Introduction

Pondora is a modular DeFi ecosystem built on Cardano's extended UTXO model, centered around a single powerful primitive: the Smart Account. Your assets stay under your control and custody while working across a broad range of DeFi use cases — powered by a growing network of purpose-built Layer 2 protocols and composable DeFi modules.

Pondora's goal is to drive the growth and adoption of DeFi on Cardano by delivering the absolute best user experience — without sacrificing decentralization and security, core pillars of what makes Cardano unique. It achieves this by leveraging the unique properties of the UTXO model to enable capabilities that are simply not possible on account-based chains.

SmartFi: DeFi for the Masses

Traditional DeFi is limited to simple, isolated interactions — swap token A for token B, deposit into a pool, claim rewards. Each action is a standalone transaction that requires manual intervention and custodial trade-offs. SmartFi represents the evolution beyond these constraints.

SmartFi is what becomes possible when smart accounts replace passive wallets as the foundation of decentralized finance. Instead of individual transactions, users express complex, multi-step strategies — conditional trades, automated workflows, composable intents — all while retaining full self-custody. The assets stay under your control; the intelligence lives in the intents.

Cardano is an ideal foundation for SmartFi because this evolution demands a decentralized, secure backbone.