Optimized Prizes

PoolTogether V4 introduced a revolutionary concept — a truly cross-chain prize pool network. Regardless of what blockchain you deposit on:

• You have the same chance to win the same prizes
• All deposits from all chains grow the total prizes

This is powerful because it fuels the growth flywheel for the protocol. More deposits create bigger prizes, bigger prizes drive more deposits.

However, there was one weakness to this approach. Having the exact same prize distribution on each blockchain created problems because of very different transaction fees. Paying a $0.01 transaction fee to claim a $5 prize makes sense on Polygon but does not on Ethereum.

Today this is fixed — chain optimized prizes are live 🎉

The whole prize pool network still has the same total prizes but the size of prizes are optimized for each chain.

For example, the smallest prize on Ethereum is now $1,104, the smallest prize on Optimism is $69, and the smallest on Polygon is $1!

This introduces more efficiency and user choice. Want to win small prizes everyday? Deposit on Polygon! Want to win large infrequent prizes — use Ethereum!

The exact current distribution based on the most recent vote is shown in the image below.

But sir, where should I deposit?

Regardless of what chain you deposit on, your expected value remains the same, no chain has an advantage.

What changes is the variance. Depositing on a chain with larger prizes means there is a higher chance you might not get any prizes but if you do get a prize, it will be a much bigger return! The opposite is true for a chain with smaller prizes. You almost certainly will get something but it will be a smaller prize.

Still have questions?

Great! The community has your back!

You can use the “Pooly Bot” on Discord to simulate expected returns on each chain for your exact deposit! Join the Discord here and then follow the directions here.

You can use the Prize Calc site to calculate your expected prizes with a specific deposit size.

You can also see how prizes are being awarded across the whole network on PoolExplorer.win

Want to shape how prizes are distributed? Hop into Discord or the governance forum and use your POOL tokens to vote!