UX in Cryptocurrency: Appendix
August 2022 | cradl.org
Outside this Document
Table of Contents
What is this document?
This document is appendix material for the Crypto Research and Design Lab’s UX in Crypto report
For our UX in Crypto report, we analyzed 25+ apps in the US, African, and Asian markets to gain a high-level understanding of the current cryptocurrency user experience. That report contains our high-level findings and key themes for policy makers, foundations, and app developers to consider as the industry evolves.
Of course, we can’t fit everything into one document! We, therefore, created a separate appendix that provides more examples of the apps we looked at and more in-depth thoughts around the concepts that shape their experiences.
How to read this report.
Less narrative, this document should be thought of as a supplement to the existing report, which often links to sections of this document for more detail. We recommend readers to view the original report first, and use those links to navigate the sections herein.
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Welcome
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Implied Segmentations
Offering Strategies
Barriers to Adoption
Experience Strategies
Landmines
Asian and African App Analysis
Appendix: UX in Cryptocurrency
Contents
August 2022 | cradl.org
Implied Segmentations
Crypto apps appear to be targeting different user types based on interface decisions.
Apps can tell us stories by the way they prioritize content on their prime “screen real estate” or orient things in their global navigation.
While it isn’t always obvious that apps have design strategists on staff, we can make some assumptions about how app creators are thinking about their users based on the interfaces they’ve created.
This section considers two frameworks that consider how app developers segment their target markets:
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Implied Segmentations
Investing vs Transacting Paradigms.
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Implied Segmentations
UI focused on either Investing or Transacting Paradigm is easier to understand.
Read an overview of this paradigm in the main report.
Investing Paradigm design patterns focus on the volatility of an asset’s value.
Transaction Paradigm design patterns focus on information that orient’s a person’s ability to transact.
Both paradigms have best practices and can be understood by users, but apps feel muddled when they are combined. If an app needs to have both, they should at a minimum reside on different tabs.
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Implied Segmentations | Investing vs Transacting Paradigms
The “Investment Paradigm” prioritizes information about asset pricing and volatility.
More important for coins that have floating value, the Investing paradigm focuses on the two ways that asset holding makes money:
Interface Patterns:
Valora’s “Celo” page in the Valora app - prominent graph and actions to “buy” and “sell”
Coinbase email celebrating my staking “rewards.”
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Implied Segmentations | Investing vs Transacting Paradigms
The “Transacting” Paradigm streamlines sending and receiving.
The transaction paradigm emphasizes payments - either remittances between individuals or payment to companies for products and services - as primary interaction patterns. Because value volatility is undesirable in these cases, many apps with this focus use stablecoins.*
Interface Patterns:
*It is really annoying when you need to send your friend $10, but it’s only $8.60 by the time she receives it because of “slippage.”
Valora’s main page dedicates more space and attention to send, request, and transaction history.
Novi’s home page makes “Send” prominent, as well as recent transactions
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Implied Segmentations | Investing vs Transacting Paradigms
Note: The diagram to the flattens the concept of “Expert” users. We may measure “expertise” as it relates to technology in general, blockchain & crypto technology in particular, or expertise in financial investments.
Apps in the “uncanny valley” may have interaction design challenges.
Broadly speaking, Apps in the crypto space lean on traditional representations of either ‘investment’ or ‘transaction’ interaction models.
The Uncanny Valley - Because both screen real-estate and user attention is limited, it is extremely hard for an app experience to work well that tries to do both the Investing and Transacting paradigms well.
Those that do execute both paradigms well tend to keep the experiences on different tabs of the interface and reduce the functionality of the investing experience.
Expert Users
People with expertise in finance or cryptocurrencies.
Mainstream Users
Investing Paradigm
Transacting Paradigm
NOVI
CASHAPP
VALORA
LOBSTR
COINBASE
COINBASE WALLET
METAMASK
ALGORAND
NEXO
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Implied Segmentations | Investing vs Transacting Paradigms
Note: The interface has been updated since this screenshot was taken, It is now possible to send either cUSD or CGLD from the home screen - so while its CTA buttons are more ‘transactional” paradigm, it is easy to send both a stable and floating coins from this page.
Example
Valora hides the asset.
Valora’s home screen focuses on the transaction paradigm, showing the user her balance, transaction history, and “Send” and “Request” buttons on the home screen.
The app’s only ‘asset’ coin - CGLD - is tucked behind the hamburger menu, easy for more advanced users to find, but not distracting for users that mean to transact.
Not quite - While the distinction is almost clean, the “Total Balance” is a mixture of both CGLD and cUSD. While this is useful for knowing a total balance, it makes it difficult to know how much cUSD I can send someone with the ‘send’ button.
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Example
Algorand assumes the person using it is knowledgeable.
Algorand’s home screen is more oriented toward a “transaction” paradigm, with easy to use “Send’ and “Receive” buttons.
Users can see the price fluctuation of an asset by tapping on the asset on the home screen which opens another screen that shows info about the asset.
Algorand appears to be built for expert users who will need little guidance from the app about what to use it for.
Implied Segmentations | Investing vs Transacting Paradigms
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Example
CashApp limits people using it to one cryptocurrency.
CashApp reduces complexity by offering only one cryptocurrency in its app (Bitcoin).
Disadvantages - the transaction flow for sending bitcoin is simple, but price fluctuations (“slippage”) mean the user never knows how much exactly will be sent by the time they hit the ‘send’ button.
Implied Segmentations | Investing vs Transacting Paradigms
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Implied Segmentations
Implied User Aspirations.
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Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
Interfaces appear built around distinct user aspirations.
The designers of the crypto apps we analyzed prioritize information and functionalities that appear to map to user types with different aspirations. We imagined five distinct user aspirations that designers may have had in mind when crafting their offerings.
The Day Trader
Experience focused on speculative buying and selling assets to make money through yield and asset appreciation.
User Aspirations:
The Remitter
Experience focused on streamlining the experience of sending and receiving money.
The Art Investor
Experience focused on speculative buying and selling of art pieces.
The Neobank Customer
Experience focused on extending the traditional banking experience with crypto.
The Web3 Internet Browser
Experience focused on integrating cryptocurrencies into a private browsing experience
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Aspiration�Coinbase: The Day Trader.
Coinbase wants you to buy stuff.
The app’s Home screen seems to be built around the day-trader fantasy—mimicking a stock-ticker to keep the user up to date on the current prices and whether they’ve gained or loss recently.
Prioritized Features:
Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
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Aspiration�The Day Trader (Coinbase)
Coinbase wants you to buy stuff.
The app’s Home screen seems to be built around the day-trader fantasy—mimicking a stock-ticker to keep the user up to date on the current prices and whether they’ve gained or loss recently.
