Document GP-DOC-02: Overview

Getting Started

Onboarding is free, playable, and carries no stakes. You pay only at the moment you decide to keep something, and by then you already know exactly what it is.

1. Account

Authentication is Sign-In-With-Solana (SIWS). Two paths, same account:

• Embedded wallet (Privy): sign up with email or passkey; a Solana wallet is created and managed for you. No prior crypto knowledge required.
• Native wallet: connect Phantom or any adapter-compatible wallet directly.

Pick a handle. Diegetically, you are now a Field Handler under contract, an external contractor accredited by the Division of Containment & Recovery (DCR) for the Participatory Genetic Census: locate escaped specimens, scan them, and bring the interesting ones back under containment. Badge, quotas, field clearances; the corporation provides the equipment.

2. First capture: free, temporary custody

The tutorial (about 10 minutes, in the Verdant training canopy) hands you a Containment Lasso Mk.I and a Terrain Scanner and walks you through your first capture. Key properties:

• The scan shows 100 % of the genome and stats, free, before any decision.
• The captured creature enters temporary custody: it is fully playable but mints nothing on-chain, is non-tradeable, and is released back to the pool if not caged within 14 days.
• Lassos are never sold. The quota (5 per day) is granted by playing.

3. Placement: 8 free races, zero stakes

Before any paid entry, every account runs 8 mandatory placement races in T0 (Free Trials), the piloting aptitude evaluation. They calibrate your Glicko-2 rating (initial r₀ = 1500, RD₀ = 350); the account shows UNDER EVALUATION until the rating deviation settles (RD ≤ 150). There is no ticket, no stake, and no USDC prize during calibration: money never touches a race while the matchmaking is still uncertain. Placement ends with grade C1 posted; the paid path (T1+) becomes visible but is never required.

4. The first payment: the cage

Your first (and only mandatory) purchase decision is the Confinement Cage: 3 USDC, fixed, independent of rarity, paid strictly after full reveal. Paying the cage mints the specimen as a Metaplex Core NFT with the genome written in on-chain attributes, directly into your wallet. Not caging costs nothing: the specimen simply returns to the pool.

Payments are crypto-only

• The treasury accepts USDC-SPL only. Pay in USDC directly, or swap SOL to USDC client-side (e.g. Jupiter) before payment.
• Every payment is a transaction you sign; the operator never takes custody of player funds. Tournament tickets transit through an on-chain escrow program.
• Withdrawals: your USDC is in your wallet; the minimum withdrawal through the cash-out flow is 10 USDC.

5. Field clearances H-A → H-D

The world opens through field clearances issued by the DCR, won by playing, never purchasable in any currency. Access equipment is a free regulatory issue on obtaining the clearance and has zero effect on race stats.

Each threshold is doubled by equivalent field contracts from the sector Wardens (capture in specific hotspots, escort a maintenance drone, photograph landmarks) that validate the same clearance: no player is ever walled behind a race-win condition they cannot land.

6. Clearances are not grades

Two ladders, never confused:

Both are strictly raced or played into existence; neither is derived from any NFT you own. The full grade system, creature classes and the min(account grade, creature class) eligibility rule are specified in Rating & divisions.

7. Where the money starts, if you choose

After placement, the paid layer is opt-in: cage your captures (3 USDC), enter T1+ races with a prize pool (tickets from 1 USDC, under the two eligibility gates), breed (4.90 USDC fixed, outcome previewed), or buy finished specimens from other players on the marketplace. Daily freerolls offer a zero-ticket path to a first USDC prize. None of it is required to play the world, capture, or race T0.