Hydra Chess

Two players play chess inside a Cardano Hydra Head (L2), wagering ADA that settles trustlessly — winner takes the pot.

What's novel

• Every move is an L2 Plutus transaction — the game state lives on a real ledger, not a server.
• The on-chain layer is game-agnostic, so other turn-based board games can reuse it.
• An Aiken escrow makes the pot both unstealable and unfreezable — even a stalling opponent can't trap your funds; timeout-forfeit is enforced on-chain.

Status

v2 playable. Full wagered games are verified end-to-end on a local devnet — headless (checkmate and timeout-forfeit scenarios) and in-browser: stake → escrow → click-to-move with a live turn clock → checkmate or timeout claim → settle → fanout → L1 payout.