Prioritized Features:
Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
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Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
Aspiration�The Remitter (Novi)
Novi wants you to send and receive.
Novi’s whole app is focused around streamline one use-case: sending and receiving money.
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Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
Aspiration�The Remitter (Novi)
Novi wants you to send and receive.
Novi’s whole app is focused around streamline one use-case: sending and receiving money.
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Aspiration
The Neobank Customer (CashApp)
CashApp wants to be your bank.
CashApp has positioned itself as a “neo-bank” offering a traditional bank account, card service, easy fiat transactions, and a friendly investment account for traditional investing.
However, in this new world, crypto is a part of “banking” and it is one of the five options in the menu.
Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
A Neobank is a type of chartered retail bank that operates exclusively online without traditional physical branch networks. Also known as: online bank, internet-only bank, virtual bank, digital bank, challenger bank
Examples: Simple, CashApp, Revolut…
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Aspiration
The Empowered Web3 Browser (Brave)
Brave wants to be your private browser.
Brave is a browser-first experience with a built-in wallet (still in beta at the time of this report). The browser sells itself on two value propositions that empower the user to take more control over their online experience:
Brave is positioning itself for a Web3 world by building a wallet straight into its browser.
Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
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Aspiration
OpenSea: The Art Investor
OpenSea wants to be your art dealer.
Note: It is about “Investing,” not “collecting art”
The OpenSea interface, the easiest place for NFT owners to view NFTs collected from the site, prioritizes price information and price history prominently—displayed above the fold* on screen. The interface is more focused on investing in—rather than collecting—art. Rather than use this space for information about the piece—for example, information about its creators of the attributes that make this NFT unique—website designers designed a dashboard that facilitates price speculation.
Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
“Above the fold” refers to information on a website or app that is visible without scrolling”
OpenSea prioritizes price history and “Buy Now” for pieces that are on sale.
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Aspiration
OpenSea: The Art Investor
OpenSea wants to be your art dealer.
Note: It is about “Investing,” not “collecting art”
The OpenSea interface, the easiest place for NFT owners to view NFTs collected from the site, prioritizes price information and price history prominently—displayed above the fold* on screen. The interface is more focused on investing in—rather than collecting—art. Rather than use this space for information about the piece—for example, information about its creators of the attributes that make this NFT unique—website designers designed a dashboard that facilitates price speculation.
Implied Segmentations | Implied User Aspirations
“Above the fold” refers to information on a website or app that is visible without scrolling”
Even when an owner views her own piece (as above), the price history is prominently displayed.
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Implied Segmentations
Offering Strategies
Barriers to Adoption
Experience Strategies
Landmines
Asian and African App Analysis
Appendix: UX in Cryptocurrency
Contents
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Offering Strategies
Companies are positioning themselves with different offerings in anticipation of a web3 future.
The market is uncertain about the combination of offerings that might lead to mass adoption. In this young industry, cryptocurrency companies are trying different approaches to on-ramp customers to a web3 world.
We look at three frameworks for understanding how companies are making decisions in designing their offerings today:
Hybrid Offerings
There are relatively few “pure” wallet offerings—instead, many companies fuse two offerings together. These hybrid experiences may be a way to onboard early majority users to this idea.
Contained vs Disparate Experiences
Some companies pull every aspect of a user experience into a single app, while others craft experiences by linking their apps to others.
Partnerships & the Position of Exchanges
Crafting and delivering every part of an experience is tough - especially in diverse regulatory environments. Companies have to try different embedded-partnership strategies to make it work.
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Offering Strategies | Hybrid Offerings
Hybrid Offerings
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Offering Strategies | Hybrid Offerings
Exchange + Wallet
People can buy cryptocurrencies directly in the app as well as send and receive.
Hybrid Offerings:
Hybrid Offerings couple wallets with other useful features.
There are relatively few “pure” wallet offerings (Algorand would be an example).
Instead, many wallet offerings are combined with other offerings such as Browsers, Exchanges, or traditional banking/finance. This may be for a few reasons:
Browser + Wallet
Enables people to browse the internet and use a built-in wallet to log into web3 apps and pay for things.
Neobank + Wallet
Enables people to conduct normal banking activities as well as buy cryptocurrencies.
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Hybrids
Browser + Wallet
Do combination Browser + Wallet experiences have the ability to transition us to a Web3 world? A flew players are making bets in this space.
Combining browsing and wallet functionality seems like a promising first step for web3, but there is still far to go. This space will evolve more as more useful and desirable dapps appear on the market.
Offering Strategies | Hybrid Offerings
Note: MetaMask is probably better known as a plugin for other browsers. However, the browser built into its app could be an opportunity for future expansion.
Brave:
MetaMask:
Browser
Wallet
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Hybrids
Exchange + Wallet
Exchanges naturally include the ability to send and receive crypto, it is possible to use an exchange app as a wallet.
Exchange Paradox: If I already use Coinbase to buy my Crypto, and it is more likely to have whatever coin I need, why would I ever need to use another wallet?
Offering Strategies | Hybrid Offerings
“Above the fold” refers to information on a website or app that is visible without scrolling”
Example: Coinbase
Investment Focus
Transaction Focus
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Hybrids
Exchange + Wallet
Apps that have current traditional user bases (either as fiat payment products like PayPal or Neo-Banks products like Cash App) simply layer crypto into their offerings.
Offering Strategies | Hybrid Offerings
A Neobank is a type of chartered retail bank that operates exclusively online without traditional physical branch networks. Also known as: online bank, internet-only bank, virtual bank, digital bank, challenger bank
Examples: Simple, CashApp, Revolut…
Example: CashApp
Bank Information
Car Information
Transactions
Traditional Investments
Bitcoin
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Offering Strategies | Contained vs Disparate Experiences
Contained vs Disparate Experiences
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Offering Strategies | Contained vs Disparate Experiences
Offerings may offer more holistic and contained, or more disparate experiences.
“Contained” vs “Disparate” experiences refer to the extent to which a holistic UX action can be experienced in a single app (contained) or by connecting many apps together (disparate).
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Contained vs Disparate
App Experiences: A web2 example
Web2 Example: Word Processing on the Cloud
When “cloud” entered the consumer market, users could now store wordprocessing documents on remote servers.
Offering Strategies | Contained vs Disparate Experiences
*Microsoft Word + OneDrive
Disparate�Integration Strategy
Contained�Holistic Experience
Dropbox
Microsoft Office*
Evernote
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Contained vs Disparate
App Experiences in Web3
Web3 Example: Cryptocurrency
In Web3, companies continue to offer a spectrum of contained and disparate experiences.
