Building on ZERϴ: PoolTogether

DeFi is fun. Yet many people didn’t use protocols until Layer 2 networks took off and made transactions cheap. Now, one of the OG projects, PoolTogether, is coming to ZERO network, where gas fees are zero. In this post, we’ll explore what PoolTogether is and what’s coming next.

What is PoolTogether 

Launched in 2019, PoolTogether is a prize savings protocol where you can save and win. 

You deposit USDC. It earns a yield in DeFi protocols (Aave, Moonwell, and others). This yield is then randomly awarded as a prize to winners. Each USDC represents a chance to win — the more you save, the higher your chance to win! You can withdraw USDC at any time.

Besides DeFi yields, other protocols and projects can allocate additional rewards to incentivize activity by boosting APR. For example, Optimism gives OP tokens for deposits on their network while $HIGHER rewards deposits on Base.  

PoolTogether is provably fair, fully self-custodial, and decentralized. The protocol is available on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum.

PoolTogether V5

PoolTogether V5 is the latest version of the protocol, designed to be autonomous and extendable by anyone. 

Compared to the earlier versions, PoolTogether V5 enables: 

• Swaps into prize tokens, for example, via AMM, with no need for manually activating them 
• Automatic prize distribution — no need to claim any winnings, they are dropped right into winning addresses  
• Support for multiple tokens that share one big prize pool 

The protocol is immutable, which means no one can change it or any parameters. Also, nobody can stop it from running. Besides Cabana and Pooltime, this version of PoolTogether can be accessible through any third-party frontend, making it truly global and decentralized.  

The V5 introduces new functionality that can be used to create new onchain experiences.

Adding prizes

Depositors can delegate their winning rights to other addresses. 

For example, you can create a pool that would distribute prizes to holders of a specific NFT collection. 

Additional rewards can be airdroped to depositors based on their Time Weighted Average Balance (TWAB). This can incentivize people to hold deposits for longer periods. 

Creating unique prize experiences 

With PoolTogether, developers can also build features that: 

• Automatically perform onchain actions when a prize is won 
• Deploy a custom prize vault 

This makes PoolTogether a universal building block for creating rewarding experiences.

What’s possible on Zero with PoolTogether 

The ZERO network can make PoolTogether even more enjoyable: making and managing deposits will be free for end users. 

This can make savings and rewards available to even the smallest accounts: 

• You won’t need to have any tokens for gas — just bridge some tokens to ZERO network and make a deposit 
• You can withdraw prizes or deposits without worrying about leaving enough for gas 
• You can shift the entire balance to a new pool if it’s more rewarding — and later this can even be automated using native Account Abstraction and offchain logic 

Additionally, third-party developers will be able to integrate PoolTogether v5 to create rewarding experiences for their apps. 

One simple example is adding a small opt-in charge to transactions to help users save. For example, any time you mint an NFT, a small amount can go to the user’s deposit. Over time, the deposit can grow — just like cards or banking apps that can automate savings. 

What’s next for Zero and PoolTogether

While the ZERO network is in the testnet, PoolTogether will experiment before deploying on the mainnet (which is expected later this year). 

While there likely won’t be any user-facing apps during the testnet on ZERO network, you can already play around with PoolTogether on other chains to get a feel for what will be possible. 

If you are interested in building an app on ZERO that integrates PoolTogether, please fill out the form for builders. We can’t wait to see what you build!