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Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

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11–20 of 309 posts

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#11

How much does the insurance cost? Was it hard to find someone wiling to insure that? Finally, you pay 0.2% but Ally pays 1% yet you say your rates are as good.

On the interest rate side, the 0.20% is the base rate. If you win no prizes, you get that. Prizes comprise the bulk of the value from Yotta. Your total return is prizes + the base rate.

On the insurance side, there are specialty insurance companies that do this kind of thing, similar to hole in one prizes or half court shot prizes at sporting events.

We pay them a mark-up on expected value. Since the risk they're taking is purely mathematical random chance, it's pretty much the best type of insurance for someone to underwrite. There is no uncertainty about what the risk is to them, unlike most other insurance where people are using actuaries to estimate what the risk is, but it's not actually known for sure.

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#12
The grand prize of $10,000,000 will be paid out as... $5,800,000? I don't understand how you justify saying (as far as I can tell) "The grand prize is $10,000,000. We reckon you could invest $5,800,000 and make $10,000,000 in 40 years, so we will give you $5,800,000 instead".

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#13

How much does the insurance cost? Was it hard to find someone wiling to insure that? Finally, you pay 0.2% but Ally pays 1% yet you say your rates are as good.

The 0.2% is the base (minimum) rate, not the average rate.

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#14

Really interesting concept! Are you planning on adding index fund investing in the future? It seems like you could incentivize investors to take a long term view with a similar, gamified approach.

We haven't thought about this yet but that's interesting. What kind of index fund gamification do you have in mind?

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#15
post #8

> We provide a rate of return on savings that on average is in-line with the top yielding savings accounts out there like Marcus or Ally. You might get a higher return if you’re lucky and win more prizes than expected. You might get a lower return if you win fewer prizes than expected. Even in a worst case scenario where you never win a prize, you still have your savings. Can you elaborate more on this? (Maybe you ca…

Yeah. Right now, the EV from prizes is actually higher than that. We are subsidizing to provide an even better value for early users. But in the long run, that's exactly right. The base rate plus prizes will be, on average, what you would earn in a vanilla but high yielding HYSA

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#16
post #10
post #8

> We provide a rate of return on savings that on average is in-line with the top yielding savings accounts out there like Marcus or Ally. You might get a higher return if you’re lucky and win more prizes than expected. You might get a lower return if you win fewer prizes than expected. Even in a worst case scenario where you never win a prize, you still have your savings. Can you elaborate more on this? (Maybe you ca…

APY in most savings account changes quarterly so doing temporal comparisons does not have much bearing here.

Yeah fair point. Our all-in rate (base rate + prizes) will move with market cycles as well to match HYSAs

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#17
For those interested in projects like this outside of the U.S there is a similar decentralised version called pool together which uses the dai stablecoin for tickets: https://www.pooltogether.com/ with the code open and auditable on github too.

If you are new to crypto you can access it easily using wallets like: https://www.argent.xyz/

Re: Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save

#18
post #8

> We provide a rate of return on savings that on average is in-line with the top yielding savings accounts out there like Marcus or Ally. You might get a higher return if you’re lucky and win more prizes than expected. You might get a lower return if you win fewer prizes than expected. Even in a worst case scenario where you never win a prize, you still have your savings. Can you elaborate more on this? (Maybe you ca…

Yeah. Right now, the EV from prizes is actually higher than that. We are subsidizing to provide an even better value for early users. But in the long run, that's exactly right. The base rate plus prizes will be, on average, what you would earn in a vanilla but high yielding HYSA

And can/will you disclose the difference? :D
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