Backpack’s ‘Invite a friend’ mystery boxes pay out US stocks until 3 November, but not in the UK or EEA

Not open to Dutch, EU or UK readers

Start with the restriction: Backpack’s terms say the campaign is not available in the UK or the European Economic Area. That excludes readers in the Netherlands and every other EU member state, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Accounts in Backpack’s market maker program are also excluded.

For eligible users elsewhere, Backpack says a participant who cannot receive stocks because of jurisdictional or other eligibility rules gets the equivalent value in US dollars instead.

How the referral works

Backpack announced the campaign on X on 21 October and published the terms on its blog the same day. The details below come from that blog post, the X announcement and the ‘Invite a friend’ quest page in the Backpack app. An existing user copies a personal invite from the quest page and sends it to a friend, who signs up with that invite or the referral code.

If the friend completes three steps within seven days of signing up, the referrer and the friend each receive a mystery box containing a real US stock. Backpack checks invitations weekly and distributes boxes after each check. A referrer can earn at most five boxes, one per qualifying friend. The campaign runs from 21 October, 00:00 UTC, to 17 November, 23:59 UTC, but only friends who sign up by 3 November, 23:59 UTC count.

Backpack’s X post also mentions up to 15 boxes from trading in ‘Week 4’ of its separate trading campaign. That is a different programme with its own rules and is not covered here.

What the invited friend has to do

The friend’s three steps all fall in the first week: verify their identity; deposit $500 or more from outside Backpack and keep it on the account for seven days; and trade $5,000 in volume. Perpetual futures, spot and stock trades count towards the volume. Stablecoin swaps do not.

The volume target is ten times the deposit, so the deposit will usually be traded more than once. Every trade carries fees and, depending on the market, a spread. As a hypothetical example, at a 0.1% fee rate $5,000 of volume would cost $5 before any market gain or loss. Check the fees that apply to your account before comparing them with the box value.

The odds, and what a box is worth on average

Referral boxes have their own odds: Rare 70% (about $5), Epic 22% (about $15), Legendary 7.5% (about $50) and Hidden 0.5% (about $1,000). Backpack says the values are approximate and depend on the share price when the box is distributed.

Our own arithmetic from those stated odds gives an expected value of roughly $15.55 per box: $3.50 from Rare, $3.30 from Epic, $3.75 from Legendary and $5.00 from Hidden. Almost a third of that average comes from the one-in-200 Hidden box, while seven boxes in ten are worth about $5. A referrer with the maximum five qualifying friends would expect roughly $78 across five boxes, and each friend about $15.55 from their own box. These are approximations, not guaranteed amounts.

Fine print worth knowing

One account per person is allowed. Backpack says it can withhold rewards from or disqualify anyone suspected of abuse, including using several accounts, wash trading or artificial volume. It can also amend, suspend or cancel the campaign at any time, and its decisions on eligibility and calculations are final.

Backpack has not said which stocks can appear in the boxes. A stock received this way is a holding whose price keeps moving after distribution. Backpack ran a similar trading-based mystery box campaign in September, which we covered at the time.