Offering Strategies | Contained vs Disparate Experiences
*Microsoft Word + OneDrive
Disparate�Integration Strategy
Contained�Holistic Experience
Dropbox
Microsoft Office*
Evernote
Disparate�Integration Strategy
Contained�Holistic Experience
MetaMask
Valora
CashApp
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Offering Strategies | Partnerships and the Position of Exchanges
Partnerships and the position of Exchanges
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Offering Strategies | Partnerships and the Position of Exchanges
Partnerships and the position of Exchanges
Building a complete experience takes several capabilities (ability to process fiat to enable buying crypto, swap, earn interest by staking in a liquidity pool, KYC users…). Because companies may be limited in capital, development resources, or by geographical limitations, offering a holistic experience means partnering with others to stack capabilities. When done well, this leads to great experiences - when done poorly, things can feel janky and unsafe.
The Position of Exchanges
“If I always have to use an exchange like Coinbase to get crypto in the first place, and I can easily send and receive with that exchange app, why would I ever use anything else?”
Exchanges have a strong advantage over ‘pure,’ non-custodial apps. Because users are likely to start their journey buy buying crypto, they’re likely to need to use exchange apps like Coinbase. Because these apps also offer the ability to send and receive, it is hard to understand why a user would migrate to another, less featureful wallet.
This may change as the use cases for web3 expand beyond simple asset speculation and features like identity management become demanded.
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Implied Segmentations
Offering Strategies
Barriers to Adoption
Experience Strategies
Landmines
Asian and African App Analysis
Appendix: UX in Cryptocurrency
Contents
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Barriers to Adoption
Material Barriers
Material barriers occur when users are not able to onboard to an app or complete a transaction because of material limitations.
Barrier Categories
Both material and knowledge barriers have potential to dissuade users in the ‘usage’ phase of the user journey. Read more in our report.
There are many barriers to use these apps.
Conceptual Barriers
Conceptual barriers occur when users are not able to onboard to an app or complete a transaction because of a lack of understanding.
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Barriers to Adoption | Material Barriers
Material Barriers
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Barriers to Adoption | Material Barriers
Costs
Costs of taking an action can be potentially prohibitively high to make sense for a user.�This is especially true for non-custodial, layer-1 transactions on Proof of Work chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Material Barriers
Material Barriers.
Material barriers occur when users are not able to onboard to an app or complete a transaction because of material limitations.
Access to the Formal Financial System
For all apps we tried, in order to buy Crypto users must have to have a bank account and do KYC (which requires having some type of recognizable document like a driver’s license).
Regional Restrictions
Many apps have restricted functionality in certain regions driven by local legislation.
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Costs
Costs are a big factor whenever users must interact with gas fees to send, stake, buy NFTs, or in any way interact directly with with Layer-1 Proof of Work chains (i.e. Ethereum). This mainly becomes an issue for users that seek more ‘pure crypto’ experiences by using pure wallet apps like MetaMask or Argent.
Costs have two negative factors:
Mitigating Costs: Apps that mitigate these challenges well often run on non-Layer 1 chains (Novi) or by using custodianship to reduce actual on-chain transactions (CashApp).
Theoretically, users could elect for themselves to transact on non-layer 1 chains, but at the time of this writing, market confusion would make it difficult for an Early Majority user to understand and seek out these solutions.
Barriers to Adoption | Material Barriers
$40 estimated fee to send money.
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Access to the Financial System
Of the apps we tried, converting fiat currency into cryptocurrency required both:
These requirements are a large barrier to many in emerging markets who will lack these credentials or access to the formal banking system.
Mitigating the Issue: Users can get around these requirements by using ‘pure’ crypto wallets like MetaMask or Argent. However, getting funds into these apps requires considerable more effort and coordination with other KYC’d users who can buy coins on exchanges, opening opportunities for error or exploitation.
Barriers to Adoption | Material Barriers
Example: Novi’s KYC Experience
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Regional Restrictions
A changing regulatory environment means that not all features are available to all users. Apps have begun responding to local legislations by imposing restrictions on users in these jurisdictions. These limitations are often invisible to users until they’ve already downloaded an app.
Often, apps aren’t upfront about regional limitations until the point that a user attempts to take a specific action (buying a coin, staking, etc…).
Barriers to Adoption | Material Barriers
Example: Nexo - The advertised value proposition of Nexo is the ability to earn high APY interest rates by holding crypto in the wallet. It wasn’t until I bought crypto (on a different exchange), sent it to my Nexo wallet, and saw I was earning $0.00 that I dug around to find, on the bottom of a page hidden in the menu, the message that “Nexo’s Earn product is currently unavailable in your region.”
Users in certain regions can’t “top up” cUSD in Valora.
Users in certain locations can’t earn interest with Nexo.
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Barriers to Adoption | Conceptual Barriers
Conceptual Barriers
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Barriers to Adoption | Conceptual Barriers
Financial Understanding�Uses terminology or requires an understanding of a complex financial concept.
Market Cap, APY, Liquidity Pool, Volume, Volatility…
Conceptual Barriers
Conceptual Barriers.
Conceptual barriers occur when users are not able to onboard to an app or complete a transaction because of a lack of understanding.
Crypto Conceptual Understanding�Uses terminology or requires an understanding of a complex blockchain/cryptocurrency-based concept.
Blockchain, address, staking, smart contract, gas fee, wrapped coin, stable coin, Ethereum Mainnet, zkSync…
Market Confusion �Overwhelms the audience with questions about which network and currency to use.
USDP, USDC, cUSD, TUSD, USDT, GUSD, DUSD, HUSD, BTC, WBTC, BCH, BSV, BTG, BTC2, BTCZ, LBTC, TBTC, BTCT, BXC, BTCN…
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Crypto Conceptual
Many apps have the potential to be alienating to users due to their reliance on complex crypto concepts. These manifest in two ways:
Technical Language - apps use technical jargon that users are unlikely to understand.
Apps are unforgiving - It is still possible (and likely) for users unfamiliar with crypto-jargon and concepts to lose a lot of money through fast, simple actions (for example, by trying to send wrapped ETH to a normal ETH address). (See the “Minefields” section for more on this topic)
Barriers to Adoption | Conceptual Barriers
Words like Blockchain, address, staking, smart contract, gas fee, wrapped coin, stable coin, Ethereum Mainnet, zkSync.…
Example: Nexo “Top Up” flow
Requires a user to be able to differentiate between wrapped and non-wrapped coins. Getting it wrong means permanently losing money.
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Financial Understanding
Many apps - particularly investment-oriented apps, use financial jargon that average users are unable to understand.
Barriers to Adoption | Conceptual Barriers
Words like Market Cap, APY, Liquidity Pool, volume, volatility, market dominance…
Crypto apps - particularly investment-related apps are rich with finance-industry jargon.
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Market Confusion
The crypto world has hundreds of currencies, and there is no obvious way to know which to use.
Users that do not enter an app with a specific use-case in mind - and knowledge of which currency is best for that use-case - are likely to struggle.
