[mteigers]

I have no direct affiliation with this service (nor am I a user of it) but I recently learned about "Pool Together" which is a "lossless" lottery system. It's a daily lottery that happens automatically, you do not need to collect as it happens automatically, and you can withdraw all of your capital at any time.

I thought that was a decently novel use case.

[hn_throwaway_99]

First off, wanted to say thanks very much for posting this, primarily because I think it is an example that is straightforward and easy to understand. That said, I'm also thinking "if this is one of the best, straightforward examples people are talking about when referring to 'the value of smart contracts', then smart contracts are just nowhere near the important tech its boosters believe." (To be clear mteigers, not directing this at you, just saying this because what you've posted is probably the best example of a real-world use case I've seen).

In summary, what PoolTogether (https://pooltogether.com/) does is basically act like a normal savings account, except instead of you getting 4% interest a year or whatever, that interest is all pooled and then given out in big chunks at random - most people get nothing, but "winners" will get what is essentially everyone else's interest. Some notes:

1. I'm not clear what activity they're engaging in that actually generates interest (e.g. who they're lending to in order to generate a spread), but in fairness I didn't spend much going into the details. That said, if they really are generating income by lending, then I'm very curious how they can't suffer from some of the same negative edge-cases inherent in fractional reserve banking, like a run on the bank. If they are not generating real income from lending, I'm very suspect about how they can really be generating interest. Again, I didn't look much into this, so totally admit I could just not be understanding the details here.

2. I see absolutely no real benefit that comes from doing this as a smart contract vs. just doing this as any other kind of normal software (e.g. what core banking software provides), despite what their blurbs on the website say.

So still just dumbfounded by the lack of real utility in any of these smart contract examples I've seen.

[simpsond]

PoolTogether routes deposited funds to a liquidity pool on aave. Those funds can be lended out via over-collateralized loans. That’s how the interest is earned. They could of course use other types of pools and gain funds on swap fees etc.

[namdnay]

So they’re “premium bonds”? Indeed they have been around far longer than crypto

[hn_throwaway_99]

Oooh, yeah, sounds exactly like that, which according to Google has existed in the UK since 1956. AFAIK we don't have anything like that in the US.

[coding123]

Sounds really unnecessary. What is there not to trust in an actual lottery? Are the people that go on TV to show the results not worth the job they have?

Why does the website have a starting sentence that includes:

"a passion project I hold dear to my heart."

What is it about lotteries or smart contracts that have people that saying "dear to my heart". The only thing "dear to my heart" is probably my wife and family. I don't know how something related to money could be. And I have a hard time trusting a person that has a passion project dear to their heart related to lossless lottery systems.

[duxup]

That sounds amusing ... albeit the lottery aspect makes me suspect shenanigans. Is anyone reading the contract to understand if it really is what it says it is?

One of those issues is of course that people will need to find someone who can read the contract for them, and hope they get it right.

Still, good example that is easy to get, seems like easy to code and work.

[DropInIn]

Such a "lottery" is effectively a trillion dollar rug pull in waiting....