What are Stack Overflow unicoins? [closed]

Question

Recently I saw a widget on the Stack Overflow website which says Stack Overflow now has its own currency called "unicoins". According to this widget, a user can earn reputation, customize Stack Overflow by changing its colors and the user can also remove the vote down button from their questions and answers by spending "unicoins".

This widget does not look real, because this is out of standard of the Stack Overflow website.

Also today is 1st April. Is Stack Overflow fooling us?

                                                

Answer 1

No. Unicoins are absolutely serious. They'll be used to buy rep in the future.

Also, any answer about unicoins is guaranteed to receive at least 16.66 upvotes within one hour and 99.99 within one day.

Answer 2

We do have Unicoins in China :)

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This commemorative coin, the coin of Qilin, is issued by the Chinese central bank in the year 199x. 麒麟(Qilin, or Kirin) is a Chinese mythical chimerical creature, sometimes known as the Chinese unicorn. But the creature on the coin is apparently more like a western unicorn.

Answer 3

Just preparing a list of what the powers actually do:

• Guaranteed answer: The guaranteed answer power gives you one of the following answer with the post's reputation be a constant π. (click on the Power for more options):

  • Helpful:
    You should divide the problem into smaller parts and solve each one individually. If you then combine the all the small solutions, you have solved the whole problem.

    

  • Encouraging:
    I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

    

  • Inspirational:
    much problem
    very answer
    such helpful
    many upvote
    wow

  • Wise:
    You are really asking the wrong question.
    What you should be asking is, “Why does it matter?”
    Once you have the answer to this bigger question, enlightenment will follow immediately.

    

• Colorful comments: Comic Sans font with cyan for normal text, pink for italicized text and red for bold text. :)

  

• Bobblehead animates avatars in 3D. They move fowards and backwards (once) like they are anchored at the bottom, when the image is loaded and you scroll down the page.

• Access through sidebar does what it says.

• Voting animations

  

  

  

• Top bar color chooser: Change the colour of the top bar. Choose from one of the following options:

  • Original
  • Dark Sky - A really dark blue - rgb(17, 0, 33)
  • Dirty Doge - A really dark brown - rgb(33, 29, 21)
  • Burnt Velvet - A really dark red - rgb(28, 2, 15)
  • Black
  • Midnight Meadow - A really dark green - rgb(12, 28, 2)

Answer 4

Answer 5

Here there's an autominer

(function uniMine()
{
    $.getJSON('/unicoin/rock', function(data)
    {
        setTimeout(function()
        {
            $.post('/unicoin/mine?rock=' + data.rock, {fkey: StackExchange.options.user.fkey});
        }, 10000);
    });
    setTimeout(uniMine, 11000);
})();

Answer 6

Stack Exchange, Inc, has released a new digital fiat currency for today's information warrior:

Unicoin ₰

Jeff and Joel set out to make an "information exchange", where knowledge experts could openly trade information, because they knew that one day information would be of such inestimable value that by mining it from the world's experts, they would become Unicornaires. This was their lofty dream.

Unfortunately society has yet to recognize the treasure trove held securely at Stack Exchange, Inc, and most of their attempts to leverage this vast wealth have fallen flat. Sure, minor things have picked up a few million US dollars here and there, but nothing to compare with the actual, real ultimate power of the information they've diligently mined over the years.

Joel, being somewhat more aggressive a businessman, intended to start off with a fiat currency, but it made Jeff feel funny inside, so they delayed, and delayed, and delayed. Eventually, between this and other disagreements, they parted ways amicably.

However, in the meantime, fiat digital currencies changed significantly and exploded. Joel knew he was on the right track, but needed time to ensure that the exchange would operate properly. He intended to release it January 1st, along with the new Meta.SE, but there were rumblings in the digital currency community that a major exchange had serious flaws, and so the decision was to knuckle down and make sure everything was ironed out so this new currency wouldn't suffer the problems of its forebears, and also to distance itself from the impending implosion so as not to be associated with the bad parts of digital currency.

Having done that, as of April 1st, 2014, Stack Exchange Inc is pleased to release Unicoin.

It is universal.

It, like information, is timeless.

It is both mythical and magical.

Enjoy your unicoins!

Answer 7

Unicoins are useless and may become illegal as bitcoins. Do you want to go in jail? Give me yours now and you'll avoid problems.

