"Pledging sats" would mean you would need to already have money in order to earn money... (And it is difficult to find work for Bitcoin recently.)

For what it's worth, if I see that someone else has started to work on the bounty, I cancel my attempt.

deleted231216

That probably ideal game theoretically. It's putting up a bond. 

It does introduce new problems: complicated UX and makes having sats a prereq. I'm not sure SN's bounty economy is ready for that, but it's probably the terminal state of a healthy bounty economy.

k00b

SN bounty: display image when provided an image link

I like the transparency of seeing who else might be working on a bounty.

Just brainstorming:

Maybe a user pledges Sats to Claim the right to work on bounty.  Highest bidder is awarded the status of Claimed. Once completed they receive bounty plus sats pledged.

If they don’t complete the bounty they lose sats and Claim goes to second highest bid.

Users would bid high on bounties they are confident that match skills and can complete.