SHADYBUCKS

Shadybucks Logo

We’re proud to serve TOORCAMP’S households with the future of banking. Each TOORCAMP attendee will be issued one (1) Shadybucks wristband, which can be associated with an existing Shadybucks card, or a new card obtained at the Shadytel Customer Experience Centre. Wristbands must also be activated at the Shadytel Customer Experience Centre. Shadybucks are brought to you by Shadytel and Beerocracy.

Due to popular demand, SHADYBUCKS will be returning in 2026! Hang on to your cards, because you never know what kind of shenanigans they'll enable...

Using Shadybucks

You can transact (spend/accept) in shadybucks so long as you have a browser - login at bucks.shady.tel, head to https://bucks.shady.tel/app/transact

To accept physical Shadybucks cards with a magstripe, you need a magstripe reader. Enter the magstripe in the "card present magstripe" field in the transaction page.

To accept wristbands, you need to sideload the Toorcamp Extras app. Unfortunately, for policy reasons, it is not available in app stores. This means there is no iOS app because each person would need to compile it themselves. Maybe next time! (If you work for Google or Apple, let's get in touch!)

If you’re a village/theme camp: Accept ShadyBucks at your camp! We’re also looking for more villages to set up Global Entry access. Global Entry is a red carpet (any kind, just needs to be red) that lets attendees skip to the front of the line.

If you’re a TOORCAMP attendee: Earn and Spend ShadyBucks! Shadybucks will literally pay you to answer the phone. Earn access to more perks like the LOUDner program and GLOBAL ENTRY. The ShadyBucks app makes it super easy! You can also earn ShadyBucks by providing a useful service.

If you’re vending in the NIGHTMRKT: Sell items or accept bribes in ShadyBucks. Bring better shit, get moar bucks.

FAQs from 2024

Why did we have to get a physical card to activate our wristbands?

Because we didn't have code working at the time to do anything else. The intention was to support virtual accounts, but we were just glad to get everything working.

Why did we need to get our wristbands activated?

TBH, that came together very late, even though we had initial discussions about it about a year ago. We got Toorcamp the wristbands fairly late but didn't want to trouble them with pre-programming or activation at registration. We also had a CTF challenge on the wristbands that could have been trivially solvable if we didn't pre-program them or program them in person.

Why did we need to go to Beerocracy to get our cards ker-chunked?

If you asked nicely, you didn't. But the embossing will hopefully be useful in the future. And it made our lives easier when we encoded the magstripe with your name because it was already printed on it.

Also, it seemed like Beerocracy was processing these very quickly, so it didn't seem like an unreasonable step.

Why did you have to manually activate the plastic cards?

Because there was a miscommunication last time about what would be encoded on the magstripe, and it was hella insecure. This process made it harder to forge cards.

Why was the app for Android only?

It was very unclear if we would get our Apple Developer Account approved in time, and even if we did, even more unclear if they would approve the app. Without being able to distribute in the App Store, everyone would have needed to manually rebuilt the app themselves. This was very dis-motiviating.

We also didn't receive an iPhone intended for development until the first official day of camp, and there was no way to test NFC functionality without a real phone 🙃

Why wasn't the app in the Google Play Store?

Because Google is as much of a PITA as Apple these days. An app approval that used to take hours is now more like a week. They also require the ability to test all app functionality, and it's unclear how that would work with wristbands, and attempts to ask them about that are not fruitful. They also have some vague questions about processing "financial transactions" and it wasn't clear we could get them to understand what Shadybucks was.

Why did you need an app for the wristbands?

Because there are no web APIs for NFC that are more than simple NDEF. Safari also rarely supports new web APIs, presumably to nudge people into writing native apps and falling under their terms.

Chrome on desktop devices may allow Isolated Web Apps access to USB card readers later this year, but that isn't supported at the moment