The world’s best chess players are competing for bitcoin. The prize pot is volatile.

After the world’s greatest chess players confront this week that they will not only be assessing their opponents. They will also be assessing the purchase price of bitcoin.

Sixteen grandmasters, including the top 10 on earth, are competing against each other and the clock at a generally stressed, and elite-level chess championship – as anybody who’s watched Netflix’s’The Queen’s Gambit’ is going to understand.

The winner of this FTX Crypto Cup, which started on Sunday, will take home $220,000 and an extra $100,000 from bitcoin supplied by crypto trade FTX, which is sponsoring the championship.

But that $100,000 at bitcoin – or 2.1825 bitcoin – is currently worth just over $81,000, as stated by the dwell prize-fund tracker to the championship site. At one stage on Monday it fell under $70,000. Since the contest does not end until May 31, there’s still lots of time for those winnings to change.

The principles make clear the excess decoration pot is 100,000 of bitcoin at their cryptocurrency’s cost at 2.30 p.m. on May 17 – $45,819, hence producing the decoration pot 2.1825 bitcoin.

The world’s very first bitcoin chess tournament comes through a particularly volatile time for its cryptocurrency.

The price dropped to a 24-hour low just over $31,000 on Sunday, greater than 50 percent below its mid-April summit of $64,829.14. It comes amid environmental issues within the mining of bitcoin, increased by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, along with also a crackdown by China on the industry. It’s since regained some ground to exchange only over $37,000 early on Tuesday, according to CoinDesk data.

The erratic nature of bitcoin appears to have filtered through into the gamers, together with world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen at danger of an early departure after a shaky start to the championship.