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Created August 11, 2026 03:46
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Tideholm: the Tidegate, the Anchor & the Tavern — a player's guide (testnet)

Tideholm: The Tidegate, the Anchor & the Tavern — a player's guide

Seal your gold to your own key, prove it on Bitcoin, and stake it at the dockside dice — then bring your winnings home. Everything below is testnet: the coins have no value, and every move of your gold is signed by your key, in your browser. The server never holds your key.

Before you start: you need a nostr keypair (a 64-hex private key). Use a throwaway or testnet key, not your main nostr identity — the key is kept in your browser's localStorage for signing, which is fine for play and wrong for a key you treasure.

1 · Fly your banner

Open your player profile in Tideholm (Rankings → your name) and link your did:nostr — paste your 64-hex public key. Your banner (⚿) is now your identity: everything that follows is keyed to it.

2 · Bank gold in the Vault

Market → The Vault. Deposit gold and raiders can never touch it — they can sack your island bare and the vault stays full. This is game-side safety; the next step takes gold out of the game entirely.

3 · Seal it at the Tidegate

Market → The Tidegate. Enter an amount and Peg in. The first time, you'll be asked for your 64-hex private key — it's stored in this browser only and signs every move from here on. Your gold becomes a sealed balance keyed to your identity: a signed, verifiable trail that any app can honor. Peg out brings it back into the vault anytime.

4 · Watch the fuel

Under your sealed balance: ⛽ … sat · testnet4 · tb1p… · refresh. Your nostr key is a Bitcoin (testnet4) address — same curve, same key. The sats there are the fuel that anchoring spends. If it reads 0, ask a testnet4 faucet to send to your tb1p… address.

5 · Anchor it to Bitcoin ⚓

Click Anchor ⚓ — the first click shows exactly what will be spent (a small float, ~10k sats, and the fee); the second signs a real Bitcoin transaction in your browser and broadcasts it. Your trail is now committed on-chain: nobody — not the server, not anyone — can rewrite your history without Bitcoin catching the lie. The ⚓ line shows the anchor and flips to (confirmed) when the block lands. The counter (N unanchored) tells you when new moves await the next anchor.

6 · Walk through the tavern door 🎲

Beside the peg buttons: The Tavern ↗. It opens the dockside tavern in sealed mode — your purse is your sealed gold. (It's a different site, so it asks for your key once, same as step 3.)

7 · Cast to the tide

Set the dial (roll-above target and stake) and Cast to the tide. Your stake is signed off your purse immediately. The dice are rolled by the next Bitcoin block — it doesn't exist yet when you bet, so nobody (not the tavern, not the house, not you) knows the roll. Blocks come when they please; your wager rides until one does.

8 · Has the tide come in?

Press it after a while. The block's hash settles every riding wager: wins are signed onto your slip, losses go to the sea. Every settled round shows a check it link — the verifier recomputes your roll from the public block hash, offline. You never have to trust the tavern's word.

9 · Settle up and come home

Your slip (the signed record of the night) shows at the bottom of the Tide panel: Settle up ↗ carries it back to Tideholm. There, in the Market, you'll see "A tavern slip: N signed moves, net ±X" — click Redeem. The server verifies every signature on the slip, replays it, and your sealed balance lands exactly where your signed history says. Wipe the slip at the tavern once it's redeemed.

10 · Prove any of it, to anyone

  • Your trail (every peg, bet, and win, signed): https://nostr.social/tideholm/api/tidegate/trail (while logged in)
  • Your anchor on Bitcoin: the ⚓ line links straight to the transaction on mempool.space
  • Any dice roll: the tavern's verifier, from nothing but the block hash and your mark

One key did all of it: your identity, your seal, your stakes, your winnings, your anchor. The apps are just places it's welcome.


Testnet4 · play gold & valueless coins · Tideholm · the tavern · tidegate · tavern maths

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