.
CROPS and Bitcorn are examples of Counterparty assets, so you’ll need Counterparty tokens (XCP) on hand to buy and sell. If you don’t yet have Counterparty tokens, begin by getting a Counterparty wallet – we recommend starting out with the Counterwallet. Check out the exchanges listed here where you can buy XCP using Bitcoins, or use the builtin exchange. Then use the tokens to buy CROPS, that’s how Bitcorns works.
Everything within the Bitcorn world is based on owning CROPS tokens, but you don’t spend them. They control access and in this case they control your Bitcorn harvests! For example, to save edits to your farm you’ll need to sign a timestamp with the private key from a Bitcoin address with CROPS. So let’s get some so we can start farming.
Go to the exchange (click on link on left side) and locate this trading pair as shown in screenshot below. You could place a buy order under the lowest sell price, but I don’t want to wait around when the arbitrage opportunity is under $1. I’ll try this with just over the lowest sell price, set the quantity I want and click submit.
In your Counterparty wallet, assuming you’ve already used Bitcoin to purchase Counterparty tokens, choose the Decentralized Exchange and the XCP/CROPS pair to trade. The reason you’ll see three balances in your wallet, is because the CROPS we’re buying Counterparty tokens. Counterparty is a protocol running on Bitcoin, so transactions are embedded in Bitcoin transactions, and thus require some amount of BTC on hand.
Once you get CROPS tokens, you have a Bitcorn farm – congrats! The URL to view your farm is https://bitcorns.com/farms/{YOUR_BITCOIN_ADDRESS}
, where you use the Bitcoin address which holds the CROPS tokens. You could also just go to the farms page, and click on your farm. It’s got a generic name now, like “Farm 123” but the amount of CROPS should match.
Note that you’ll want to get at least 0.001 CROPS, as this allows you to customize your farm. Hodling 0.01 CROPS or more allows you to use a custom image for your farm. These are the current limits at the time of writing, check for yourself to be sure. In future, the game creator plans to have more features available to upgrade the farms – see tokens page for details.
So here’s an example of a farm detail page. Notice the “Edit” button in the top right corner.
Below the main artwork we see where on Earth the farm is located. You can locate your farm anywhere that one doesn’t already exist. You choose an exact geographic location, and a circular region of territory around that spot is restricted. The size of that circle on the map is based on the amount of CROPS owned.
Your farm can be anywhere, even out in the ocean like the Salty Sustainable CMO Farming location. Enter the latitude and longitude into the form, along with name and description for your Bitcorn farm.
Digitally sign the timestamp with your private key to prove you’re the farm owner. The Bitcorn system verifies that CROPS are owned at this address, verifies the signature, and saves your new farm data.
If my instructions weren’t clear, check out this short video showing exactly this. You want to prove you control the Bitcoin address with the CROPS without revealing the private key, so you sign a message with it that can be easily verified.
The name and description and location of your farm are editable from this page. This is available for all farms with 0.001 CROPS or more. Currently farms with 0.01 CROPS or more can upload a custom image for their farm. Here are some examples of custom farm artwork:
Farms can join coops too, and buy things like Lambo garages, helipads, boat docks and probably more to come. Here’s a map showing locations of members for one of the cooperatives, the Magic Internet Corn Alliance.
In case you had any doubt to this point that Bitcorn project devs are worthy, here is the proof that this site deserves respect:
This post was originally published on chainwars.one website by this same author