poidh @ The ZAO

What it is

poidh ("pics or it didn't happen") is an on-chain bounty platform built by Kenny and Rhovian^[5]. It runs across three chains - Arbitrum, Base, and Degen Chain^[5] - and lets anyone post a bounty, anyone add funds to it, and anyone claim it by submitting proof. Every claim mints as an NFT automatically^[5]; when a bounty resolves, the reward goes to the winner's wallet and the winning submission's NFT goes to the bounty creator's. The ZAO runs its bounties on Base specifically, using it for structured creative and clip-up work - someone records video, clips it, makes an ad, or produces media - posts it publicly, and submits proof to claim the reward.

Style note: lowercase "poidh". The platform is at poidh.xyz, with docs at info.poidh.xyz and words.poidh.xyz. The canonical ops home for ZAO's own bounties is the zpoidh repository on GitHub; poidh's own app and contracts live at github.com/picsoritdidnthappen.

Why it exists

Bounties solve a hard problem: how do you turn a single live moment - a music session, a conversation, a recording - into work for many people, fairly compensate them, and keep the whole pipeline transparent?

A traditional workflow loses value at each step: session happens, gets recorded, sits. Weeks later someone clips it, maybe or maybe not. The clipper has to guess what's good, does unpaid work hoping for visibility. A creator makes an ad or promo, has no guarantee it will be used or that they will get paid fairly.

poidh closes that loop. The ZAO can post a bounty the same day a session happens, with a clear bar (this is what we want), a transparent reward pot (anyone can see the ETH), and a deadline. Creators show up, do the work, post proof, and if they clear the bar they get paid on-chain within days. No speculation, no delays, no negotiation. The bar is the contract.

How a bounty works

The format

The ZAO runs bounties in the We-Them-Media (WTM) audition format:

• The bar: Exact criteria for what passes. (e.g., "60 second clip, under 1 minute of editing, original episode audio only, clear dialog, no competing background music")
• A scoring rubric: How judges rank submissions above the bar. (e.g., "Pacing", "Originality", "Audio quality")
• A single judge: One clear decision-maker, not a committee. (Zaal, Kenny, a curator)
• An explicit deadline: No rolling submissions. Bounty closes at a specific date and time, UTC.
• An open pot: The base reward is posted, but anyone - Zaal, sponsors, the community - can add more ETH to the pot at any time.

Every bounty The ZAO drafts runs past Kenny first. Once live on poidh, submissions arrive, are tracked on a leaderboard, and when the deadline hits, the judge's decision is final and paid directly on-chain.

The chain

poidh is a multi-chain platform - Arbitrum, Base, and Degen Chain (which settles in the DEGEN token) - but The ZAO's own bounties run specifically on Base, in ETH. When a bounty is won, the ETH settlement happens directly: the creator's wallet receives the funds without intermediaries, and the winning submission's photo mints as an NFT to the bounty creator's wallet. This is why The ZAO can pay out reliably and transparently - no banking delays, no dispute resolution - the ledger is public.

poidh takes a 2.5% completion fee on settled bounties^[5] (a platform-wide default, not ZAO-specific), and suggests a 5% resale royalty on the claim NFTs^[5]. Creators can cancel an unclaimed bounty at any time and get their funds back minus gas. Gas itself is small - typically a few cents per action on these chains. Source: poidh's own FAQ and beginner's guide (info.poidh.xyz, words.poidh.xyz).

Rounds

The ZAO runs bounties in numbered rounds. Each round has a theme, a deadline, and lives in the zpoidh repository under rounds/r[N]/. The round folder holds: the bounty spec, the brand kit (fonts, logos, promo audio), judging pages, and the resolved payouts once winners are announced.

What poidh can do that ZAO doesn't use yet

ZAO bounties are single-judge: one clear decision-maker, final call. poidh's own v2 product also supports a different shape - open multiplayer bounties - where anyone can add funds to a bounty and get voting rights proportional to their contribution. When a claim comes in, a 48-hour vote opens; if more than half of the voters who actually show up say yes^[5], all the funds go to that claimant. No single judge required. poidh also recently added album pages, letting bounties get tagged into topic categories (a ZAO or ZABAL Games album is possible, not yet set up). Neither is in use today, but both are real options if ZAO ever wants a bounty that's judged by whoever funded it instead of by Kenny or Zaal.

Live activity (as of July 2026)

All rounds feed the clipper pipeline: session recordings become clip candidates, which become poidh bounty briefs, which turn into paid work for creators.

Integration with The ZAO ecosystem

poidh is one layer in The ZAO's media workflow. Sessions produce recordings. Those recordings get clipped. Bounties fund the clipping. Good clips become content for WaveWarZ, fan clips, or ecosystem promotions.

