Degen Picks is a prediction market platform on Solana. Started by four DeGod holders as a $DUST side project. No funding. Three major product releases. Scaled to $SOL. Topped with an official DeGods collab — [de]superbowl.
I co-founded it. Led product end-to-end.
Peak NFT season (you had to be there).
We met in the DeGods Discord — whatever we built, it was going to be for the DeGods community. At the time, holders were accruing $DUST just for staking their DeGod NFTs. Free money — not much utility yet.
We knew our audience. Explored $DUST use cases — most weren't realistic. Then DeGods bought a Big3 basketball team — the community had something to rally around. Crypto Twitter was talking sports. The angle wrote itself.
Our angle: sports betting. Not a sportsbook. No house. Players bet each other. Protocol runs the rails. Platform takes a fee.
We branded independently — no DeGods IP — kept DeGods clear of potential regulatory trouble. I sourced Nippies IP instead. Freed us to move.
One platform. Two pool formats. Picks and Pick'em.
Smart contracts hold pools in escrow and settle payouts. Trustless.
Social layer: activity feeds and leaderboards. Link X to display your PFP and handle — or stay anon.
After Big3, we kept going — NFL, the World Cup, more.
Scaled the platform — 2+ pools running simultaneously, expanded beyond $DUST to $SOL and other SPLs.
And built a no-code admin panel — any admin could spin up a pool. Our dev could take a vacation.
Then one day — a DM from Frank DeGods. "hey."
We riff on collab ideas — landing on a Super Bowl pick'em. Prop bets for fans and non-fans alike. Discord livestream during the game. Frank puts up NFTs and tokens as prizes. The core team's socials amplify reach.
492 entries.
![Degen Picks — [de]superbowl](assets/degen-picks/mockup-3.png)
Degen Picks ran further than any of us expected. We did what we came to do — and more.
To quote Frank — try some sh*t, learn some sh*t, try some new sh*t. That's the whole thing.
The Degen Picks codebase still exists. Whether we turn it back on — unknown.
(but we could.)