Barriers to Adoption | Conceptual Barriers
In traditional situations, Currency options are limited and obvious: if I’m standing in Mexico, I should use Mexican Pesos (or maybe, at times, there is one other option: the US dollar). Rails (transfer mechanisms) may be more complex, but I can at least be certain that all of my options (Western Union, Money Gram, TransferWise…) will accept the dominant currency. The crypto world has no such clarity
Currencies with similar names and currency codes are difficult to distinguish.
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Implied Segmentations
Offering Strategies
Barriers to Adoption
Experience Strategies
Landmines
Asian and African App Analysis
Appendix: UX in Cryptocurrency
Contents
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Experience Strategies
Coin-Specific Wallets
Some apps are tied (in name and/or functionality) to specific coins.
On- and Off-Ramping between Fiat and Crypto
For all apps we tried, in order to buy Crypto users must have to have a bank account and do KYC (which requires having some type of recognizable document like a driver’s license).
Experience Challenges & Strategies
App experiences are coming up with creative ways to present some of the conceptual challenges around crypto. This section looks at many of these strategies.
Keys and Passphrases
How different apps manage the challenge of communicating the idea of “keys” to a user. (Largely depends on custodial vs non-custodial experiences, but there is a blend)
In-App Education & Infotainment
A few of the apps we tried have built-in crypto education features for their users. More advanced apps offer “news” about the crypto space to give users an additional way to engage.
Staking
Different apps use different strategies for enabling users to gain yield on their held assets.
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Experience Strategies | Coin-Specific Wallets
Coin-Specific Wallets
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Experience Strategies | Coin-Specific Wallets
Coin-Specific Wallets limit combat market confusion by prioritizing specific coins.
Coin-specific wallets are wallets that prioritize usage of a specific coin. These fall into two categories:
These two categories of coin-specific wallets are quite different in their intents, but we group them together because both may be confusing to a new user struggling with market confusion.
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Wallets that offer only one coin (but are named something else)
Offering a wallet that only enables users to transact with one specific coin has its advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it creates an extremely clean user experience.
For users focused on investment use-cases, coin-specific wallets are limiting. However, for users focusing on transaction use cases, coin specific wallets are beneficial.
Experience Strategies | Coin-Specific Wallets
Valora wallet enables users to only use Celo’s currencies: cUSD or cEUR, and CGLD. cUSD and cEUR are stable currencies, and the home page is devoted to transactions. CGLD is a floating asset coin, and is tucked away behind the menu.
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Wallets named after coins (that offer other tokens).
In the cryptocurrency industry, a single name can represent a network, a protocol, and a coin. For example, “Algorand” is both a network and a coin.
In some instances, apps share a name with a coin, but actually offer the ability to transact with many different coins. This could potentially lead to confusion for users (who may already struggle to understand the difference between an app, a token, and a network).
Experience Strategies | Coin-Specific Wallets
Nexo (App) enables users to trade and stake on hundreds of coins, but also offers NEXO tokens which are utility tokens as a part of their loyalty program.
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Experience Strategies | On- and Off- Ramping with Fiat
On- and Off-Ramping with Fiat
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Experience Strategies | On- and Off- Ramping with Fiat
Apps have several strategies for On- and Off- Ramping from fiat to crypto
Dealing with fiat currencies appears to be a challenge to apps, many of which construct disparate experiences with partnership apps to process payments.
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On- and Off- Ramping
Turning Fiat into Crypto, and visa-versa.
Wallets handle this in a few ways:
Experience Strategies | On- and Off- Ramping with Fiat
3rd-Party Integrated: Valora integrates 3rd parties into its interface making a smooth flow. Still, it’s unclear why to even expose the user to these names and the option to choose a provider - why this added complexity?
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Experience Strategies | Infotainment and Education
In-app Infotainment and Education
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Experience Strategies | Infotainment and Education
In-app infotainment and Education seeks to boost engagement with users.
Apparently mindful of its conceptual inaccessibility, it isn’t uncommon for cryptocurrency industry companies to pay people to learn basic crypto concepts.
Boosting engagement through information.
Many apps have turned to in-app information to boost interest in cryptocurrency as a topic and engagement with the industry in their apps in particular.
These learning experiences go beyond basic “onboarding” tutorials common for explaining app functionality to users. Rather, these experiences focus on the conceptual fundamentals of cryptocurrencies, blockchains, NFTs, and news stories that hype the industry.
We differentiate between two types of information:
Both Education and Infotainment are increasingly common in cryptocurrency apps.
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Education Strategies
Coinbase puts “learn to earn” front and center
Coinbase had the most robust learning system of the apps we looked at,
Learning content has appeared in YouTube ads featuring the ability for user to earn crypto as they complete lessons.
In the app, Learning Modules appear on scroll on the home page - most are focused around certain coins, protocols, and concepts (at the time of this writing, fetch.ai, Render, The Graph, etc…)
According to the app, modules take between 1 and 10 minutes to complete, and users tend to get paid in the token they’re learning about.
Experience Strategies | Infotainment and Education
Learning modules appear on the home page.
The Learn and Earn page has a number of modules for learning and doing “tasks” - including downloading Coinbase’s other app, “Wallet.”
One example of a task is to invite another user to the app - each user gets $10 worth of Bitcoin.
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Education Strategies
…but Coinbase targets tech-experts with its learning.
It is useful to consider the audience Coinbase is targeting with lessons such as:
Coinbase appears to be targeting not only users with a high degree of financial understanding (in the wider, investment-oriented app experience), but also an interest, understanding, and need of technical concepts related to processing, chain indexing, and AI.
Experience Strategies | Infotainment and Education
Learning modules in Coinbase.
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Education Strategies
Novi’s information modules focus on directly-relevant material.
Unlike Coinbase, whose business model incentivises getting users hyped about all types of crypto concepts and themes, Novi is extremely focused on educating users about specifically what they need to know to feel safe when sending and receiving.
Specifically, this means a focus on things that explain away barriers.
Experience Strategies | Infotainment and Education
Novi emphasizes fraud protection and the ability to get refunded if something goes wrong (this may be a nod to Chivo wallet, which would be fresh in the minds of Central Americans).
Information cards are on the app’s home page - easy to see before users start transacting.
Concepts like USDP are explained in natural language “digital currency” relating them to stable concepts like the US dollar and ‘regulated US financial institution’
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In-app infotainment
More advanced app experiences offer infotainment articles along side (or in place of) education resources.
It is likely that these apps seek to boost “engagement” metrics by offering content that keeps users in apps longer.
This also may have the effect of boosting hype with public blockchains overall. By tracking the movements of celebrities in the space, the crypto industry feels like a rising tide, building a sense of “FOMO” (“Fear of Missing Out”) in users who can partake in future growth by buying more cryptocurrency.
