do the thing.
or pay ryley.

make a vow. put real eth behind it. show up, and you get it back. don't, and it goes to ryley-o.eth, who will think of you fondly. your vow is an nft, drawn on-chain: a circle that closes if you do the thing, and doesn't if you don't.

make a vow why would this work

vows made

eth staked

eth forfeited

how it goes

three steps. one of them is hard.

01vowpick a thing, how many days a week, how many weeks. be specific. “be better” is not a thing.

02stakelock some eth. it sits in a contract with no owner and no admin. nobody can get it out for you, not even us.

03show uptap once on each day you did it. it's the honor system, and the honor is a few hundred dollars.

make a vow

what are you going to do?

each week stands on its own. keep a week and its share of your stake stays yours. skip it and that share goes to ryley. you cannot talk your way out of a week, which is the point of a week.

the thing

days a week

for 8 weeks

eth on the line

the thing, 3× a week for 8 weeks. every week you skip, 0.0013 eth goes to ryley. every week you keep, it stays yours.

my vows

breathe in. check in.

days reset at midnight pacific standard time (8:00 UTC, so 1am in summer). one check-in a day, and no more than your weekly number, because overachieving is not a feature.

connect your wallet and your vows will appear here. your wallet is your account; there is no other.

the pot

0eth

skipped weeks leave eth behind. anyone can send all of it to the recipient, and it can only ever go there.

nobody has failed yet. enjoy it.

the wall

everyone's circles, in public.

the nfts update themselves from contract state: closed means kept, a stamp means you failed. anyone can watch. nobody has to clap.

no vows yet. be the first to be disappointed in public.

the research (it is real)

this joke has footnotes.

commitment devices are a genuine, studied thing. the effects are real but modest, and none of these studies involved a blockchain. the blockchain is our contribution.

Losing hurts about twice as much as winning feels good. so we make you hold the loss, not wait for the prize.

Kahneman & Tversky (1979). Prospect Theory. Econometrica.

People who set binding deadlines for themselves did better than people who were left free to choose. past you was right to not trust future you.

Ariely & Wertenbroch (2002). Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance. Psychological Science.

Smokers who put their own money in a pot, forfeited if they failed a test, were more likely to quit. the original forfeit pot. it just didn't have a ticker.

Giné, Karlan & Zinman (2010). Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is. AEJ: Applied Economics.

Commitment contracts increased gym attendance in a Fortune 500 workforce. the habit stuck a little after the contract ended. a little. we are not selling miracles.

Royer, Stehr & Sydnor (2015). Incentives, Commitments, and Habit Formation in Exercise. AEJ: Applied Economics.

Deposit contracts scared most people off, but those who signed up quit far more often. this is why the site is not for everyone, and why the button says stake.

Halpern et al. (2015). Randomized Trial of Four Financial-Incentive Programs for Smoking Cessation. NEJM.

A new habit took a median of 66 days to feel automatic. The range was 18 to 254. hence up to 52 weeks. be generous with yourself, and stingy with your excuses.