User blog:PerapinCP/Coins for Change 2021 donation tracker

Here the Coins for Change 2021 donation count was tracked daily for an interesting visualization!

Results
Data was collected at 00:00 PST each day, except for January 6 which had its data collected at the end of the event.

Analysis
2020 donation levels have now been surpassed in the lead up to December 30, 2021, reaching the 500 million coin milestone for the first time ever! The curve has flattened now that the 500 million coin goal has been reached. The data story is worth noting:

Observed from Dec 28 - Dec 30, there has been a greater proportion of 5000 or 10,000 coin donations every minute all throughout the afternoon and evening on Dec 28 and all day on Dec 29, which is suspicious considering how consistent it is, unlike the morning surges of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which slowed down later in the day. The high rates of donations continued every minute until the 500,000,000 milestone was reached. The question is, were these delayed high rates of donations from a combined effort of procastination from "old money" donators, or were there bots involved?

In the 2020 result, the 300 million coins donation goal was achieved on December 23, 2020. In 2021, 138,368,000 coins was achieved on December 23, less than half of what was achieved. Donators would have had to contribute donations with twice the effort to catch up on Christmas Eve to compensate for the slow progress. It is understandable that an easy surge would later occur that day given that 5000 coins was a reward from the Community Goals on December 24. It is important to note that this is the most amount of free coins given out to everyone as part of the Community Goals (excluding the Community Checklist in 2019).

When looking at the data leading to December 30, we can see donations upticking from Dec 28 - Dec 30. Observations have shown that these were consistent 5000 and 10,000 coin donations being made at fast rates. These did not appear to slow at all in slower hours, which raises suspicions of possible botting or cheating. A significant portion of those donations may have been "old money" donators racing towards the 500 million goal. Historically, peak donation levels tend to occur at the start with less penguins able to donate a lot at the end. The 200 million mark was reached in the first few days in 2019 and 2020.

An assumption in this analysis is that later donation goals will be slow to reach as less and less donators become available to donate. It's not the case with Dec 28 - Dec 30 because the 2019 and 2020 records were surpassed suddenly with many successive 10,000 coin donations. Considering many 2021 players can't afford to donate this level everyday, it is difficult to say exactly how these later donations in 2021 came about. But it's certain that if not for free coins, it would have been difficult for further upticks in donations to be done due to inflation, and there would be a very likely scenario of 2020 keeping the record. The first five Community Goals in 2021 were unlocked significantly later than the time it took for the first five Community Goals were unlocked in 2020. This is symptomatic of a struggling economy and increasing wealth inequality. If the richest players could easily carry us to 500 million quickly towards the end, but the less wealthy could not contribute a lot towards the end, it suggests there aren't enough fun opportunities to earn a lot of coins in a reasonable amount of time.

If you compare 2019 to 2020, you can see 2020 had no free coins in the Community Goals at all, but still 2020 was able to do better than 2019 without free coins, passing the 450 million coin milestone. 2021 beat 2020's record with free coins as an assist. We would likely be in the 400 millions at the end of the year without the assist.

If cheating/hacking turns out to be a factor in the donations, those doing so would only be betraying themselves. Thanks to all who donated in good faith.