Experience Strategies | Infotainment and Education
Nexo shows ETH-related news on its page to “Top Up’ ETH.
Coinbase shows “News” about celebrities engaged in crypto under its educational content on the home page.
CashApp focuses on news about Bitcoin, including news about its CEO, Jack Dorsey.
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Experience Strategies | Passphrases and Keys
Passphrases and Keys
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Experience Strategies | Passphrases and Keys
Keys (and passphrases that generate them) are a new concept for the wallet era, and a challenge for wallets to communicate.
Keys (and passphrases that generate them) are a new concept for the wallet era, and a challenge for wallets to communicate. Main strategies include:
While the flows for creating these passphrases are straight forward, and most apps to a good job of communicating to the user to store their passphrase in a safe place, it is likely that users will be confused by this new interaction pattern, or may not be in a place at the moment of password creation where they can make multiple copies of their passphrase and effectively save them.
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Seed phrases are a standard.
Seed phrases were the standard for most of the non-custodial apps we tested. A typical workflow includes:
Benefits - This flow works well as a way to ensure that the user has stored their passphrase somewhere other than in their phone.
Concerns - This method only tests that the user records their mnemonic seed in the moment. Users unfamiliar with this new paradigm may misplace, share, or insecurely store their seed phrase.
Experience Strategies | Passphrases and Keys
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Apps express different opinions about storing passphrases on the phone.
Apps take different viewpoints and erect different barriers to encourage or discourage users to store their passphrase on their phone.
Some, like Coinbase Wallet, disable screenshotting of the passphrase page entirely.
Valora arranges the recovery phrase what appears convenient for copying (though more difficult to write down because it lacks numbers) but disables copying on the page.
Brave has a button to copy the phrase.
Experience Strategies | Passphrases and Keys
Coinbase Wallet disables screen shots from the Passphrase screen on its app - and leaves a message for the user about why it is disabled. Back up on Google Drive and “Copy to Clipboard” are both possible, however.
Valora does not number their words. This format looks more convenient for copying the passphrase, but the long-press ability to highlight or copy has been disabled.
Brave includes a button to easily copy the passphrase. It also includes a checkbox for users to further verify that they’ve saved their passphrase.
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Misc. Passphrase & Key patterns
MetaMask does a few other interesting things on passphrase creation.
Tap to Reveal - It is probably unnecessary to have a “tap to reveal” feature for the user’s passphrase on creation (none of the other apps we tested did this). However, this additional step may emphasize to the user that this passphrase is (1) important and (2) secret.
Recovery Hint - On the face, a recovery hint to remind the user where they stored their passphrase could be a positive (helping the user out) or a liability (if someone else gets the hint. However - I could not figure out where to see this hint - on “log in,” the user uses a password, and if the user deletes the wallet from the phone (which is when they would need the hint), the app has no way to recover the hint.
…so this researcher must be misunderstanding something.
Experience Strategies | Passphrases and Keys
MetaMask adds an extra step for the users to see their passphrase. This may slow the user down and emphasize to take this step seriously.
MetaMask gives users the ability to create a recovery hint, but it is not clear where this recovery hint is visible.
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Apps require passphrases at different phases of the onboarding flow.
Apps that use passphrases have the option to either require users to create passphrases immediately, or later on.
Requires in Onboarding: The benefit is that users will certainly be exposed to the concept of the passphrase. The disadvantage is that users may not have a pen and paper handy, or may be confused. This creates a barrier between sign-up and the signature experience in the app.
Require Later: Valora does not require users to store their passphrase immediately, but lets them set up the app first - it prompts them to store the passphrase and take the test before sending. Advantage: does not disrupt the onboarding flow. Disadvantage: user may log out of their wallet without knowing their passphrase.*
Experience Strategies | Passphrases and Keys
*I don’t know what happens if users do this, but Valora requires a phone number, so maybe there is a way to restore it? But then, does that mean that they have access? It is confusing.
Valora Does not require users to set up their passphrase as part of the initial onboarding flow - enabling users to get into the app. Once in, they nudge users to set up their passphrase with a message on the home page.
Valora notifies the user that this is important and instructs them to find a quiet place and tells them how long it will take.
Valora tells users who put off setting up the password that they will not be able to send any transactions. Interestingly, you can ADD funds to your wallet - so they can get you in. (Also this message was a lie, it will let you send before setting up the passphrase)
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Experience Strategies | Staking Strategies
Staking Strategies
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Experience Strategies | Staking Strategies
Apps use different strategies for exposing the concept to Staking to users.
“Staking,” which enables users to gain yield by holding certain Proof of Stake coins in their wallet, is one of the more exciting benefits to cryptocurrency.
The apps we reviewed introduced the concept of staking in four ways ranging in subtlety.
STAKING HIDDEN
…
PROMOTED STAKING
…
LOW EFFORT
HIGH EFFORT
NEXO
ARGENT
COINBASE
ALGORAND
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Automatic Staking
Algorand automatically stakes the user’s tokens in the background. Users can see their “rewards”on the coin’s detail page. Tapping the information icon opens an explanation panel (right).
Algorand’s explanation does not use cryptic language like “yield” or “staking.” It directly tells the user how they get rewards “just by owning Algos” and calls attention to the rewards the user has already gained.
Experience Strategies | Staking Strategies
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Bury Staking in Settings.
Coinbase tucks staking options away in the menu - hiding them from easy view. They use the more natural language “earn interest” instead of cryptic jargon like “staking.”
Coinbase’s “Interest” page is organized well showing the user their nominal earnings, percentage yield, and (as is typical for Coinbase) other things users can buy.
Users have to manually opt-in to staking, even though it is free for them. (This is an example of default ‘nudging’ users toward not getting staking benefits).
Experience Strategies | Staking Strategies
OBSCURE
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Staking: 3rd party integrations
Argent promotes “investing” by making it a tab in its primary navigation. Its investment page celebrates the 3rd party DeFi apps embedded in its interface. It uses the natural language “invest” for navigation, but “Staking” for the primary call to action.
Argent uses more jargon (staking, lock-in, APY (variable)) with the assumption that its users will be more familiar with DeFi concepts. It is careful to point out that the app itself does not take any of the transaction.
Users have to pay (often extremely high) gas fees to stake ETH in Argent. Again, the app notes that these fees do not go to Argent.
Experience Strategies | Staking Strategies
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Staking: Loyalty Tokens
Nexo promotes interest (along with loans) as its primary value proposition in advertisements and in its onboarding flow (shown)
Nexo gives the user’s interest earned and advertisements for high-yield coins in prime locations on the home screen.
