pooltogether-community-ui VS building-secure-contracts

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.

Take a look: https://pooltogether.com

PoolTogether: Transforming Savings Games and Lotteries

How about defend a prize-linked savings program from an individual that placed around $12 into the protocol before immediately filing a lawsuit?

Have you checked out PoolTogether. You earn yield in the form of prizes and if you deposit on optimism you also earn OP tokens. It’s like a DeFi savings account for USDC. Worth looking into if you haven’t already.

Pooltogether uses their token for governance but you absolutely do not need to have it to use the product or participate in anything. It’s strictly used for voting in governance. No blockers

There's literally one project that I've seen being truly useful: https://pooltogether.com/

It's cool because it's not possible to do this without crypto (in terms of trust). But because it uses a smart contract you can be sure that when you put your money into it, it won't steal it.

We could easily incentivize no-loss lotteries like https://pooltogether.com/ I wonder how that affects problem gamblers? If there's no opportunity to actually lose anything do problem gamblers choose other options?

POOL - PoolTogether https://pooltogether.com/ Open source pooled savings account/lottery with twice weekly draws

I appreciate how organized the Consensys guide is laid out. It's pretty easy to read. Trail of Bits has a similar guide that is a little more in-the-weeds technically. It also covers, what we think is, essential background about certain automated analysis techniques like static analysis and how fuzzers work. Check it out!

https://secure-contracts.com/

We highly recommend using at least one of them if professional contract security review is not possible. A more comprehensive look into secure development practices can be found here.

If you need more reading about building secure smart contracts and auditing workflows, see here: https://github.com/crytic/building-secure-contracts