The Bitcoin Question: Lume's satoshi ladder

About The Bitcoin Question

A hacker set up a quiz show in the radio-tower studio and put Lume's hardware wallet on the line. Ten questions from the world of crypto — Bitcoin and Ethereum up front, with some other coins mixed in — one per level, drawn from a pool of 100 (10 per level). You get 60 seconds each. The ladder doubles: the first right answer is worth 195,313 satoshis, the second 390,625, and so on up to 0.5 BTC on the ninth and a full 1 BTC on the tenth. No lives, no second chance: one wrong answer, or the clock hitting zero, and the screen cuts to the hack — the hacker at his laptop draining every satoshi while Lume watches. He only opens his mouth to point at the right answer after you miss. Get all ten and the show ends in a shower of bitcoins and the whole wallet in your hands. Only shows you win make the Top 5. The prize is make-believe: no real bitcoin — the game doesn't pay out, hold or trade any cryptocurrency.

In Selminha's words

“Everyone has seen a quiz show with a prize ladder. I wanted one with the internet's most famous coin, the all-or-nothing of holding your own key — and the perfect villain for that is a hacker with a laptop.”

How to play The Bitcoin Question, and tips for a higher score

1. Tap an answer (on a computer: W/S or the arrows pick, J or Enter confirms; on a gamepad: d-pad and A/X). Four options per question and 60 seconds on the clock — the orange ring mid-screen and the TIME bar at the top show what is left.
2. Prize ladder in BTC: 0.00195313 → 0.00390625 → 0.0078125 → 0.015625 → 0.03125 → 0.0625 → 0.125 → 0.25 → 0.5 → 1. The wallet shows what you already hold; "playing for" shows the current question's step, in BTC and in satoshis.
3. Wrong answer, or out of time? The hacker points at the right answer and breaks into the hardware wallet: you lose everything and the show is over. No lives, no extra lives.
4. All ten right? The victory screen shows a make-believe 1 BTC in the wallet, and your score is posted to the Top 5 leaderboard (stored on the server). A loss goes on the board as 0, but the end screen shows how far you got.
5. Questions change every run: 10 per level, drawn without repeats within a run. P or Esc pauses (the clock stops); M toggles sound; F toggles full screen on a computer.

How the ladder works

Ten levels

Question 1 is the easiest (what a blockchain is, who created Bitcoin) and question 10 the hardest (activation blocks, network ports, Ethereum clients). Each level has 10 questions in the pool; the game draws one.

Doubling

Satoshis double with every right answer: 195,313 → 390,625 → 781,250 → 1,562,500 → 3,125,000 → 6,250,000 → 12,500,000 → 25,000,000 → 50,000,000 → 100,000,000 (1 BTC).

Clock

60 seconds per question. The ring in the middle and the TIME bar at the top drain together; the tick speeds up in the last 10 seconds.

The hacker

Silent the whole show. He only speaks when you miss or run out of time — to show which one was right — and then breaks into the wallet.

Losing it all

One miss empties the wallet: the hack screen shows how much you had and the answer you missed. No lives, no extra lives.

Topics: Bitcoin and Ethereum first (history, protocol, wallets, addresses, upgrades), with stops at Solana, Polygon, Dogecoin, stablecoins, NFTs and the pioneers who came before Satoshi.

Controls on phone and computer

Computer

Tap an answer · W/S or ↑/↓ pick, J or Enter confirms · P or Esc pauses · M toggles sound · F full screen · gamepad friendly: d-pad picks, A or X confirms, Start pauses, Back toggles sound.

Touch

Portrait and full screen on phones. Tap the answer directly; no extra buttons. Pause and sound sit in the top-right corner.

Victory and leaderboard

Whole bitcoin

All ten right leads to the victory screen: a rain of coins, 1 make-believe BTC in the hardware wallet, and Lume celebrating.

Top 5

The score is the wallet at the end of the show: 100,000,000 sats if you win the show; 0 if you get hacked (the end screen says how far you got).

Languages

All 100 questions come in Portuguese, English and Spanish, each set written from scratch.

A knowledge game, not a luck game: options shuffle every round, but the right answer is always the same.