Designing the future of crypto-investment banking

Prior to developing wireframes, we worked with BlockFi on audience personas to get a strong understanding of their motivations and needs. BlockFi has two distinct audiences: retail consumers and institutional services.

To accompany BlockFi’s bespoke, manual services for institutions, we designed a simplified portal where users can easily view their account dashboard, download statements, and manage permissions.

The retail consumer experience, on the other hand, comprises several complex user flows, supporting withdrawals, deposits, trades, and loans. With the trading flow, for example, we needed to include price refreshes to indicate changes in the market and reinforce that a user needed to sell their existing assets in order to buy crypto. We also considered how to display extra information like the conversion rate and a user’s exchange limit.

Working closely with BlockFi’s engineers, we thought through the UX complexities of applying for a loan using crypto as collateral. We designed a clean dashboard that lets users toggle between a grid and list view to see details on funded loans, applications, and an archive. The loan details are dynamic to the state it’s in, with varying calls to action.

We designed a new home screen that acts as a user’s launchpad to quickly access key information or initiate a transaction directly from the global navigation. This account dashboard streamlined the UX, bringing all of BlockFi’s financial products together in one place, while establishing a clear hierarchy system for all account data.

We also introduced market prices coupled with the call to action to trade, creating both a sense of urgency and a feeling of being informed.

Simultaneously, we helped BlockFi define their brand identity by exploring how it translates to the design of the product. We conducted stakeholder interviews and a competitive analysis to inform our work. Through this brand exploration, we guided BlockFi in arriving at a minimalist aesthetic. With this utilitarian approach to the UI, our team delivered a comprehensive design system, complete with light and dark mode components.