THE INTUITION GAME
Back to the game

HOW THE MONEY WORKS

Funding, entering, getting paid, and withdrawing — start to finish.
Never used crypto before?

You don't need to. There's no app to install, no seed phrase to write down, no password to invent, and nothing to buy. A wallet was made for you when you joined — the only thing you'll ever be asked for is a six-digit code we email you, once per browser, to confirm it's you.

If a word on this page is unfamiliar, you can safely skip it. The four things that matter: your money is yours, we can't touch it, the contract pays the winner automatically, and you can take it out whenever you like.

The short version

Zoa never holds your money. Not at any point. Your funds sit in a wallet only you can sign for, and while a paid game is running they sit in a published escrow contract that pays the winner automatically. There is no Zoa account balance, because there is no Zoa account to hold one.

Your walletYou hold the key. You can export it and walk away with your funds at any time.
Escrow contractHolds every entry for the duration of the event. Published on-chain, anyone can read it.
The winnerPaid by the contract itself. Zoa's fee comes out in the same transaction.

Step by step

1

Your wallet

You already have one. A wallet is created for your account automatically — no seed phrase to write down, no browser extension to install. Open it from 💰 WALLET in the lobby.

It shows three things: your address, your USDC balance read straight off the chain, and anything of yours currently sitting in escrow.

Self-custody The key is yours, not ours. Export key in the wallet window hands you the private key so you can load the wallet into MetaMask, Rabby, or anything else. Zoa cannot sign for you, cannot move your funds, and cannot freeze them.
2

Fund it with USDC

Send USDC to your wallet address from wherever you already hold it — an exchange, another wallet, anywhere. Copy the address from the wallet window with the copy button next to it.

  1. Open 💰 WALLET in the lobby and copy your address.
  2. From your exchange or existing wallet, withdraw USDC on the Base network to that address.
  3. Your balance updates as soon as the transfer confirms. It is read from the chain, so it is always the real number.
Get the network right It must be USDC on Base. USDC sent over Ethereum mainnet, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum or any other network will not arrive, and nobody — including us — can retrieve it. Most exchanges make you pick the network on the withdrawal screen. Pick Base. If you are unsure, send a small amount first.
USDC is all you need Moving money on a blockchain normally costs a separate network fee, paid in a different currency. Zoa covers those fees for you. You never have to hold anything but USDC, and you will never be asked to top up a second balance just to enter a game.
3

Enter a prize tournament

Open 🏆 Tournaments, pick an event, and press PAY & ENTER. Here is exactly what happens, and why you will see more than one prompt.

  1. Confirm it's you — a code by email. The first time you pay from a browser, we email a six-digit code to the address on your account. Type it in and that's it: nothing to install, no new password, and you won't be asked again on that browser.

    The email comes from Privy, not from us. They secure the wallet on your behalf, so look for their name rather than ours — and check your spam folder, because an unfamiliar sender writing about a "wallet" is exactly the sort of thing filters hide. If it hasn't arrived within a minute, use the resend button rather than waiting.
  2. Approve the exact entry fee. The first signature authorises the escrow contract to take precisely your entry amount — not an unlimited allowance, not a penny more. Nothing has moved yet.
  3. Join the game. The second signature calls the contract, which pulls the approved amount straight from your wallet into escrow and writes your address into the event's player list.
  4. We check the chain, not our own records. Your seat is only confirmed after we read the contract back and find your address in it. The chain is the receipt — you get a link to view the transaction on Basescan.
Why two signatures This is how ERC-20 tokens work: you approve, then the contract pulls. Splitting it is what lets us approve an exact amount instead of asking for open-ended access to your balance. It is one extra click in exchange for never granting a blank cheque.

Your money goes from your wallet to the contract. It does not pass through Zoa on the way.

4

Once the field is set, your entry is committed

Up until you pay, you can withdraw from an event you signed up for and nothing happens. After you pay, you cannot — and this is the part worth reading twice.

Leaving a paid game does not return your entry When the field locks and play begins, your entry is inside the escrow contract. If you close the tab, lose your connection, or leave the table, your entry stays in escrow and is paid out to the winner exactly as the entry terms say. An AI plays your remaining hands so the table can finish for everyone still in it, but you have forfeited the seat. This is the agreement you enter when you pay, and it is the same for every player at the table.

The reason is simple: the prize pool is funded by the players. If a player could pull their entry back out mid-game, everyone else's prize would shrink because someone was losing. Once the cards are dealt, the pool is fixed.

We cannot make an exception to this, and neither can anyone else. The contract has no function that returns a stake from a game in progress — not for you, not for us. What it does have is a guaranteed refund path if the event fails, covered in step 6.

5

Getting paid

When the event finishes, the result is submitted to the contract and the contract does the paying. USDC lands in the winner's wallet directly. Nobody presses a button to release it, and there is no withdrawal request to approve — the payout and the platform fee move in the same transaction, or neither moves.

The platform fee Zoa does not take a rake. A small percentage of each prize pool goes to running the event — hosting it, settling it on-chain, and covering the network fees so you never have to. It is fixed for each event at the moment that event is created and cannot be changed afterwards, and the contract enforces a ceiling that no setting can exceed. You will always see the entry amount and the prize pool before you commit anything.