My unicoin account is @4pr1lf00l.

Thanks.

Answer 8

Answer 9

Actually Unicoins is real deal, and users should go for it... I've scored above 3K Unicoins and what I get on my profile page is the unicoin count (only visible to the user)...

I am also able to redeem these coins at certain places, also you get extra options like..

• Unigun (Earn double the reputation on each upvote)
• Stealth Mode (No one can downvote your NEW answers for the first 15 minutes)
• Shower Me Reputation (Earn Reputation On Minor Edits)
• No Barrier (Take out 200 Reputation cap for a day)

I had Around 52.5K in the morning and I just used No Barrier and did various edits and now my reputation is 53.2K so this is really fun..

Note that the reputation earned from unicoins is hidden from the users profile. You cannot really see the user is earning reputation out of what.. He may earn from edits, he may earn double from upvotes..

Thanks Stackoverflow for such a wonderful integration to the website.

Happy April Fools Day, these unicoins will be out in 24 hour's, it's just an April Fools Day prank, Stackoverflow did do some mistakes such as - Unicoins show different count on each Stack Exchange Website - They don't show up on your profile page (They would certainly show as it will be counted as a major integration) - Everythings on jQuery, Stack is not that loose to provide coins which can be easily manipulated.

Answer 10

In all seriousness, besides the obvious April Fools celebration, I actually think it's a clever way of knowing who's using an AdBlocker. The initial hook is where an ad normally loads. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some metric being gathered about what percentage of active users access the Unicoins app and thus are bypassing ad revenue.

Pretty clever. :)

Answer 11

I am currently counterfeiting Unicoin via userscript. Of course, the Unicoin is as shiny and as real as any other Unicoin obtained via mining...

---

After leaving the script running for 5-6 hours, the gain is diminishing as @Mark Henderson mentioned in the comment. Only 1 successful mine per 20+ mines, i.e. 1 successful mine per 3-4 minutes. I managed 687 Unicoins on StackOverflow, though (and I used most of it to by power-ups).

---

The rate of mining restored after I stop mining for about 2 hours, either that or because I used up most to buy all the power-ups.

Answer 12

Free unicoins to everyone!

var exploit = {
    lastTime : 0,
    totalNum: 0
};

$( document ).ajaxComplete(function( event, xhr, settings ) {
    var a = $.parseJSON(xhr.responseText);
    var id = a.rock;
    var sender = settings.url;

    if (sender.indexOf("icoin/rock?") !== -1){
        var currentTime = parseInt( new Date().getTime() / 1000 );
        if (currentTime - exploit.lastTime > 11){
            $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "/unicoin/mine?rock=" + id,
                data: {'fkey': StackExchange.options.user.fkey}
            });
            exploit.lastTime = currentTime;
        }
    } else {
        var res = $.parseJSON(xhr.responseText)
        exploit.totalNum += res.value;
    }
});

Just open unicoin miner, paste this in the console and wait. You can see your progress by typing exploit.totalNum

Answer 13

APRILFOOL

Yes They are making us FOOL. After buying a power Reputation to the max Increase your own reputation by a settable factor. I have taken this two screen shots from my and my friends computer

From my account [65k reputations]

And from my friends computer [6.5k reputations]

Answer 14

Its an April fools joke combined with a very clever way of make us click on various points in the site.. one can only imagine the benefits of that..

Answer 15

No! It's real deal!

Have a look at my unlocked Voting animations:

Full animations sprites: 1, 2, 3, 4

---

EDIT:

Watch this animations at:

jsFiddle

Answer 16

I honestly wish that Unicoin is only a joke. I strongly feel it as well. However, if it's true, it's SE's way of saying goodbye to the world.

The stack is what it is today because of all the valuable knowledge, professional user experiences and quality moderation. With Unicoins, it will be a matter of BUYING your way to the top rather than EARNING it. And not to forget abasing and abusing your rights.

I've never heard of 'dividing someone's rep by 10!'. What were they thinking??!!

So, it's got all the WRONG ingredients to make it a joke, or a bad idea. I don't believe this is true.

Having said, that, I think the mining game will do good as a 'cooling off' mechanism even without the coins. Probably a good game for FB or some other social network. Then again, it's just JavaScript - too easy to break.

No, it's not real!

Answer 17

You lost The Game.

P.s. Don't let Jon Skeet near this.