In practice: a Zuke space happens. Within a day, The ZAO posts a bounty: "Best 60-second clip from yesterday's session." Creators clip the recording, submit, and if they win they get paid in ETH on-chain. The winning clip then gets distributed via The ZAO's content channels or archived in the clipper library for future use.

This is the first phase of tightening The ZAO's creator loop: from live moment -> clip -> bounty -> payment -> reuse.

Operations and best practices

The zpoidh repository is the canonical home for all ZAO-issued poidh bounty metadata^[2], including:

• Bounty specs: Complete bar, rubric, brand assets, promo audio (stored in rounds/r[N]/)
• Brand kits: Logos, fonts, color palette, promotional audio (60s MP3s with consistent audio treatment)
• Judging records: Submissions, judge notes, winner identification, and on-chain settlement proof
• Best practices: Canonical guidelines for audio treatment (e.g., no competing background music under dialog, binaural beat acceptable), video length, and submission format
• Leaderboard: Public feed of all claims and winners in JSON format, updated as rounds close

Before drafting any new bounty, review the best practices document^[7] (zpoidh/docs/bounty-best-practices.html) and the ZAO bounty playbook (research doc 625). Every submission must meet the hard bar before scoring begins.

Traction and outcomes

As of July 2026, the poidh x ZAO collaboration has achieved:

• 3 complete rounds: R1 (Hannah Farm Drop clip-up), R2 (Best 60s ZABAL Gamez promo from Episode 19), R3 (Best ad for ZABAL Gamez - fully resolved, winner paid on-chain)
• On-chain payouts: Multiple creators have received ETH direct to wallet. Settlement is verified on Base and transparent in zpoidh judging records.
• Ecosystem integrations: Round 3 brand kit rebuilt for ZABAL Gamez (12 files). Round 5 in collaboration with Unlock Protocol and Kenny. poidh referenced from BetterCallZaal nexus, ZABAL Games site, and ZAO research library.
• Content pipeline: Clip-ups from bounties feed back into WaveWarZ and ZAO content distribution
• Session closeout: 2026-05-31 session shipped zpoidh repository, R3 bounty live + fully resolved, best practices documented, brand kit production-ready

Technical roadmap

Near-term

Round 5 launch: poidh x Unlock Protocol clipping bounty. Planned to be sparked small with an open pot, allowing community top-ups. Tied to an Unlock fireside collectible event.

Leaderboard automation: Live JSON feed (poidh-leaderboard.json) already deployed. Additional data surfaces may include claim-to-payout timing and judge notes.

Future (not committed)

ERC20 bounty support: A fork of PoidhV2 (poidh-v2-contracts)^[3] has been prepared to support bounties funded in any ERC20 token, not just ETH. This would allow The ZAO to fund bounties in its own tokens if desired. The fork is not deployed or integrated into poidh.xyz yet, and remains on a feature branch in the BetterCallZaal organization. This is separate from poidh's own multi-chain support (Arbitrum/Base/Degen) - it's specifically about ZAO being able to denominate a bounty in a ZAO-native token on Base, rather than ETH.

Batch judging: Tooling for judges to review multiple submissions side-by-side and compare scores before final settlement.

Open questions and considerations

Scalability of judging: As bounty volume increases, the single-judge model may become a bottleneck. Rotating judges or rubric-based scoring (where qualified community members can pre-score) might relieve this.

Dispute resolution: If a creator disagrees with judging, there is no formal appeal process today - the judge's decision is final and on-chain settlement is immediate. This is deliberate for speed, but may need a small review layer if stakes grow.

Token economics: Bounty sizing (what rewards attract quality work vs. overpaying for commoditized submissions) is still being discovered round-to-round. No formal pricing model yet.

Geographic and timezone coverage: All deadlines are UTC, but submission times, judge availability, and creator timezones span globally. Async workflows are resilient but may miss live-moment urgency.

Get involved

For creators: Watch the /poidh channel on Farcaster for bounty announcements. Check poidh.xyz for live bounties. Read the best practices before submitting. All submissions happen on-chain; if you have a Base wallet, you can claim.

For The ZAO and partners: Draft a new bounty by following the template in zpoidh/rounds/_template/. Have Kenny review the spec before casting. Use the canonical brand kit and best practices checklist. Publish the bounty to poidh.xyz and announce in the /poidh channel.

For contributors: Improvements to the bounty spec format, judging UX, or leaderboard feeds can be submitted as PRs to zpoidh. Documentation updates should cite the source (research doc number or zpoidh folder path).