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Hey friends 👋
If you've read much of my writing, then you already know that I'm a huge fan of PoolTogether. I've been using this onchain prize-savings protocol for years. I'm an active community member, a governance delegate, and I have attended over 75 community calls at the time of writing. For the past several months, I've also been a regular contributor to the community as part of the growth team.
This past couple months have been tough for the growth team because we know something huge is coming (PoolTogether v5), but we haven't been able to talk very much about it, because we were patiently waiting for the multi-stage audit process to complete. Audits are a fundamental part of ensuring smart contracts are safe and effective, so it's certainly not a negative thing to have to wait. After all, creating an immutable onchain protocol means needing to be certain that the version that's released is the forever version. It's just hard when you know there's something great coming down the pipeline.
Fortunately the audit process is now complete, and the team at Generations Software, who are developing the smart contracts for version 5 (aka v5, aka the Hyperstructure) believes that the upgrade is nearly ready to launch. But since PoolTogether is a community that values well-built, user-friendly software, the team decided to add in one more quality assurance measure:
Private Beta
As explained in this governance post, PoolTogether v5 will begin life as a private beta. This way, a small selection of experienced users can provide feedback about the nuances of the protocol UX. During this time the vaults will include some boosted deposits to help increase the yields and offer better prizes. Those who signed up early for the beta will also be eligible to win a deposit delegation during the beta period which runs until the 18th of October.
Update: the beta has been extended until October 18th.
Once the beta ends, the team will consider feedback from the users to include in the final version of the protocol and will deploy the official smart contracts that will thereafter be known as PoolTogether v5.
Please Note: This beta is not on a testnet. The beta versions of the smart contracts are live on Optimism mainnet. Depositors can win real prizes by participating. Winning is not guaranteed, mind you, and there is risk involved like everything in crypto, so it's imperative that you know your personal risk profile before engaging. With that out of the way, let's look at how to become a beta tester!
How to Join the v5 Private Beta
According to the the official beta launch Mirror post,
You are invited to try the all-new PoolTogether before the public if you hold any of these assets:
1000+ POOL
1000+ PTaUSDC
A Pooly or Pfer NFT
A PoolTogether GitPOAP or PoolyCon POAP
I have confirmed with the team that this is not based on a snapshot. Any holders who currently meet any of these requirements, or who do so before trying to enter the beta at least, will be granted access.
You may have even noticed a notification in your Zerion or Taho wallet, or on Daylight, informing you of your eligibility. Here's what that looked like for me since I hold a Pooly NFT ⬇️
If you do see that notification, you can click it. Otherwise, follow the steps in this article to access the beta on Optimism ⬇️
Not interested in going from one article to another? Who can blame you? Allow me to give you a walk-through, or rather, a...
Swim-through
Once you meet any of the criteria above, you can follow these steps to gain access to the beta:
1️⃣ Join the discord server if you haven't already. Then (let's call this part 1B): go to the server.
2️⃣ Under Server Guide, click Start Here!, then work your way through whatever steps you need to in order to get to the Join Our Guild section. There, click Verify and you'll be taken to Guild.xyz where you can verify your holdings.
Back in the Discord, what you want to see is that you've unlocked access to the channel #private-beta
3️⃣ Go to the newly unlocked channel and find the message shown below. Reveal the secret key and use it when prompted later.
4️⃣ Clicking on Join Now will allow you to enter Cabana, the new dApp for vault creation in PoolTogether v5 that also serves as the interface for the beta. Once you've connected your wallet, you should see something like this ⬇️
5️⃣ Click Deposit to Win (or Vaults) and you will end up on a page showing two vaults (this is what the prize-savings pools are called in v5; more info). One vault is for USDC and the other is for Wrapped Ether (aka wETH).
From there, you will be able to deposit in much the same way you would have done in previous versions of PoolTogether.
Refresher: Click Deposit, select how much of your asset you wish to deposit, approve the protocol to access your asset, deposit your asset (of course paying the necessary transaction fees on Optimism), and then you should see your deposit showing under the Account tab.
Prizes are awarded autonomously by the protocol daily, weekly, and yearly (though the beta is only for 1 month).
Hopefully that answers any questions you might have had about the beta. If not, make sure to join the discord server and reach out to an admin, like Tjark. Just remember the golden rule of Discord: don't accept any DMs from anyone!
And until next time,
Thumbs Up
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