Nexo users can upgrade their “Loyalty Level” by purchasing Nexo coins. Users with higher loyalty levels get better interest rates on coins they hold (not shown, but would be on scroll for this screen)
Experience Strategies | Staking Strategies
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Experience Strategies | More Experience Strategies
More…
There are a few other UI items that we wanted to call out.
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Regional Restrictions
Regional restrictions are likely to be a problem for this industry for a while.
The best strategies are up-front with users about their restrictions. This means users are less likely to invest time setting up an app that they won’t be able to use.
For poorer examples, regional restrictions were clearly an after-thought, and apps only have small notifications buried. This leads the user to believe that the app itself is broken
Experience Strategies | More Experience Strategies
Nexo’s Regional limitations are buried at the bottom of a long-scroll page hidden behind the hamburger menu. It is only after an elaborate setup that the user can find this information.
Novi tells users about its regional restrictions immediately on the setup page so users out-of-region do not need to go through a long setup process for an app they can’t use.
!
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Reassurance on internet disconnectivity
Error screens are always an important (though sometimes overlooked) part of a user experience.
On a lot of websites and apps. designers try to lighten the mood with a cure animal or something - and usually that is fine (most apps most of the time, nothing serious is going on)
With a financial app, though - ESPECIALLY if a connection error occurs when the user is in a transaction flow - the last thing users want to see is a cute animal… Coinbase tells users the most important thing: “Your funds are safe”
Experience Strategies | More Experience Strategies
This is extremely confusing. By default, it appears that this “Yes” means that recurring is set. However, this is a button, not a toggle, tapping it turns recurring buys on.
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Confusing auto-investing.
As an investment-oriented app, Coinbase enables users to automatically set up recurring buying on tokens. While this may be useful for some investment-minded users, the UI is extremely confusing.
Experience Strategies | More Experience Strategies
In investment speak, this enables the user to do “dollar-cost averaging” which is a strategy that reduces the effects of volatility by buying assets over time rather than all at once.
This is extremely confusing. By default, it appears that this “Yes” means that recurring is set. However, this is a button, not a toggle, tapping it turns recurring buys on.
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Using contacts to avoid network fees.
Gas fees tend to be higher than standard domestic rails (like ACH in the US) - even for many Layer-2 chains.
Custodial solutions like Coinbase enable users to “send” tokens for free if they use a phone number or email address to send to a contact rather than sending to an address.
Experience Strategies | More Experience Strategies
I believe they’re able to offer this because they don’t actually keep each user’s coins in separate wallets - Coimbase the company stores these assets in their own wallets on behalf of the users. They, therefore, don’t have to pay any gas fees because this “transfer” of money between their own users is simply internal accounting.
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2
3
4
5
6
Implied Segmentations
Offering Strategies
Barriers to Adoption
Experience Strategies
Landmines
Asian and African App Analysis
Appendix: UX in Cryptocurrency
Contents
August 2022 | cradl.org
Landmines
Landmines
It’s a scary world out there - extremely complex and the stakes are high (it is very easy to waste or completely lose a lot of money)
Usability landmines are common in cryptocurrency apps.
Good experience design helps users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors*—catastrophic errors should be made more difficult to commit.
We identify landmines as features of the cryptocurrency environment that cause unexpected catastrophic outcomes to understandable user errors. Landmines are prevalent in cryptocurrency because these experiences feel like TradFi experiences, but lack protections TradFi offers to counter catastrophic outcomes.
Landmines are less prevalent in contained experiences where organizations have created an abstraction layer between a user’s actions and the actual blockchain. This abstraction layer enables systems to catch common errors or net multiple users actions to reduce costs. For example, custodial wallets—accounts that are in immediate control of the app or platform—often take additional steps to protect people from unknowingly making mistakes.
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Buying the wrong coin.
With the immense number of coins available, it may be difficult for users to know what to buy. Making a mistake could be costly in a few ways - each exacerbated by other traps (such as gas traps, confusing unwrapped coins with wrapped coins, etc…)
Buying the wrong coin could be costly because of:
Fees - buying tokens means incurring fees, a small cost that could add up - especially if the user tries to send these to another wallet where gas fees can start to add up.
Volatility - if a user buys a variable asset when intending to get a stable coin, they could lose money without realizing it.
Landmines
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Gas Trap
Accidentally buying a currency that has gas prices too high to actually use.*
A quick google search around the internet could lead a user to believe that ETH, the second-most popular coin is a good way to try cryptocurrency. This user would quickly find out that gas prices make this currency extremely costly to actually use for anything.
Landmines
In Non-custodial situations - Users attempting to interact with a currency like ETH will quickly find out that gas fees make this money nearly impossible to use (and extremely costly to turn back into fiat)
Coinbase doesn’t have gas fees. Staking is as easy (and free) as making a selection.
!
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Gas Trap (Staking Edition)
If a user fails to calculate how long it would take for a staking investment to break even.
Because of the Gas Trap, staking only makes sense when the user is investing enough money to cover the gas fees (see Gas Trap above). A user that fails to calculate the amount of principle needed to gain a high enough yield to cover the gas fees will actually lose money in the transaction.
(Failing to take into account the risk of the underlying asset falling exacerbates this problem.)
Landmines
Argent does not warn the user to think about the math behind of this staking investment: with a $93 gas fee, and Argent’s 4.7% APY, it would take about 27 years to break even.
Coinbase doesn’t have gas fees. Staking is as easy (and free) as making a selection.
!
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Accidentally staking your ETH2 when you needed it to be liquid
It is possible to stake your ETH for ETH2, but it is NOT possible to un-stake it.*
Some apps advertise that they can make a return on staked ETH, but if those users don’t realize they can’t take their money out, they’ll have a hard day.
Landmines
*to the best of my understanding… different apps seem to offer different schemes for this, all with confusing alternative tokens like stETH, etc…
Coinbase does a good job of describing to the user that staking ETH2 will make users unable to access their funds. To continue in the staking flow, the user must tap “I understand”
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Forgetting your passphrase
Most pure wallets we tested create a list of words that will serve as the user’s cryptographic passphrase. Even for experienced and knowledgeable users, the possibility of losing a passphrase and being locked out of your assets is high (and stories abound of people on the internet that have lost millions).
For crypto-non-natives, it is likely that these risks are higher because as a society we’re simply not used to systems that have no recourse when we forget our passwords.
Risks are twofold:
Digital - users that store digital copies of their passphrases risk getting hacked, accidentally deleting the files that their passphrases are stores on, or losing access to these digital files.
Physical - users may lose their passphrases or have them stolen. This is also a risk in households where abusive partners can find passphrases and liquidate their partners’ funds.
This system also offers no ways for third parties to transfer assets in the event of incapacitation. By contrast, normal investment accounts enable users to designate beneficiaries, and even if no beneficiaries are designated, the state can allocate assets to family members.
