PRED, a trading venue on Base, ran a deposit bonus open only to wallets with a strong Ethos score. 185 users deposited $41,674, 60% of them went on to trade, and PRED’s acquisition cost was $0.

For any platform that uses bonuses to attract users, the result points to a way around a familiar trade-off: how to reward real traders without handing the budget to farmers.

The problem with deposit bonuses

Every trading venue runs into the same issue. A deposit bonus open to everyone gets farmed by throwaway wallets. A bonus open to no one acquires nobody.

Paid acquisition has its own version of the problem: the offer goes to whoever clicks, including bots and multiple accounts, and the venue pays a cost per acquisition or an agency fee to reach them.

What PRED did

PRED ran an Ethos Exclusive Access activation. Wallets above a credibility threshold were whitelisted, saw a claim banner inside PRED, and unlocked a reward that only pays out on winning trades. The higher a wallet’s Ethos score, the bigger the reward.

The activation worked in three steps.

1. Gate

Ethos whitelisted wallets by credibility score and pushed the offer in app for two days. PRED announced it on X the same day.

2. Tier

Rewards scaled with reputation:

• $20 at 1200+
• $50 at 1400+
• $100 at 1600+
• $200 at 2000+

3. Pay on wins

A user’s first winning trade was matched at 50%, and every win after that was topped up by $10, until the tier reward was used up. Losing trades earned nothing.

PRED shipped the offer with this line:

“Ethos already knows your trades are good. PRED now pays you for it.”

The results

The funnel from whitelisted wallets looked like this:

• Signed up: 1,209
• Deposited: 185, or 15% of signups
• Traded: 111, or 60% of depositors

Together, the 185 depositors put in $41,674, about $225 per funded account on average.

The 60% figure matters most. It means most depositors actually used the platform rather than parking money just to claim a bonus. Because the reward only paid out on winning trades, there was nothing to collect by depositing and sitting still.

PRED paid nothing to reach these users. The in-app push ran for two days, on Base.

How it compares

The case study sets Exclusive Access against the two usual options:

• Who sees the offer: an open deposit bonus reaches any wallet, and paid acquisition reaches whoever clicks. Exclusive Access is gated by credibility.
• Bonus abuse: open bonuses attract throwaway wallets, and paid acquisition attracts bots and multiple accounts. Exclusive Access is score gated and pays on wins only.
• Reward sizing: the first two are flat. Exclusive Access is tiered by reputation.
• Cost to reach the audience: an open bonus costs the bonus budget, and paid acquisition costs a CPA or agency fee. Exclusive Access is free.
• Setup time: days for the first two, minutes for Exclusive Access.

Where else a score gate could apply

The same approach works anywhere a platform decides how much to spend to acquire a user. The case study lists several examples:

• Deposit and trading bonuses: size the match by score so the budget goes to traders who stay.
• Fee rebates and VIP tiers: grant status on day one to wallets that earned it elsewhere onchain.
• Referral programs: pay out only when the referred wallet clears a credibility bar.
• Prediction and perp markets: seed a new market with credible traders before opening it to everyone.
• Points seasons: weight multipliers by reputation instead of wallet count.

Ethos gives every account a credibility score based on what others say about it. PRED’s activation shows one practical use of that score: deciding who gets an offer, and how big it should be, before any money is spent.

This article is adapted from the Ethos case study.