No-loss lottery PoolTogether cracks $50 million in deposits after token airdrop

No-loss lotteries appear to have found a snug product-market fit. 

Just a few days after the airdrop of their governance token, POOL, the self-styled “savings game” PoolTogether has cracked $50 million in total value locked with ease, currently sitting above $51 million spread between DAI, USDC, UNI, and COMP lottery pools.

PoolTogether aptly 'pools' user funds and deposits them into decentralized finance savings protocols, using the interest as prizes for randomly-selected winners and returning the initial funds to buyers — thus creating a “no-loss” lottery.

While the project stalled below $10 million in total value locked for months, growth has been explosive ever since the POOL governance token airdrop on February 17. According to a Tweet from the team, a day ago the project had $34 million in TVL — it has since grown 33%.

$34 million deposited!~$47,000 in no loss prizes being awarded this week! https://t.co/wYA1wO1NHY pic.twitter.com/lfpgu7bWZN

— PoolTogether (@PoolTogether_) February 19, 2021

PoolTogether founder Leighton Cusack points to the distribution model for POOL as a partial explainer for the protocol’s growth.

“As part of the initial decentralization, 5% of total POOL supply (500,000 tokens) were allocated to be distributed automatically to all no loss prize pool depositors over the next 14 week,” he said in an interview with Cointelegraph.

The distribution program, one which is conceptually similar to liquidity mining, is part of a larger effort to “get the token into the hands of users.” Cusack says that of the 1.5 million tokens airdropped on the 17th, (15% of the total supply), 600,000 have been claimed.

Another reason for the growth is entirely organic, however: the more depositors, the more appealing the prize pool.

“The prizes are MUCH larger than they have ever been. Right now the protocol is on track to aw1ard over $60,000 in prizes in the next 7 days. So the higher prizes is attracting more people to deposit,” he said.

The next step for the protocol will be to build on the promising growth. Cusack says that integrating with more savings protocols and moving to a layer-2 in an effort to duck Ethereum’s rising gas fees are priorities, but ultimately those decisions are now out of his hands.

“Since the protocol is now decentralized though, it's really up to members of the community to drive that process. There is a strong community around the protocol already and if you anyone wants to get involved just hop into the Discord.”