Landmines
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Sending money to the wrong person.
The pseudonymity of crypto means users are often sending money to addresses that consist of long strings of random letters and numbers. This could pose opportunities for error.
Unfamiliar to users - Using QR codes to send money to other users (outside of China) is likely to be a new interaction model for users.
No confirmation of recipient identity needed - In most non-crypto payment systems, there is a way to verify the name of a recipient before sending a payment. For example, with traditional ACH or SWIFT payments, the sender must provide the recipient’s name and bank information. With payment apps (AliPay, WeChat, Venmo, CashApp, PayPal…) have built closed systems, so the app can display the name and profile picture or a recipient before sending. Crypto wallet transactions often can provide none of this information, lowering barriers for error.
Expensive to Test an address - while many suggest it is a good practice to send a small amount to an address for the first time to test things out, there is a disincentive to test an address when gas fees are so high.
Landmines
Wallet addresses - long strings of random letters and numbers - are difficult to distinguish.
Wallets with contacts-creating functionality make it more likely for users to avoid mistakes. Novi only enables users to send to other Novi users, enabling the app to pull in user names that users have given themselves (making mistakes even less likely)
!
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Sending to the wrong type of address.
It is easy to lose your money by sending to the wrong type of address.
Sending money to the wrong type of address will result in the loss of coins.
Checking with a small amount - while many suggest it is a good practice to send a small amount to an address for the first time to test things out, there is a disincentive to test an address when gas fees are so high.
Landmines
Nexo’s warning assumes the user understands concepts like ERC20, Ethereum network, and wrapped coins. (At least they have a warning!)
This article from web3isgoingjustgreat.com describes a user that lost $510,000 by sending WETH to a WETH contact address. (Screenshot taken on January 29, 2022)
!
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Regional Restrictions
Regional restrictions are likely to be a problem for this industry for a while.
The best strategies are up-front with users about their restrictions. This means users are less likely to invest time setting up an app that they won’t be able to use.
For poorer examples, regional restrictions were clearly an after-thought, and apps only have small notifications buried. This leads the user to believe that the app itself is broken
Landmines
Nexo’s Regional limitations are buried at the bottom of a long-scroll page hidden behind the hamburger menu. It is only after an elaborate setup that the user can find this information.
Novi tells users about its regional restrictions immediately on the setup page so users out-of-region do not need to go through a long setup process for an app they can’t use.
!
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1
2
3
4
5
6
Implied Segmentations
Offering Strategies
Barriers to Adoption
Experience Strategies
Landmines
Asian and African App Analysis
Appendix: UX in Cryptocurrency
Contents
August 2022 | cradl.org
African and Asian App Analysis
App structure
What did we look at?
UX scenarios (e.g., onboarding)
Experience screenshot journey to identify:
Additional insights
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African and Asian App Analysis
List of apps (Africa) | ||||||
Name | Country of use | Primarily purpose | Supported crypto / currencies | Custodial vs non-custodial | Explore as a guest | Availability / exclusion criteria |
Bitnob | Nigeria and Ghana (send to / receive from US) | Bitcoin wallet | Bitcoin / USD | ? | | Couldn't fund the wallet (only in Nigeria - bank transfer - or Ghana - from Ovvar; partner company). |
Tala | Kenia, Philippines, Mexico, and India | Lending platform and personal finance app | — | — | | NOT available. |
Afriex | Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Canada, and the USA | Remittance platform | —Bitcoin and fiat | ? | | — |
Paxful | US-based but very popular in Africa | Crypto wallet and exchange platform | BTC, ETH, USDT | Custodial | | |
ChainEX | South Africa | Crypto exchange | Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other altcoins | Custodial | | NOT available. |
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List of apps (Africa) | ||||||
Name | Country of use | Primarily purpose | Supported crypto / currencies | Custodial vs non-custodial | Explore as a guest | Availability / exclusion criteria |
Yellow Card | Nigeria, Kenya, Gabon, Cameroon, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Uganda, Zambia, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, DR Congo, Malawi, and Republic of Congo. | Crypto exchange | BTC, ETH, USDT | Custodial | | NOT available. |
Helicarrier: Buycoins | Nigeria | Crypto wallet | Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and other cryptocurrencies | Custodial | | — |
Helicarrier: Sandcash | Nigeria | Crypto-powered remittance platform | Bitcoin, USDT and fiat (USD, NGN, GBP) | | Users can only access the money transfer feature - it’s not an actual ‘guest mode’. | — |
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African and Asian App Analysis
List of apps (Asia) | ||||||
Name | Country of use | Primarily purpose | Supported crypto / currencies | Custodial vs non-custodial | Explore as a guest | Availability / exclusion criteria |
CoinDCX | India | Crypto exchange | Multiple | Custodial | | |
Wazirx | India | Crypto exchange | Multiple | Custodial | | |
Unocoin | India | Crypto exchange | | Custodial | | NOT available (to create an account one must have an Indian phone number). |
Coinswitch Kuber | India | Crypto exchange | | | | NOT available. |
Zebpay | India | Crypto exchange | Multiple | Custodial | | |
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List of apps (Asia) | ||||||
Name | Country of use | Primarily purpose | Supported crypto / currencies | Custodial vs non-custodial | Explore as a guest | Availability / exclusion criteria |
Coin.ph | Philippines | Mobile wallet and digital currency exchange | Multiple | Custodial | | |
UPBit | Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand | Crypto exchange | | Custodial | | Available only in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. |
Bithumb | South Korea | | | | | The app is in Korean. |
Coinone | South Korea | | | | | The app is in Korean. |
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African and Asian App Analysis
What we learned
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 1 Strong connection with traditional financial systems
Strong connection with traditional financial systems
Almost all of the apps we looked at are presented as a solution to support access to cryptocurrency, yet, most of them are strongly linked to traditional financial systems and require users to have a bank account.
Example 1.1: the mission of Helicarrier is to build a crypto infrastructure for Africa; yet, tho send money via Sendcash, the user is required to input the bank account of the recipient.
Sendcash: detail of the UI for sending money in Nigeria (top).
Helicarrier: screenshot from the company’s website (bottom).
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 1 Strong connection with traditional financial systems
Strong connection with traditional financial systems
Example 1.2: WazirX offers a Peer-to-Peer solution for buying cryptocurrencies. However, the app recommends using traditional methods for faster and seamless trading experience.
WazirX: detail of the “Exchange” screen.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 2 Registration and verification process are full of bottlenecks
Registration and verification process are full of bottlenecks
On several apps (4 out of 9 tried), after several attempts, we didn’t manage to receive the verification codes needed to register an account.
Apps have several inconsistencies with the registration process - e.g., OTP codes sent via email although SMS was requested.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 3 UI design
UI design
UI design is quite different across apps. Some are very simple and basic (e.g., Zebpay and Afriex), while others present crowded layouts (e.g., Coins.ph and Wazirx).
