DeFi community rallies behind PoolTogether to hit $1.4M NFT defense funding target

Published at: June 6, 2022

No-loss lottery decentralized finance (DeFi) platform PoolTogether has reached 100% of its legal defense funding goal via the sale of nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

It has taken the project just ten days to reach its funding goal of 769 Ether (ETH) or $1.4 million, signaling strong support from the DeFi community, which is rallying against a lawsuit that some feel is an attack on the greater sector as a whole.

the community has spoken @PoolyNFT https://t.co/pJSRUfjk3f

— francom.eth (@francom619) June 5, 2022

PoolTogther is currently selling three tiers of NFTs as part of a funding campaign dubbed “PoolyNFT'' to fight a class-action lawsuit that it feels has “no merit.”

The NFTs are priced at 0.1, 1 and 75 ETH a pop, and vary in the number of total minted tokens. The project will eventually roll out "hodler utility" for the NFTs moving forward.

Cointelegraph previously reported on Wednesday that PoolTogether’s fundraising project had hit around 471 ETH last week, with support coming from big figures in the crypto space such as the general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, Chris Dixon, who bought a Pooly Judge tier NFT for 75 ETH, or roughly $141,000 at current prices.

At the time of writing, the figure for funding raised now stands at 788.40 ETH, or roughly $1.474 million. Notably, the campaign has another 16 days to go and if all of its NFTs are sold, it will have generated 1,076 ETH, or $2 million.

The PoolyNFT team tweeted the milestone on Monday and noted that “over 4,200 unique wallets are now holding Poolys. Absolutely amazing to see what’s been accomplished by the community rallying together.” PoolTogether co-founder Leighton Cusack also stated:

“Don't have a lot of words right now. Blown away by how the community has rallied around PoolTogether Inc and myself.”

As the litigation continues, updates will be posted to this account. Poolys are strong togetherThank you!!!

— Pooly (@PoolyNFT) June 5, 2022

The class-action lawsuit in question is led by the former technology lead for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, Joseph Kent, who after spending just $12 dollars on lottery tickets via PoolTogether, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the DeFi project in January.

Kent is alleging that PoolTogther and its partners are operating an illegal lottery in New York, and he is seeking compensation worth double the value of the funds he spent on PoolTogether (a whopping $24) and double the reasonable amount of attorney’s fees and costs of legal action.

Related: Finance Redefined: Maker founder proposes endgame, Singapore explores DeFi and more

Notably, Kent also outlined a general distaste for crypto in his complaint, taking the time to raise concerns about scamming, environmental damage and Ethereum’s high gas fees, among other things, suggesting his gripe runs deeper than PoolTogether.

PoolTogether offers what it calls risk-free lotteries on stablecoin deposits in the platform by using ticket-buyers and liquidity providers’ capital to generate interest using DeFi lending protocols.

The winner of the lottery receives the largest share of the yield, while a handful of runner-ups receive a smaller share and all remaining participants receive a full refund.

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Defi
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