The contract will not accept a result that does not add up. Payouts plus fee must equal the total escrowed, exactly, or the transaction reverts. It will also refuse to pay anyone who was not in the player list, and refuse to pay the same address twice.

6

If an event doesn't happen

Refunds do not depend on us being willing, available, or still in business. Anyone who paid in can pull their own entry back out of the contract, directly, when any of these is true:

  1. The event is cancelled.
  2. The event never filled and its join deadline passed.
  3. The event locked but no result was ever submitted before the result window closed.

That last one is the important one. If Zoa vanished tomorrow mid-tournament, the result window would lapse and every entry would become claimable by the player who paid it. There is no administrator approval in that path, and no owner switch that can block it.

7

Withdraw your USDC

Your balance is yours to move, whenever you like. There is no minimum, no waiting period, and no approval step on our side.

  1. Open 💰 WALLET in the lobby.
  2. Under SEND USDC, paste the destination address and the amount.
  3. Press Prepare, then confirm the signature. The USDC leaves your wallet for the address you gave.

Our server checks the address is well-formed and that you have the balance, then hands the transaction back to your browser to sign. It never signs for you — which is also why it cannot send your funds somewhere you did not choose.

Or skip us entirely Export your key and move the funds with any wallet software you like. Nothing about withdrawing requires Zoa to be online, cooperative, or even still running.

Two things you cannot withdraw: an entry already paid into a running event (step 4), and USDC sent directly to the escrow contract address by hand — which is why the send screen blocks that address outright. Entries only go in through Join, which escrows them properly against your seat.

Why we can't touch your money

"Non-custodial" is easy to claim, so here is what actually enforces it. The escrow contract is published on-chain and anyone can read its code and its balance.

  1. It cannot be upgraded. No proxy, no admin-upgradeable logic. The code that holds your entry today is the code that will hold it tomorrow.
  2. There is no withdrawal function for us. None. The contract can pay winners on a submitted result, and it can hand entries back to the players who paid them. That is the complete list of ways money leaves it.
  3. The fee destination is fixed at deployment and cannot be changed by anyone, including us.
  4. Refunds cannot be paused. The one pause switch that exists stops new events being created. It cannot block a refund or a payout on an event that already exists.
  5. Changing who reports results takes 48 hours in the open, on-chain, where anyone watching can see it queued before it takes effect.

You do not have to take our word for any of this. The contract is at 0x286a8906f18c090604753e533726cec8670efbae — read it on Basescan.

Questions

Do I need to know anything about crypto to play?
For free games, no — you never touch a wallet. For prize events you need to be able to send USDC on Base to an address. If you can withdraw from an exchange, you can do this.
Why USDC and not dollars?
USDC is a dollar-denominated token: one USDC tracks one US dollar. Using it is what lets the escrow contract hold and pay out prizes without any bank, processor, or Zoa employee in the middle. We do not currently offer a card or bank on-ramp — bring USDC you already hold.
What happens if I lose my connection mid-game?
An AI plays your remaining hands so the table can finish. In a free game, nothing is at stake. In a paid game your entry stays in escrow and pays out to the winner — see step 4. Reconnecting quickly gets you back in your seat if the game is still running.
Can Zoa take my entry if it decides I cheated?
No. The contract pays the winner of the event or refunds the players; there is no path that sends an entry to Zoa beyond the fixed percentage fee on a settled result. Account-level enforcement is a separate matter covered in the Terms.
I never got the six-digit code.
Three things, in order. It comes from Privy rather than Zoa, so search for their name. Check spam — an unknown sender writing about a wallet is what filters are built to catch. And it goes to the email address on your Zoa account, which may not be the one you're reading. There's a resend button under the code box; using it is quicker than waiting.
What is a "wallet"? I didn't sign up for one.
One was created for you when you joined, and it holds only what you put in it. It exists so that prize money can be paid to you directly rather than sitting in an account we control. You don't have to manage it, back it up, or understand it — the six-digit code is the whole of your involvement.
My entry failed and said something about gas.
Network fees are on us, so this is our problem rather than yours — fee coverage is still being rolled out during testing. Your USDC was not taken; a failed entry moves nothing. Email [email protected] with the event and roughly when you tried, and we will get you in.
I approved but the join didn't go through.
The approval on its own moves nothing — it only authorises the exact amount. If the second step failed, your USDC is still in your wallet. Press PAY & ENTER again.
Can I get my entry back before the event starts?
If you signed up but have not paid, yes — withdraw from the event and nothing happens. Once you have paid, your entry is in the contract and only the contract's own rules release it: a cancellation, an unfilled event past its deadline, or a lapsed result window.
Is the contract audited?
Not yet. That is one of the reasons prize play is currently running on a test network with valueless test tokens. An independent audit gates real-money launch.
Who can play for prizes?
Prize events require you to be of legal age and in a jurisdiction that permits skill-based competitions for prizes. Eligibility rules and the restricted-jurisdiction list are in the Terms. Free play with tokens has no such restrictions.

Still stuck? Email [email protected] and tell us what you saw — the transaction link helps if you have one.