Yes, "Hals" is a tribute to Hal :)

Good question about payment verification. I had thought about it too, because I also think it's important to allow everyone to verify things as much as possible. Currently it's semi-verifiable in that the epoch payout/donation is always at least the join fee divided by 2 * the sum of the number of players (i.e. payout/donation >= 2100/2 * number of players). But there are also the top-up payments to consider, so this makes the above method not 100% foolproof for verifying join fee payments.

What we could do is provide a page that shows all the payments (join + top-ups) made by each user, which would add up to the payout/donation. What do you think about this? I think it could be a good way to go, as it also shows the amount contributed to the payout and OpenSats from each user.