Ghost duels: race a real player's recorded run
TypeBag is a 1v1 typing race for money: two players type the same 30–60 second passage, and the faster, more accurate typist takes 90% of the pot. It is free to try with no account, or staked at $1–$10 in USDC on Solana.
A ghost duel is a race against a recording. A real player typed a real passage at a real speed, and their run was captured keystroke by keystroke, with the exact timing of every character they entered. When you race that ghost, it replays at the pace it was originally typed and you race it live, including the moments where they hesitated, and the moments where they surged.
How this differs from racing a bot
A bot is generated: something decides on a target speed and produces keystrokes to hit it. A ghost is a performance that already happened. It does not adapt to you, it cannot be tuned to make the race close, and it will not slow down because you are behind. It types exactly what that person typed, at exactly the rate they typed it.
The texture gives it away once you have raced a few. Real runs are uneven: a pause before an unfamiliar proper noun, a burst through a common phrase, the small stumble-and-recover of a corrected error. You are not racing a speed setting, you are racing an actual person's actual minute.
When you meet one
When there is nobody to match you with. Live matchmaking is always the first choice, but queues are thin at certain hours and at certain stake tiers, and a duelling site with an empty lobby is not a duelling site. Ghosts mean the answer to "is anyone around?" is always yes.
You can also deliberately go and race one from the ghost lobby rather than waiting for the queue to offer it.
Ghosts play for real stakes
This is not an exhibition mode. A ghost duel can carry the same stake as a live one, and it settles the same way: the pot is real, the 10% rake is the same, and a win pays out to your balance immediately.
Because there is real money on both sides, walking out has consequences, and they differ depending on which side of the ghost you are:
- Abandoning a ghost you are challenging. If you have claimed someone's ghost and quit mid-race, the duel settles with the recording's creator winning by default, exactly as if you had walked out of a live duel against them. They take the payout; you lose your stake.
- Abandoning your own recording. If you are creating a ghost, recording the run others will race, and you quit partway, your ante is forfeited to the platform rather than to another player, since there is no opponent to pay.
Neither is a penalty invented to punish you; both are the same principle that applies to any staked duel. Finish what you start, or do it on the free tier where nothing is at risk.
Why it exists at all
Queue liquidity, stated plainly. Every head-to-head game has the same cold-start problem: the game is only fun when people are already playing it, and nobody wants to be the person waiting. Most platforms solve it by making you wait anyway, or by quietly filling the gap with something synthetic.
Ghosts solve it with the material we already have: real players type real runs every day, and a run does not stop being a legitimate opponent because it happened an hour ago. You are racing a genuine human performance either way.