# PRED’s Ethos-gated deposit bonus drew $41.7K at $0 acquisition cost

Published 2026-08-13 by Ethos · https://www.ethos.network/post/pred-score-gated-deposit-bonus

> PRED gated a deposit bonus by Ethos score through Exclusive Access: 185 users deposited $41,674, 60% of them traded, and PRED paid nothing to reach them.

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](https://casestudies.ethos.network/pred).*