# 5 Design principles for crypto

**Published by:** [puzzledCockatoo3](https://paragraph.com/@puzzledcockatoo3/)
**Published on:** 2022-04-28
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@puzzledcockatoo3/5-design-principles-for-crypto

## Content

We saw cryptocurrency go mainstream during the 2022 Superbowl when our screens were filled with future-thinking ads for Coinbase, Crypto.com, FTX, and bitbuy.com. It seems that crypto is here to stay, for better or for worse. People can’t stop talking about it — and for good reason! The cryptocurrency market is predicted to grow with a compound annual growth rate of 56.4% from 2019 to 2025 (source). In order for crypto adoption to be successful, the interfaces themselves must be intuitive and easy to use. This is a huge challenge in this space because of how new and complex of an idea crypto is, and how few people understand it’s full potential. The market is also shrouded with an air of mystery and strange jargon — dapps, web3, deFi, HODL, forking, rekt. It’s hard for the average joe to decipher what any of these means, and even harder for him to trust it. The gates to crypto heaven are heavily guarded. Inspired by the conversation, I set out on a noble quest to find out what it takes to make a strong crypto exchange from a user experience perspective. In this article I’ll be looking specifically at mobile apps. Since cryptocurrencies are incredibly volatile, users need to be ready to buy and sell at all times in the day. And since we’re all glued to our cellphones, that means an intuitive mobile-first experience is essential. After all, the average US adult spends 3 hours and 43 minutes on their cellphone (source). As somebody with experience disrupting the fintech space with innovative products, my primary infatuation with crypto UX has to do with breaking the barrier to cryptocurrency investing. For this reason, I looked at these 6 most popular crypto exchanges since those are typically the newbie’s first exposure to cryptocurrency. I recognize however, that there are about as many crypto apps in the app store as there are fish in the sea. I analyzed the approach of these apps, and learned from their similarities and differences. I walked away with these following 5 design principles that I believe anyone interested in designing for this space can learn from. Trust is moving away from financial institutions, advisors, and governments that each have their own motives. That is a big driver for why crypto is booming in the first place — these currencies are decentralized and not owned by one person or institution. But it is easy to trust ourselves and our own incentives — we know ourselves best, after all. Ultimately, we want to take control of our own financial situation and feel confident doing it. The key to getting people to trust moving their money onto a crypto exchange is to actually provide education on how to trade it. No more gatekeeping and jargon! Teach users about individual coins, how a blockchain works, crypto niches, and investing strategies. Incentivize learning in an honest way, and make people feel good for achieving something for themselves. Giving people rewards for learning about a new coin or topic will keep people coming back, and will even give them a reason to share it with their friends. Coinbase has obviously spent a lot of time thinking through the app’s educational features. There’s an entire “Learn and earn” section which cleverly shows in a chart how much the user can earn in free coins just by completing some short lessons. At $1 earned per minute, the payoff is incredible and it seems silly not to take part. Illustrations, progress bars, and feedback after every question creates a smooth and exciting experience for the user. Instead of getting all the money at the end of the quiz, you get a little bit after every question. Also the value is automatically communicated in dollars, which is easier for somebody who defaults to their local fiat currency to understand. Coinbase is for beginners, but it provides a clear journey for the user to become an intermediate or advanced trader. Coinbase offers Coinbase Pro, a separate application with more analytics, coins, and resources, better suited for more experienced traders. When the user is finally ready to take off those training wheels, Coinbase is there to help. I wrote a blog about friction in fintech a while back. This design principle is sort of like incorporating “friction” to slow down the user at key steps, but on steroids. And that’s because the stakes of crypto investing are far higher than your typical payments or bank application. The exchanges fees are higher, the assets are more volatile, passwords and authentications are even more stringent, and transfers can take longer to go through because the blockchain by nature is slow. This means the user must be extremely careful, as decisions leave more risk on the table. But mistakes still happen, and it is the designer’s responsibility to allow for them. In this example, FTX attempts to warn the user of fraud. While some might consider this as overkill, fraud and computer misuse offenses rose by 43% during the COVID era (source). As a user, I perceive FTX as an app of integrity after seeing this message. While Binance is a bit intimidating at first to navigate, it has some nifty features that the other apps seem to miss. The one that caught my eye is this “cancel all orders” button. This basically functions like an “oh sh*t” button. This can come in handy if you want to change your buying strategy after some new information, which can happen often given the volatile nature of this market. I believe this is an area where the beginner apps are lacking and can benefit from. If anything, a beginner is more likely to make a mistake. You might’ve heard this one from an old boss. “My door is always open! I’ll always let you know what I’m thinking.” Crypto apps aren’t like standard apps where you want to hide information from the user and pursue minimalism. Instead, it should be like looking into a glass door, with constant feedback. Users need a way to be notified on price movements in the assets they are watching, since the price can change drastically any second (and most of us aren’t just staring at the