Now in beta on Solana

Despot, the country trading game on Solana

Despot is a world of real countries, each with its own tokens on Solana. Buy the countries you back and sell the ones you don't. The money behind a country is its army, and every 16 minutes the armies go to war. The holders of the winning country take the losing country's tokens.

Play Despot White paper

One round, about 16 minutes

Trade and vote
11 min
Buy and sell country tokens. A country's price rises as it is bought and falls as it is sold. Holders vote on which country theirs attacks, and a bigger holding carries a bigger vote.
Sealed
30 s
Trading and voting freeze, so nobody can switch sides at the last second.
War
2.5 min
Each country's target is drawn by lottery from its holders' votes: a target with 60% of the votes is drawn 60% of the time. Each side's chance of winning is its army's share of both armies, and the result comes from public randomness on Solana that no one can steer.
Loot sale
2 min
The tokens a losing country gives up go to the winning side's holders. They keep that loot or sell it, and every seller gets the same price. Then the next round opens.

Why it is called parimutuel trading

In a parimutuel pool, the winners are paid out of the losers' money. Despot works the same way, except that countries keep trading at a live price all through the round instead of waiting for the result. Read how parimutuel trading works.

A price curve for every country

Each country is priced by its own curve. Buying creates new tokens and raises the price; selling removes tokens and lowers it. There is no order book, so you never wait for someone on the other side, and the money behind each country sits in its own reserve on Solana.

Early buyers get in cheaper. At launch a country can sell up to 150,000 tokens, and its price climbs to 15 times the launch price as they are bought.

Half of every buy is locked

Half of what you buy stays locked until the round's wars are over, so nobody can pump a country and dump it on the players who followed. The other half can be sold whenever trading is open, so you can also take profit from trading alone, before a single battle is fought.

Your wallet, your tokens

Your tokens are recorded on Solana under your own wallet, and only you can sell them or withdraw what they pay. The platform cannot move, freeze or take them. The only way to lose tokens is by the game's own rules, when your country loses a war.

Despot earns only from trading fees: 0.5% to buy or sell, rising by up to 0.5% more in the final minute before trading closes. Wars carry no fee.

Your land and your flag

Holding a country also means holding a piece of its land on the map. You can name your land, and the holders of each country vote on the flag it flies. When a country is conquered, the captured land takes the winner's colours, and everyone sees the same map.

What you need to play

Despot runs in your browser, on a computer or a phone, with nothing to install. You need a Solana wallet such as Phantom, Solflare or Backpack, and at least 0.04 SOL to start. Your wallet approves each trade, or turn on one-click trading and, for up to 24 hours, your trades go through without asking.

Trade countries. Win their wars.

Every rule, in plain English, is in the rule booklet. For the full mechanics, read the white paper and the technical paper.