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Pasanaku’s development, as described by its developer Rafael Abuawad, moved through three distinct stages: first putting a traditional trusted savings circle onchain, then adding dynamic pool NFTs, and finally using overcollateralization to make participation less dependent on personal trust. The progression matters because a smart contract can record contributions and distribute payouts without solving the harder question: how people who do not know one another can safely save together.
How a traditional pasanaku works
A pasanaku is a rotating savings pool: members contribute a set amount on a schedule, and one participant receives the pooled contributions each round. The sequence continues until members have each received a payout. In the traditional arrangement described by Abuawad, participants know one another and depend on early recipients to keep contributing after they have collected their share.
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ROSCASH describes Pasanaku as a Bolivian regional form of a rotating savings circle, with weekly or monthly contributions and the fund passing between members; it also notes goods-based variants. That is useful cultural context, not evidence of how common the practice is: ROSCASH’s ROSCA explainer.
V1: putting the trusted circle onchain
Abuawad’s first version moved the existing arrangement into a smart contract, but retained its reliance on known participants. According to his account, the Vyper implementation used ERC-1155 token IDs to represent pools, let an organizer add participants manually, and initially supported ETH, USDC and USDT. Members deposited contributions, and whoever was assigned to a round claimed that round’s payout.
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The contract could receive and distribute funds according to the pool’s rules, but it did not change the social assumption underneath: members still had to trust one another to follow through. That is why the question “If you already know and trust every participant, do you really need a smart contract?” does not capture the hardest problem. As Abuawad put it, “The real question was whether Pasanaku could work between people who did not know or trust one another.”
V1.5: dynamic NFTs changed the display, not the trust model
The intermediate release, which Abuawad says was ported to Solidity, added dynamic, fully onchain ERC-1155 metadata. A custom descriptor read pool state and generated each pool’s token representation. This was a way to make pool information visible through the token, but it did not change who could join or why they needed to trust one another. Participants still had to know every member.
Abuawad’s conclusion was that dynamic metadata did not add enough value for this use case. The distinction is important: making a pool’s state easier to represent does not, by itself, change the incentives around contributions and payouts.
V2: overcollateralization changes the participation incentives
For the later design, the developer focused on allowing people without a prior relationship to participate. The described mechanism requires a participant to deposit collateral worth more than the pool’s full payout before joining. In principle, collateral exceeding the potential payout gives the protocol a buffer if a participant fails to meet an obligation under its rules; it changes incentives rather than making every risk disappear.
Abuawad says the design narrowed supported contributions and collateral to USDC and sent collateral to Fluid to make it productive. The stated aim was to offer an additional reason to join and remain in the system. This is the developer’s description of the design and its motivation, not verification of a current yield, rate, deployment, or collateral process. No guarantee of yield or collateral value follows from the description.
The account describes the resulting protocol as one smart contract that is also a soulbound ERC-1155. Its frontend is said to surface collateral, current interest rates, available pools and a user’s active pools, while coordinating onchain actions. Abuawad also reports a 99% Lighthouse score for the interface; that is a developer-reported result, not an independently reproduced measurement.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What “trustless” does—and does not—mean here
In this development story, “trustless” refers to the attempt to reduce dependence on personal trust between pool participants through collateral and contract-enforced rules. It should not be read as a claim that no one or nothing must be trusted. A participant may still face risks tied to contract behavior, collateral valuation, the mechanisms that determine value, or the operation and yield of an external protocol.
The project account does not establish independent audit status, current contract addresses or deployment, collateral liquidation safeguards, or current network and pool availability. It also does not independently verify interest rates or yields. Those details are necessary for assessing a live deployment, so the development description alone is not enough to establish them.
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What the developer says may come next
Abuawad describes improved discovery and joining as upcoming, and mentions composability and a possible secondary market as future ideas. These are plans or possibilities, not confirmed features. A secondary market, if developed, would also raise separate questions about what a transferable position represents and how it interacts with the pool’s obligations.
Other blockchain-based ROSCA projects illustrate that collateral is only one design choice. ETHGlobal’s showcase for the separate Savio project describes collateral, rotating or auction-based payout mechanisms, and collateral deployed into yield strategies. These details are about Savio, not Pasanaku, and show why protocols should be compared on their own payout order, collateral rules and user experience: ETHGlobal’s Savio showcase.
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