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 3 UI design
UI design
From the perspective of traditional Heuristic Analysis, the apps analyzed are buggy - e.g., search in Wazirx does not seem to work. Keyboard in Afriex does not always open.
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Takeaway 4 Best-practice onboarding flows
Best-practice onboarding flows
Several apps provide users with instructions on first access (Bitnob, Paxful, Coins.ph), and links to articles to learn more about crypto (Coins.ph).
In some cases, users are guided step-by-step during registration process and provided with reassuring messages - e.g., your email has been successfully validated.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 5 African Apps
African Apps
Compared to the Asian apps, popular apps in Africa seem to be less complex and meant for beginners.
These are characterized by more variety of services - not only digital wallet and crypto exchanges but also remittance (Afriex and Sendcash) and lending (Tala) platforms.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Takeaway 6 Asian Apps
Asian Apps
Popular in India often offer the opportunity to explore the app as a guest before registering an account.
Compared to the African apps, apps we looked at in Asia seem to target expert users (e.g., Wazirx).
Features of these apps were focused on crypto exchange.
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African and Asian App Analysis
African Apps
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African and Asian App Analysis
Bitnob
Countries of use
Nigeria and Ghana (receive and send money to US).
Primary Purpose
Bitcoin wallet.
Supported crypto / currencies
Bitcoin and USD.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Bitnob
App structure
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African and Asian App Analysis
Bitnob
Onboarding
Overall, the registration process is straightforward. Had no issues and received confirmation messages at each step.
The only bottlenecks / inconsistencies encountered are:
Highlights and additional info about the UI are provided on first access (with some legibility issues though).
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
Countries of use
Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Canada, and the USA.
Primary Purpose
Remittance platform.
Supported crypto / currencies
Bitcoin and fiat.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
App structure
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
Onboarding
The registration process is supposed to be quite simple (few steps). However, my experience was a bit frustrating. I encountered the following bottlenecks:
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
Send money (1/2)
A new user can only send € but can set the currency for the receiver - mostly fiat. The only crypto supported is Bitcoin.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
Send money (2/2)
The websites reports that it is possible to "send money directly to a bank account or to any Afriex user". However, when trying to send money, the only option available is “send to users”.
On proceeding, it seems possible to send money only to ‘my contacts’. However, it’s not explained anywhere how to add a contact.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
Add cash
Add Cash didn’t work. After typing the amount and selecting the only button available (“review”) nothing happened and no support/explanation for the error was provided.
After trying again a few days afterward and it asks to provide a credit card to cash in.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Afriex
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Paxful
Countries of use
US-based supported almost everywhere in the world. Selected because it’s very popular in Africa.
Primary Purpose
crypto wallet and exchange platform.
Supported crypto / currencies
BTC, ETH, USD.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Paxful
App structure
Improve Security
Buy / sell crypto via ‘Total balance’
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African and Asian App Analysis
Paxful
Onboarding
The registration process was smooth.
HIGHLIGHTS:
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African and Asian App Analysis
Paxful
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Paxful
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Paxful
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier
Helicarrier, previously known as Buycoins, is building cryptocurrency infrastructure for Africa. Their mission is to "financially connect Africans anywhere they are in the world".
The company offers a suite of cryptocurrency products:
Buycoins and Sendcash are included in this analysis.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Buycoins
Countries of use
Nigeria.
Primary Purpose
Crypto wallet.
Supported crypto / currencies
Multiple.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Buycoins
Registration
To register an account, a user is only asked to input a valid email address and set a password. To complete the registration, the user has to input the OTP code received via email. After several attempts, we never received it.
Positive aspect:
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Sendcash
Countries of use
Nigeria and the USA.
Primary Purpose
Crypto-powered remittance platform.
Supported crypto / currencies
Bitcoin, USDC and fiat (USD, NGN, GBP).
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Sendcash
App structure
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Sendcash
Registration
SImilar to problems faced with Buycoins—the account results to be already registered; however, when trying to login, we were asked to complete the verification. We’ve tried to request the OTP code again via Sendcash but never received it.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Sendcash
Send money
The app allows a user to ‘skip’ the registration process, access platform and make a transfer.
When trying to send BTC, the system asks me to input the bank account of the recipient - (Unfortunately, our team couldn’t proceed without data of a Nigerian bank account).
As reported in the app, the recipient will receive the money in NGN.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Helicarrier | Sendcash
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Asian Apps
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African and Asian App Analysis
CoinDCX
Countries of use
India.
Primary Purpose
Crypto exchange.
Supported crypto / currencies
Multiple.
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African and Asian App Analysis
CoinDCX
App structure (Guest-mode)
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African and Asian App Analysis
CoinDCX
Registration
Inconsistencies and issues:
Positive aspect:
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African and Asian App Analysis
CoinDCX
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Countries of use
India.
Primary Purpose
Crypto exchange.
Supported crypto / currencies
Multiple.
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
App structure
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Registration
The registration involves three steps:
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Registration
The registration involves three steps:
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Registration
The registration involves three steps:
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Registration
The registration involves three steps:
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Additional insights and observations
Among the ways users can buy cryptocurrencies are depositing INR via:
Screenshot taken from the WazirX’s blog.
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Additional insights and observations
As per the WazirX white paper: “WazirX will bridge this global fiat - cryptocurrency gap for the world with our one-of-a-kind solution - WazirX Peer-to-Peer (P2P)”.
However, on the screen devoted to P2P, the user is recommended to use traditional methods for faster and seamless trading experience.
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African and Asian App Analysis
WazirX
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Zebpay
Countries of use
India.
Primary Purpose
Crypto exchange.
Supported crypto / currencies
Multiple.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Zebpay
App structure (Guest-mode)
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African and Asian App Analysis
Zebpay
Registration
In order to register, users are asked for both their email address and phone number. I’ve made several attempts but never received the verification code, neither by email nor by sms.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Zebpay
Additional insights and observations
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Countries of use
Philippines.
Primary Purpose
Mobile wallet and crypto exchange.
Supported crypto / currencies
Multiple.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
App structure
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Registration (1/2)
Registration can be done with email address or mobile phone. I initially tried via email but didn’t receive the verification code. I had to opt for signing in with mobile - which worked.
Except for this initial issue, the registration was quite smooth and straightforward.
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Registration (2/2)
Users are asked for several pieces of information in order to sign-in:
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Additional insights and observations
Support learning:
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Additional insights and observations
UI Design: the UI is different from all the other apps analyzed so far. The layout design is very rich (almost crowded).
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Additional insights and observations
Additional aspects - (1/2):
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African and Asian App Analysis
Coins.ph
Additional insights and observations
Additional aspects - (2/2):
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