Everything you need to know.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
About Shinjo
Shinjo is a crypto-native prize-linked savings app built on PoolTogether V5. You deposit ETH, BTC, or stablecoins into prize vaults. Your principal generates DeFi yield, and that yield funds daily prize draws. You keep your deposit always. Lottery upside, zero downside.
Your principal never enters the prize pool. Only the yield generated by your deposit is distributed as prizes. Your original deposit remains in audited DeFi lending protocols and is withdrawable at any time.
Yes. There is no lockup period. You can withdraw your full deposit to your wallet whenever you want. Your eligibility for the current draw is based on your Time-Weighted Average Balance, so withdrawing mid-period simply reduces your odds for that draw.
No. There is no minimum deposit. You can deposit any amount. However, larger deposits generate more yield, which translates to better odds in the prize draws.
Shinjo currently supports ETH, BTC (cbBTC), and stablecoins (USDC). We focus on ETH and BTC because holders of these assets are typically not earning meaningful yield elsewhere, making prize-linked savings a natural fit.
Your deposits are routed through yo.xyz, an audited yield optimizer backed by Paradigm, Haun, and HackVC. yo.xyz cycles your assets between battle-tested lending markets like Morpho and Euler to maximize yield. The interest generated is pooled together to fund daily prize draws.
Shinjo is deployed on Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 network. This means low gas fees and fast transactions while inheriting Ethereum's security.
Yes. On Shinjo, prizes are automatically claimed on your behalf. You do not need to manually claim or pay gas to collect winnings. Prizes are deposited directly into your vault balance.
Shinjo is built on top of PoolTogether V5 and uses the same underlying protocol. The difference is in focus and experience: Shinjo prioritises ETH and BTC vaults (where holders aren't sacrificing meaningful yield), provides an entertainment-first UX designed around the excitement of daily draws, and auto-claims prizes for you.
No. Shinjo is fully non-custodial. Your deposits go directly into on-chain smart contract vaults. No intermediary holds your funds. Your keys, your crypto.
Shinjo collects a 5% fee on the yield generated by your deposits to sustain the protocol. Your deposited principal is never touched. You only pay standard network gas fees for deposit and withdrawal transactions on Base, which are typically fractions of a cent.
Join our Telegram group at t.me/+UH-hB8ZvvrBlYmRi for updates, questions, and to connect with other depositors. You can also follow us on X (@ShinjoApp).
Shinjo is built on PoolTogether V5, which has been audited by Code4rena (C4), Macro, and other firms. The protocol has been live since 2019 and has processed hundreds of millions in deposits without a single exploit. Yield is generated through yo.xyz, audited by Spearbit with an active bug bounty, which deploys into lending markets like Morpho and Euler — protocols securing billions in TVL with their own extensive audit histories. Every layer in the stack is independently audited.
All DeFi carries smart contract risk. Your deposit passes through multiple contract layers: PoolTogether V5 vaults, the yo.xyz yield optimizer, and underlying lending protocols like Morpho and Euler — all running on Base L2. A bug or exploit at any layer could potentially affect your deposit. These risks are mitigated by independent audits at every layer (C4, Macro, Spearbit), active bug bounties, and years of production history without incident. Shinjo itself adds no custodial risk — it is a non-custodial frontend. You can verify the full dependency chain on-chain.
Vision & Market
Prize-linked savings (PLS) is a savings model where, instead of earning traditional interest, your yield is pooled and randomly distributed as prizes. Your principal is never touched. You cannot lose your deposit. Over $200 billion is invested in PLS schemes globally in traditional finance, with the UK's Premium Bonds alone holding roughly $130 billion in assets.
ETH and BTC holders are typically sitting on assets that earn little or no yield. By depositing into Shinjo, they're not sacrificing meaningful returns; they're adding lottery-like upside to assets they already plan to hold long-term. Stablecoin deposits are supported for risk-averse users, but the core value proposition is strongest for ETH and BTC holders who want optionality without opportunity cost.
