How the hash and the salt work in a Whop post

Two strings of random-looking characters appear in BetsBeats posts on Whop. One is called the hash. The other is called the salt. They do different jobs, and together they let anyone confirm that a pick was fixed before the game. This article explains what each is and where to find it in the community.

The hash

The hash is a SHA-256 fingerprint of the pick. It is 64 hexadecimal characters long, and it is published before kickoff. The same input always gives the same hash, and any change to the input gives a completely different one. In The record on Whop, the hash is in the post made before the game, and it is repeated in the result post after the final.

The seven fields

The fingerprint is calculated from seven fields, in a fixed order, joined by a vertical bar:

• the date of the day,
• the fixture, with the away team first, a spaced long dash, and the home team,
• the market,
• the published price, written with two decimals,
• the minimum price, written with two decimals,
• the kickoff time, in the ISO 8601 format,
• the salt.

The strict format is part of the commitment. A price written as 1.9 and one written as 1.90 are different strings and give different hashes, which is why prices have two decimals. What the commitment hash is has the full account.

The salt

The salt is 64 random characters generated when the pick is sealed. It is kept secret until the game is settled. Without it, anyone could try every plausible pick, hash each one and compare the results to the published hash, which would reveal the pick before the game. The salt makes that impractical. After the final, BetsBeats publishes the salt in the result post. See why the salt is only published after settlement.

What the side is, and is not

The seven fields do not include the side of the bet as a separate item. What the hash fixes is the game, the market, the prices, the kickoff and the date. The side is recorded alongside the pick, and the result post states the bet in full. What the commitment hash does not prove explains this limit, and it is one reason to save the Sealed picks post when you are a member.

How to use them

• Copy the hash from the post before the game.
• After the final, copy the salt from the result post.
• Enter the fields and the salt at betsbeats.com/verify.
• Compare the result with the hash you saved.

A small thought experiment

Imagine two envelopes. The first, shown before the game, contains a sealed fingerprint. The second, opened afterwards, contains the pick and the key. If the fingerprint made from the second envelope matches the first, nothing was swapped between the two. If it does not match, something changed. That is the whole idea. The hash is the first envelope and the salt is part of the second, and the verify page is the person who compares them.

A full walkthrough is in how to verify a pick posted on Whop. The check shows that the pick was fixed in that form before kickoff. It does not show that the pick was good, and every pick can lose. This is for adults aged 21 or over.