I'm assuming that "new" doesn't mean to exclude countries that are already disputed to some extent, right? Somaliland exists since 1991, Taiwan since 1912, Catalunya declared independence in 2017, Palestine in 1988. (You might want to add Israel to the list, I'm OOM.)

@BrunoParga we need.clarification, but according to the criteria, they are considered as new upon UN recognition (at least 20 states)

@3d I don't know if it was already there when I commented, but now it says "a newly founded country", which excludes all of these that I mentioned.

It would be good to get clarification from @Jan53274

@BrunoParga what I mean: the country needs to be founded after the creation date and before 2051. The date of the international recognition is not important here, but the date when the country is proclaimed and actually controlled by some kind of government (even if the recognition comes later) What do you think about this criteria?

@Jan53274 thank you! That clarifies that Somaliland, Taiwan and most likely Palestine wouldn't count for resolving this market - they assert and exercise sovereignty over territory since before the market was created.

Regarding recognition, you had stated that there need to be 20 UN member state recognitions, so it sounds like the 20th recognition should also happen before the end of 2050.

It might be good to decide beforehand what happens if a country tries to "unrecognize" another. On the one hand, there have been several such attempts; on the other hand, international legal doctrine is pretty consistent that recognition is irrevocable. My suggestion is that you go with international law (including if it changes later to allow unrecognition).

Also note that this should all be based on state recognition ("X is a sovereign state"), not government recognition ("the guys currently in power are not legitimate to speak on behalf of state X").