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. Prize 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.
$YO is the token issued by yo.xyz, the yield optimizer that generates the yield behind Shinjo's prize pools. By depositing into Shinjo, your assets are routed through yo.xyz vaults, which automatically earns you $YO token rewards on top of your prize draw eligibility. Two layers of upside: daily prize chances and $YO token accumulation.
$YO rewards accrue automatically while your assets are deposited. To claim, visit app.yo.xyz/claim and connect the same wallet you use on Shinjo. There is no deadline to claim, and unclaimed rewards continue to accumulate.
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. These protocols secure billions in combined 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 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 adds no custodial risk. It is a non-custodial frontend. You can verify the full dependency chain on-chain.
App Features
Create a custom referral code in Settings and share your personal link (shinjo.app/r/yourcode). Shinjo tracks clicks, signups, and total savings from the people you refer. Referral activity will factor into future rewards as the protocol matures.
You can set a personal savings target in the app. Shinjo tracks your progress, flags milestones, and tells you whether you're ahead or behind pace. Your goal also connects you to a saving group where others are working toward the same target.
Yes. Only the broad category of your goal (e.g. "housing" or "travel") and target amount are synced to our server for cross-device access and community features like saving groups. Personal details like your custom goal name and timeline never leave your device. Shinjo cannot see what specifically you are saving for.
Groups are communities of depositors with similar goals. Categories include safety nets, housing, education, and more. Each group shows total savings, the biggest win, recent members, and its own leaderboard. The top depositor in a group becomes the Champion and can pin a message to the group.
Your streak counts consecutive weeks where your balance stays at or above the previous week. Longer streaks increase your prize weight on the leaderboard. If your balance dips, you lose the streak. Lives protect against this: each life absorbs one bad week without resetting your streak. You start with one life and earn more through milestones like hitting 13, 26, or 52 week streaks, depositing in multiple vaults, or finishing top 10 monthly.
The leaderboard ranks depositors by prize weight, which combines your balance and your streak length. A longer streak multiplies your effective weight. The top 20% earn Anchor Saver status. Each saving group has its own leaderboard too.
You can delegate your prize entries to another saver. If they win, the prize goes to them. This lets you back savers you believe in. You can sponsor one saver with your full weight, or split across up to three. Change your sponsorship anytime.
Yes. Shinjo runs as a mini app inside World App. Verified World ID holders get a 5x boost to their prize entries. The app detects your environment automatically. No separate account needed.
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. Depositing into Shinjo adds prize-draw upside to assets they already plan to hold long-term. The opportunity cost is close to zero. Stablecoin deposits are supported for more conservative savers, and the same no-loss mechanics apply.
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.