The problem Pool Maximum solves

Pool Maximum

Pool Maximum is a DeFi protocol that pools user funds, maximizes yield, and randomly distributes a majority percentage of the interest earned to a winner, while the rest is proportionally distributed to the losers.

The protocol works in the following steps:

1. Users deposit ETH into prize pool before deadline.

2. Prize pool deposits funds into Yearn Finance vault, distributing tickets to users.

3. Prize pool burns shares and withdraws the amount and interest after a certain time.

4. Random user chosen as winner, receiving initial principal plus majority of interest.

5. Losers receive initial principal plus rest of interest divided by total tickets minted in the pool-maximum till date.

As you can see that the idea is inspired from the PoolTogether protocol but it is better in the following ways:

1. The interest earned is maximized using the yearn finance vaults.

2. No user goes profitless and receives prizes based on their loyalty to the protocol.

Problems solved

The above DeFi protocol can solve several problems faced by users and investors in the current financial system. Here are some of the problems this protocol can solve:

1. This DeFi protocol allows investors to pool their funds together and invest in yearn finance vaults, providing them with the opportunity to earn maximum yield.

2. This protocol creates a fair distribution of interest earnings, where the winner is chosen randomly, and the rest is proportionally distributed to all participants based on their contribution.

3. This protocol provides an open and accessible platform for anyone to participate in investment opportunities and provides transparency and traceability to the entire investment process.

4. The protocol also gives liberty to deploy customised pools with your choice of yearn vault, prize distribution strategy, award share to be given to winner and much more flexibility.

Challenges I ran into

Choosing a yield aggregator was an easy task but I had to also think of a new feature above the pooltogether idea. This was the first challenge I ran into. First, I thought that I could a rari-fuse kind of protocol over pooltogether that allows anyone to come and deploy a customised pool where users can deposit funds. But after several discussions with my mentor, I realized that this would defeat the purpose of pooling all the resources of all people. Hence, I dropped this idea. The next idea was to work on building an algorithm that does not let anyone go profitless after his/her funds have been deposited for quite some time in an yield aggregator. This was kind of the major challenge I faced and further while building the project, I ran into several challenges.

Challenges I ran into

Smart Contract Testing:

I was building with foundry for the first time as I had heard that this was one of the best smart contract testing framework. Initially I had a lot of problem figuring out how it works, but eventually I got a hang of it and fork testing helped a lot.

Integration with Yearn Finance Vault:

The protocol involves depositing funds into the Yearn Finance Vault to earn maximum yield. I needed to handle situations where the Yearn Finance Vault goes down or is unavailable. This required implementing fallback mechanisms and monitoring the state of the Yearn Finance Vault.

Gas Optimization:

I needed to optimize the gas usage of the smart contracts to ensure that users are not discouraged from using the protocol due to high fees. I use dtechniques like batching transactions and minimizing storage usage to reduce gas fees.

Liquidity:

I needed to ensure that there is enough liquidity in the prize pool to incentivize users to participate. I will use techniques like liquidity mining and incentives to attract users to the protocol.