Pool Together

The lottery where nobody loses

PoolTogether is one of those protocols you can explain in one sentence and still get an "oh, that's cool." You deposit money into a shared pool, the deposits earn yield, and that yield is handed to randomly selected depositors as prizes. The more you deposit, and the longer it stays there, the better your odds. If you don't win, your deposit is still yours. It turns saving into a lottery without turning your savings into the bet.

This idea is older than DeFi

The funny part is that none of this started with crypto. The UK launched Premium Bonds in 1956. Instead of paying every saver interest, each £1 bond gets a number in a monthly draw and the interest funds the prizes. You can cash out the bonds when you want. The government version uses a random number machine called ERNIE while PoolTogether uses smart contracts and onchain yield, but the mental model is basically the same: give up predictable interest for a chance at a much bigger payout.

It keeps coming back

Ample is a newer and completely independent take on the same idea. You deposit into a vault, the capital earns yield through strategies on Euler and Morpho, and instead of splitting that yield into tiny amounts for everyone, Ample pools it into weekly payouts. Your tickets are based on how much you deposit and how long it stays in the pool, and winners are picked using weighted randomness with the results published onchain. The interface and plumbing have changed, but the trick is still the same: take the boring part of saving and make it something people actually want to come back to.

The easiest way to understand why is to play a round yourself. Change your deposit below, watch it turn into tickets, and draw a winner.