charts). Gemini allows you to manually set up custom price alerts which will send a push notification to your phone. While this could be done automatically, this gives the user confidence that they will actually see the right price alerts. It also helps filter out the noise of the alerts you don’t want to see. While all of the apps have some sort of price alert function, not all of them are this intuitive. Seeing the current real-time price of the asset is a nice touch so you can compare how far-fetched your alert is. The feedback message gives an extra stroke of confidence. I was really impressed by Binance’s transparency and honesty with the data that was exposed. It is like the app really trusts their user and aims to equip them as much as possible. There is an option to add or remove widgets and really customize the data you see. One of the widgets shows recent account sign ins, so that if your account gets hacked would be able to tell right away. It’s essential to surface a lot of information and guidance to allow the user to understand the actions they are about to take and how that will affect them. In the new web3 environment, we must facilitate trust and autonomy. Our best crypto app will look like a partner, always there for us. Having a way to showcase key features on first login goes the extra mile. FTX does a great job here by highlighting where the user should probably begin. This limits the uncertainty for the user and reduces the possibility of them getting overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. For data to be shown in this space, the user must either create a watchlist or trade assets. By default, there are a lot of empty states which makes it difficult to showcase the app’s full potential. We need to show the value of each feature while it’s empty, and encourage the user to complete the necessary steps to use the feature. The solution is some visually clever and descriptive empty states. Gemini surprised me here because it embeds empty states onto cards, accompanied with additional copy and visuals. These visuals are a really nice way to fill the space, and it feels like it is part of the experience and not a floating piece of empty information. FTX seems to have thought through this principle the most extensively. All its empty states are descriptive and actionable. Coupled with the onboarding experience I mentioned earlier that the other apps lacked, FTX is the winner for me here. Allow people to explore the application! Crypto is kind of like the wild west, it’s new and exciting. Let people feel that excitement. It should be easy for a first time user to navigate the application and read what each page or feature is about. In order for someone to actually make a trade, they need to have their identity verified, which involves entering their social security number, uploading an ID, or giving up other highly sensitive information. This is a big ask for the user when they haven’t even had time yet to figure out what the app is all about. I noticed two primary identification methods. This involved retrieving sensitive information up front such as address, date of birth, and social security number during onboarding. This prevents any need for uploading an ID in the happy path. I had the privilege of experiencing both pass and fail paths. While signing up for Kraken, I failed verification. I definitely was not happy with this, but the unique and colorful visuals helped ease some of the pain. If I was a real user, I would probably sign off here and try another app. I wonder if there is a happy medium here where if I fail identity verification, I can continue to explore the app and upload those documents later. On the other hand, I passed the verification onboarding for FTX. I was able to unlock more features sooner, and it felt nice not having to upload an ID. I actually had to recall if I had verified my identity or not. Here the customer uploads an ID or other document once they are logged into the app. The user is able to explore but isn’t able to make any trades. With this approach, Binance allowed me to explore the application. It felt less intrusive since I wasn’t giving up my social security number or ID until I was certain I wanted to. However, getting blocked at key steps was a bit annoying. FTX wins here for me because the verification was so subtle that it felt like it was part of the experience. In addition, there is so much colorful content to explore throughout the application and it is presented in such a digestible manner for people of all comfort levels. In conclusion, these design principles attempt to build trust with the user, which just about parallels what industry experts say on this topic. While I agree that “trust” is vital, my problem is with how we think about it. I’ve never had to ask for trust when I led with integrity. I propose that we focus less on earning trust, and focus more on being trustworthy. To transform people’s lives and their approach towards currency itself is not a small ask. Society is exhausted from the mental deterioration that has happened as a result of social media and corrupt big institutions, so naturally we are a bit distrustful. This reminds me of the Netflix film The Social Dilemma which took the world by storm. It did an amazing job of depicting the damage Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram did on our social fabric. Key causes included censorship, dishonesty about data sharing, and echo chambers created by treating customers as products to sell to advertisers. Yet early on, nobody saw these negative effects coming. We are now in the early days of crypto design. We need to be absolutely certain that the solutions we propose in this space are not causing problems that haven’t yet been anticipated. It is essential that for crypto a different approach is taken — radical and extreme honesty. If we are honest from the start about the customer’s data and how it is shared, this will make a completely different design ethos from what we are used to. “Transparency increases the cost of hiding the truth” — Don Peppers & Marth Rogers For more design rambles and thoughts, follow @alexandragrows on Twitter. Or check out her website, here.

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