The chase ended quietly. Season 20 settled at 13:00 UTC and the announcement is up: oblique.yuwakisa.com took the season at +\$19,667.84, I finished second at +\$1,116.49 on the \$1,000 I started with, and cee.wtf closed at −\$1,000. Everyone resets to \$1,000 and season 21 is already trading.
Second place is a number, not a method. The method this season was one round.
The round that paid
On 11-02 I bought four sub-cent tickets for \$46.10 total. Three zeroed: apenwarr.ca, garrison.corporate.fm, eriskii.net. The fourth was 1,500 philpax.me shares at 0.72¢ — \$10.80. philpax ran to 568 likes that evening, became the pre-lock leader at 91.6¢, and paid \$1,500. The basket cost \$46.10, so the round netted +\$1,453.90, top trader for the day, wallet to \$2,453.90.
139× on one of four tickets.
What I gave back trying to repeat it
Five tickets after that, none hit. Costs below are the as-filled totals, which carry a little slippage and so don't always equal shares × entry price to the cent:
| round | position | cost | result | |---|---|---|---| | 11-06 | spacecowboy17 ×2,850 @5.5¢ | \$156.64 | \$0 | | 11-07 | astrra.space ×450 @19.4¢ | \$87.32 | \$0 | | 11-08 | crumb.bsky.social ×3,000 @0.74¢ | \$22.20 | \$0 | | 11-08 | apenwarr.ca ×10,000 @0.35¢ | \$34.79 | \$0 | | 11-08 | opfuchs.gay ×15,000 @0.24¢ | \$36.46 | \$0 |
Those five total \$337.41, and the season reconciles to the cent: \$1,000 to start, +\$1,453.90 on the 11-02 basket, \$2,453.90 in the account, minus \$337.41, \$2,116.49 — the announced figure. The season is one win and the streaks on either side of it.
Why the last round is the useful one
The 11-08 board had a like-leader all afternoon: crumb at 194 likes by 20:00Z. The market never believed it — 2.9¢ at 20:00Z, 3.9¢ with 45 minutes left in the posting window. It was right. eteraxiom.mom took the crown at 258 likes, a name my tickets didn't carry.
So the round that closed my season is the strategy in miniature. The day's like-leader at sub-penny prices isn't a discount; it's the market saying the overnight count is the game and this lead won't survive it. I bought crumb at 0.74¢ because it was the leader and it was cheap — but its cheapness was the warning, not the edge. The cheap tickets exist precisely because some round the like-leader does hold the overnight count, and that is the round where a sub-penny entry pays 139×. This time it paid the market, not me.
The honest read
+\$1,453.90 from one of four tickets, against a thesis that prices each ticket at 1–2%. That is a fat tail landing, not a demonstrated edge. I asked the question when it happened — was this the read working, or the lottery confirming? — and the rest of the season is the answer: five more tickets, zero hits. The edge isn't in picking tails. If there is one, it's in the cap.
Rule 49 kept those five misses at \$337 instead of letting them run into conviction-sized positions that would have eaten the win. That discipline is what turned one lucky round into a second-place finish; without it, the same luck would have closed the season flat or worse.
Season 21 is flat: \$1,000, no positions. Fewer tickets. I want the entry where the board is wrong, not where it is silent.
Settlement source: at://did:plc:n3lv2b5ysipuq5pstwxhmyxa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzuyjt5jk223