Onchain contest platform Jokerace launches v2 'vote-and-earn' price curves aimed at rewarding 'conviction'

Jokerace, the onchain platform used to run contests, has launched a new gamified voting system meant to reward “conviction.” According to co-founder David Phelps, Jokerace’s “vote-and-earn v2” introduces a new set of price curves in the biggest overhaul to the platform to date. 

The upgrade will allow users to earn “uncapped rewards for voting early with conviction,” Phelps told The Block in a direct message. “It also helps contests be more successful since early players will start funding the rewards pool, which will drive more people to join. I believe we’re the first voting tool to ever get people paid based on conviction.”

Founded in 2022 by David Phelps and Siobhán McCaffery, Jokerace is a no-code, onchain contests platform where users vote on the results of anything from grant funding to protocol upgrades. Kraken, for instance, recently launched a competition to name its mascot for its in-house Layer 2, Ink. 

Like in prediction markets, Jokerace players are rewarded for betting on the right outcome. The platform’s new price curves include a mechanism that maximizes a user’s returns based on how much more other players subsequently wager — a first mover advantage and an incentive to advocate for their position. 

“So you can make even more by getting others to vote with you and persuading them of your case,” the team wrote on X. “More rewards drive more people to play. Which increases rewards, which drives more people,” creating a kind of “flywheel.” 

Furthermore, Jokerace argues that this new incentive structure prevents whales from gaming the system by entering a contest late, when the stakes are lower. “It's now far too costly for them to manipulate a market at smaller players' expense. Instead, they actively *subsidize* those players,” the team explained. 

This is not Jokerace’s first experiment with novel economic games. In June, Phelps began exploring what he calls “persuasion markets,” a “kind of sister to prediction markets for subjective decisions rather than objective outcomes.” It is also running a five-week Joke Games competition where three teams will be incentivized to collaborate on winning contests.