Three reasons. DeFi yields significantly exceed traditional interest rates, which means larger prize pools. A single borderless on-chain pool scales beyond fragmented national schemes that are limited by geography and regulation. And yield generation is transparent and automated by smart contracts. No intermediary decides how funds are deployed.
Two main groups. First, people who currently spend on lotteries or speculation and would benefit from a no-loss alternative that turns that spend into real savings. Second, long-term crypto holders who already accumulate wealth but want additional upside and entertainment. The UK's Premium Bonds prove this second group dominates at scale. In crypto, long-term ETH and BTC holders are the direct analogue.
Traditional savings offer predictable but modest returns that often fail to keep pace with inflation. Prize-linked savings gives you the same principal protection but replaces small, guaranteed interest with the chance to win meaningful prizes. Research shows PLS is especially effective at encouraging people to save who otherwise wouldn't, turning saving from a chore into something engaging.
Hundreds of billions in crypto sit idle, earning nothing. At the same time, traditional paths to wealth are increasingly inaccessible, pushing people toward extractive zero-sum games: memecoins, high-leverage trading, on-chain gambling. Shinjo reframes saving as financial entertainment: gamified upside, shared community, principal always protected. Asymmetric upside without the downside.
Shinjo is exploring reflexive tokenomics designed so that demand grows with the pool. Token incentives and points campaigns are planned to bootstrap early growth, creating depositor demand before organic yield alone sustains headline prizes. More details will be shared as the protocol matures.
How the Protocol Works
Winners are selected using your Time-Weighted Average Balance (TWAB). When a draw occurs, the protocol uses on-chain randomness provided by the Witnet oracle to generate random numbers. These numbers are mapped to depositor balances. The larger your average balance over the draw period, the more "tickets" you effectively hold, and the higher your chance of being selected.
Each draw distributes prizes across multiple tiers. Tier 1 is the Grand Prize, the largest payout awarded to a single winner. Tiers 2 through 5 are daily prizes with progressively smaller individual payouts but more winners at each level. This structure means many depositors win smaller prizes frequently, while everyone has a shot at the jackpot.
Your odds are directly proportional to your Time-Weighted Average Balance (TWAB) relative to the total pool. If you hold 1% of the total deposits over the draw period, you have approximately a 1% chance of winning each individual prize. This applies independently at every tier, so you could win multiple prizes in a single draw.
Yes. Every draw uses an on-chain randomness oracle (Witnet) to generate verifiable random numbers. The entire process, from random number generation to winner selection, happens transparently on-chain. Anyone can audit the draw results and verify that winners were selected fairly. There is no house edge and no backdoors.
On Shinjo, this is not an issue because prizes are auto-claimed on your behalf. In the underlying PoolTogether protocol, unclaimed prizes are recycled back into the prize pool to fund future draws, ensuring nothing is wasted.
Draws happen every day. Each draw distributes prizes across all tiers. This daily cadence means you have a new chance to win every 24 hours as long as you have funds deposited.
All Shinjo prize vaults are deployed on Base. ShiYoUSD — Prize Vault: 0x9d9A8a51D3f1b2465a9f2d2729405a63FD044a09, Liquidation Pair: 0xec526E6A784AAA68b729cd3064be94cf15f77164. ShiYoETH — Prize Vault: 0x738b1c666C1ae19adE14a8A73562B655746353B0, Liquidation Pair: 0x0E1243dE0946B971539881E5873869Ac16995204. ShiYoEUR — Prize Vault: 0x11332d33da296dE34DDa4D0A37ce3303d80f6b61, Liquidation Pair: 0x597230E2F39893DA0c44a4b000EE51d7AC361627. ShiYoBTC — Prize Vault: 0x25d99a29463aa85909687985fb58b4406fca7fe3, Liquidation Pair: 0x6773B9C1ba46e001c055e43e8aC79a919Af30f3b. You can verify all contracts on Basescan.