THE BILLIONAIRE

You are a founder. Grow your Total Net Worth by playing short investing rounds ("quarters"), managing debt and saving smartly. Your Net Worth is shown on the weekly leaderboard.

You start with $3B Liquid Cash, no debt, and a 700 Credit Score. All money is in billions ($B).

1. Lobby: Read the Macro Forecast. It changes the rules for this round (see section 8).
2. Pick a Ticket: $1B, $5B or $10B. The ticket is taken from your cash as collateral. You get it back if you succeed.
3. Capital Allocation (20 seconds): Choose your Target (3B to 10B). Optionally buy a Stop-Loss Hedge. Tap DEPLOY CAPITAL, or the timer deploys for you.
4. Play the puzzle (section 3) for up to 333 seconds.
5. Settlement: You see an Income Statement, the Index Fund yield, debt interest and a CFO Insight tip.

Succeed = your Billions reach the Target (you may keep playing past it for extra revenue, then tap CASH OUT). Fail = time runs out below the Target, or you forfeit.

The board is a 10 x 10 grid of 0s and 1s. A Billion is a full row or column with exactly one 1 and nine 0s, with the 1 at the very end: 1000000000 or 0000000001. Empty cells (see "Bank it") count as 0s.

• Select: Tap any cell. Its row is selected (arrow ▶). Tap the selected line again (one tap) to switch between row (H) and column (V, arrow ▼). Tapping a different cell selects that cell's line.
• Move: Press on a cell and drag along the selected line to slide it. It wraps around the edge. Each step you slide is 1 move.
• Bank it: When a line becomes a Billion it flashes amber and the whole line is emptied (blank cells), and you earn +1B. Nothing ever locks: empty cells slide along with everything else, so you can keep moving any row or column across the empty space. The board holds ten 1s, so 10B is the most you can bank.
• Every board can be solved. Plan your slides: fewer moves means lower costs.
• The CASH OUT button appears once you reach your Target. Forfeit ends the round as a failure.

Bigger tickets multiply every Billion you form, but you can lose more if the venture fails. Higher potential return always comes with higher risk. A ticket is only available if you have enough Liquid Cash.

• Gross Revenue = Billions formed x Ticket multiplier x Market bonus.
• Target Capital Cost = your chosen Target (in $B). Aim higher and you must earn more before you profit.
• OpEx (Operating Expense) = cost per move ($0.10B normally). Fewer moves protect your margin.
• Capital Gains Tax = 15% of profit, only when profit is positive. Losses are not taxed.

Profit = Revenue - Target - OpEx - Tax, and your ticket comes back on success.

Example: $5B Growth ETF (1.4x), Stable market, Target 5B. You finish 8B with 12 moves. Revenue = 8 x 1.4 = 11.2. Costs = 5 + 1.2 (12 x 0.10) = 6.2. Pre-tax profit = 5.0. Tax = 0.75. Net profit = $4.25B, and your $5B ticket is returned.

Careful: with a low multiplier, hitting exactly your Target can still lose money. Overshoot, or pick a higher multiplier.

Optional, bought on the Capital Allocation screen for 15% of your Target, paid upfront and never refunded.

If the venture fails, an unhedged player forfeits the whole ticket. A hedged player gets 80% of the ticket back.

If you succeed, the fee is simply a cost. Insurance protects against big losses you cannot afford. It is not a way to make money.

A failed venture also earns no revenue, and OpEx for your moves is still paid.

A new forecast is drawn every time you return to the lobby. Plan around it: in a Credit Crunch, moves are cheap but revenue shrinks.

• Index Fund: open "Manage Portfolio & Debt" in the lobby. Deposit or withdraw $1B per tap. After every round it grows by 8% (compound), so the growth earns growth.
• Loans: borrow $3B per tap. You cannot borrow once your debt reaches $15B. Each loan lowers your Credit Score by 15.
• Interest: charged on your debt after every round. The rate runs from 6% (score 850) to 22% (score 300). Unpaid interest is added to your debt, so it compounds.
• Repaying: $1B per tap (+10 score) or Repay Full Debt (+25 score).
• Credit Score moves: +15 for a successful venture, -10 for a failed one.

CFO tip: Keep 20% to 30% of your wealth in the Index Fund as an emergency buffer, and pay off high-interest debt first.

Out of cash? Tap Side Hustle in the lobby. Answer a short personal-finance question. Each correct answer pays $0.50B instantly.

• It is always free and always available, with no ads, no timers and no cooldown.
• It pays only while your Liquid Cash is under $3B, so it is a safety net, not an infinite money machine. Above that it is practice mode.
• Wrong answers earn nothing but explain the right answer. The questions repeat only after you have seen them all.

After each round, if your Debt is bigger than your Liquid Cash + Index Fund, you go bankrupt:

• Your Liquid Cash is seized and the rest of your debt is written off.
• Your Index Fund is protected, so you keep it.
• Your Credit Score drops by 150 (minimum 300), so later loans cost far more.

You can always recover: do Side Hustles for cash, or withdraw from the Index Fund.

Progress saves automatically in your browser. Clearing your browser data resets it. Rename yourself with the box at the top of the lobby (16 characters max).

The leaderboard ranks Total Net Worth for the current week. If the online service is unavailable it shows scores from this device only.

• Asset: something you own that has value.
• Liability: money you owe.
• APR: yearly interest rate on a loan (here, applied per round).
• Compound interest: interest earned on past interest.
• Diversification: spreading money across several investments to reduce risk.
• Hedge: protection that limits a loss.
• Index fund: a low-cost fund that tracks a whole market, such as the S&P 500.
• Liquidity: how quickly something turns into cash.
• OpEx: operating expenses, the running cost of doing business.
• ROI: return on investment, profit compared with what you put in.