The Pipeline Knowledge Graph

Contestant profiling and challenges faced

5 min read

From: thepipeline_xyz

Monad Games is a high-stakes competition featuring five contestants battling to earn testnet tokens, known as T-Mo, for a chance to win $5,000 to donate to the community [00:00:00]. The competition involves various intense challenges, with participants often describing themselves as “degenerate gamblers” [00:00:15].

Contestant Introductions and Confidence Levels

Before the games begin, contestants are introduced and asked about their confidence in winning.

  • One contestant expresses high confidence, stating “10” and feeling “locked in” [00:01:02].
  • Another also rates their confidence as “10” [00:01:17].
  • A third considers it a “50/50 chance” [00:01:22].
  • Others provide ratings like “Six” [00:01:30] and “6.9 out of 10” [00:01:37].

Contestants also answered various personal questions:

  • Cult Name: “Bill Monday fan club” [00:01:40].
  • Weirdest DM: “Be my monad mommy” [00:01:43].
  • Haunted by a Ghost: Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter, described as “pretty friendly” and “humble” [00:01:57].
  • Swap Lives with Cartoon Character: Rick from Rick and Morty, for being “badass” [00:02:11].
  • “Down Bad” for Money or Clout: “Get a job” [00:02:21].

Challenges Faced

Contestants faced a series of demanding challenges throughout Monad Games.

Inspired by Squid Games, contestants had 7 minutes to carve out a design from a cookie [00:03:21]. All contestants chose the “hard” route, which was worth 1,000 mana tokens [00:02:48]. Breaking the cookie resulted in immediate loss [00:03:29]. Participants experienced sweaty hands and struggled with the delicate task [00:03:47]. Strategies included melting the back of the cookie to make it super thin [00:04:11]. Several contestants broke their cookies, leading to elimination [00:05:06].

John’s Mystery Meat Challenge

This challenge offered an opportunity to earn 100 Monad tokens per meat [00:06:12]. Contestants had to eat random, unknown meats, which were all safe to eat [00:06:43]. The list of potential meats included:

Contestants struggled with the appearance and taste of the meats, with one describing a mixed blend as tasting like “poop” [00:09:32].

Influencer Ranking & Psychic Challenge Insights

Contestants were first asked to rank themselves from most to least influential [00:11:40]. Afterward, a professional psychic conducted a 5-minute reading with each contestant to independently rank them by influence based on her intuition [00:12:33]. If the psychic placed someone in the same spot they put themselves, they won 500 mana [00:12:44]. If she placed them in the number one spot, they won 1,000 mana [00:12:56]. Each contestant then had 15 seconds to argue why they were the most influential [00:12:51].

The psychic’s readings included observations such as:

  • Being a “great organizer, a little anal,” and an “empath” [00:13:16].
  • Having a desire to “act, to perform,” and liking the stage [00:13:28].
  • Being a “caregiver” and “secretive” [00:13:33].
  • Preferring to be “in the back” but enjoying “fantasies” and wanting to be “bigger than life” [00:13:58].
  • Being “very gentle, very caring” [00:14:18] and having an “emptiness” when home alone [00:14:30].
  • One participant noted the psychic correctly identified their preference not to be in the spotlight [00:16:25].

”Hot or Not” Pitch Competition Dynamics

This challenge required contestants to pick a random prompt for a non-existent startup and pitch it in 60 seconds [00:17:08]. The pitches were rated by the other contestants [00:17:41]. To earn more mana, participants could choose to eat increasingly spicy items: jelly beans (200 mana), the world’s hottest chocolate (500 mana), or the one chip challenge (2,000 mana) [00:17:16]. Drinking yogurt before time was up forfeited points [00:18:00].

Pitches included:

  • “Only NADS,” an AI-powered unsolicited image filter [00:18:36].
  • “Work to Earn,” a gamified work tracking and reward system [00:20:09].
  • “Dog Date Concept,” a Tinder-like app for dog playdates or breeding [00:21:06].
  • “Couch Confessional,” an AI priest for spilling secrets, with a V2 promising crypto rewards for “bad” secrets [00:22:26].
  • “Fridge Cop,” an AI audio coach linked to a fridge for real-time dietary feedback [00:24:19].

Ice Block Seed Phrase Challenge

Contestants selected tools to break open a block of ice containing eight words of a seed phrase [00:28:24]. They had 10 minutes to retrieve the words and order them correctly [00:28:14]. Tools ranged from versatile options to a keyboard and a spoon [00:27:08]. The challenge involved breaking the ice, often leading to words mixing up [00:29:02]. One contestant resorted to bribing another for a missing word [00:30:19].

Split or Steal

The final and most significant challenge, worth 2,500 tokens, was a psychological game called “Split or Steal” [00:31:30]. Each contestant secretly wrote “split” or “steal” on a card. The rules for token distribution were:

  • Everybody Splits: Each person gets 500 mana [00:31:49].
  • Only One Steals: The one who steals takes all tokens [00:31:54].
  • Two or More Steal: Splitters get everything [00:31:57].
  • Three or More Steal: No one wins anything [00:32:03].

This high stakes gambling competition dynamics created tension and involved a game of “trust, strategy, and maybe a little backstabbing” [00:32:06]. Ultimately, Professor Pipelines, also known as Danny, was the sole stealer and won the entire 2,500 tokens [00:34:57]. Despite winning $5,000 to give to the community, he made an unexpected decision to split the prize among three other “OG Monad community members” [00:35:58].

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