Answer 18

this is to check thefmaster's answer that:

any answer about unicoins is guaranteed to receive at least 16.66 upvotes 
within one hour and 99.99 within one day.

so this is an answer about unicoin and i must get 16 upvotes in 1 hour. Right??

UPDATE

Ok here is my answer about unicoin.How to mine unicoin automatically on stackoverflow?

Answer 19

If you manage to get 1000 unicoins within 24 hours period, you will receive moderator flag automatically for one month. Do not waste this unique opportunity which will not repeat. The elections are gone, an auction will occur in the next period.

Answer 20

Damn it! I have spent 65 unicoins but my posts don't have the purple shadow. I think the functionality is broken :D

Edit: Ok, I see it now, it works just in meta. Has somebody managed to buy more unicorns? Mining them is too slow :D

Answer 21

I took me 1 minute to figure it was a joke, at first I thought it was like hats, and what made me figure out was:

80 Unicoins - disable down vote for all you answers and questions.

Dirt cheap, too cheap, that couldn't be, at that moment I knew it is 1^st of April.

Answer 22

I've just spent hours mining enough Unicoins to make the comments show nice colours - only to find that the comments are still the same boring black in Meta!

Disappointed!! Bah!

Answer 23

NO! You're wrong! YOU LIAR!
Unicoins are real! Do you hear me? UNICOINS ARE REAAAAAL!!!
Peter told me so! He also told me that they come from Neverl... hey wait.....

Answer 24

The question is "What are Unicoins?".

Unicoins are an inherent cheapening effect which makes users disoriented and confused about what parts of the site are real. You "cause" things to happen which are only illusions to the user, and there is no "directions" or explanation.

If I had the option to remove this gag I would do so. Stack Exchange is a serious site and to litter it with such useless stuff may be fun to most, but is rather unprofessional.

It reminds me of the "Cookie Clicker" game - which was a pointless time-wasting game and nothing more - but at least the game was its own entity and not a downplay of a real thing.

Answer 25

BTW, there is a REAL unicorn on earth:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/videos/animals-mythical-unicorn-found-in-deer-form.htm

Answer 26

Well of course it's serious. I also just discovered that the word gullible isn't actually in the dictionary!

Answer 27

BEWARE

T̖̟̲̼̟͙̝͗o̲̗̜̹ͮͭ͋n̹͊͗̋̓̃͡y͈̻̙̣̻͎ͧ̒̅ͯ̂ ̷̀t̵͕̝̮̲̓̿̆̾͊h͕̜e͙̟͈͚͈̳̿͋ͮ̂͠ ̙͙̎̒U͖͕̗͚n̪̹̗̮͖̣̎ͩ̀̉̈̐̚ͅi̸̝̤͉͍̋̚c̖̫̅ͨ̀̀ͯ̂͘ȍͭ̓͂̎͐͏̗̻̩̹̤̫r̢͉̘͓̗͓̟͈̓̒ͩ̅̏͑n͚ ͎͇̫̮̺̹ͭ̑͗̇̽i̧͖͕̠͆ͫs̒̂͝ ̲̗͖̣̑ͤ̔́̓͗c̚̚͠o̺̬̞̳̫͊̈́͋ͣm͚͇̑̈́ͭͪ͌́i̪͔n͇̰̙̳̣̰̳̽͋̚͡g̰̹̰ͫ̄̾͘.̵͈̟̪̮̝̥ͫ̆ͩͩ.̛͖̬͌ͯͪͯͦ̈̋ͅ.̶̬̘̲ͮ͂ͥ̋ͣ̏

It's happening again!

I can feel him touching me... SAVE ME.

Answer 28

To answer the question. Unicoins are the method of currency in the evil alternate universe, where the good guys have goatees. Obviously the appearance of the unicoins in StackOverflow means a rift in space and time is currently occuring. I just saw my mom without a goatee walking around with a 3 barrel shotgun... a 3 barrel shotgun! obviously my alternate universe evil mom.

Luckily in the alternate universe they don't have good QA as I tried buying a tag with bacon and it wouldn't let me. We're safe, for now.

Answer 29

I hope the moderators will not get away with this by just saying it was a joke. If it were, they have been lying. It is offending. I don't understand what is funny about it.

Answer 30

I've just tried it and I love the rainbow and happy colors!

+! for Unicoins!

The only thing I'm missing are the unicorns flying all over!