Coins.ph Crypto Service

_

Growth design for the largest crypto platform in the Philippines

User Perspectives

Customers drop off before making a trade

New users of the Coins.ph app did not understand the concept of cryptocurrency while enthusiasts complained that the app wasn’t helpful in making trading decisions and severely lacked currencies.

Business Objectives

Focusing back to crypto after a long winter

Before the rally of 2021, there was a lull in the crypto markets. With crypto trading activity ramping up again, Coins.ph wanted to take advantage of the upcoming price surges.

Solution

Features and experiments that improved the trading experience

I designed and managed the release of features that include sharing information about crypto, accessing prices without opening the app and support for more coins.

Team & Role

Sole Product Designer

Designer working with PMs, engineers and other stakeholders

Client

Coins.ph

Crypto and e-wallet startup for Filipino and Thai markets

Duration

November 2020 to January 2021

Location

Metro Manila 🇵🇭

+60%

crypto transactions

+15%

crypto MAUs

+20

tokens supported

PROCESS

The Process

Process

View solution

Research

Most Filipinos don’t know crypto

Analytics and customer support revealed a clear drop-off between checking coin prices and actually trading. It became our responsibility to guide customers in making informed decisions.

A presentation slide titled "Customer pain points," categorizing issues faced by beginners and enthusiasts in cryptocurrency trading. The slide identifies problems such as high fees, scams, and difficulty tracking profit/loss.

I regularly interviewed users of varying familiarity with cryptocurrencies. The app was not helpful in deciding whether to buy or sell.

Comparative screenshots of Android and iOS versions of a cryptocurrency app. The Android app displays a price chart for Bitcoin, while the iOS version shows multiple cryptocurrencies with their respective prices and trends.

I gathered issues of the old design. This would coincide with the findings from the interviews.

Hypothesis

Crypto enthusiasts find the app lacking in features

A UX audit shows the problems of the previous designs. Not all coins have price charts and it lacked a lot of information.

Metrics

Tracking all parts of the platform

I was deeply involved in tracking our app’s performance, primarily using Amplitude for analytics. While designing, I also assigned Segment events to track all possible user actions, enabling us to monitor conversion rates and funnels. This helped assess the success of our initiatives, from marketing promotions to large-scale product projects.

A design exploration showing various app screens for setting price alerts and displaying cryptocurrency market prices and news on a mockup of multiple smartphone screens.

Although I wasn’t able to keep the specific data points for each experiment that we worked on, we had core metrics that we always worked on to increase and secondary metrics to improve core ones.

I reported on the performance of our app weekly.

Design comparison for cryptocurrency app's coin listing screen. Features improvements such as clearer price charts, concise information display, and enhanced user navigation tips for beginners.

Design mockup for a cryptocurrency app's coin details screen. Showcases user-friendly interfaces with prominent price charts, trading options, and market data for coins like Ethereum and Ripple.

I explored what's possible in the different versions before settling with the design

Growth Design

Experiments across the whole customer journey

It wasn’t called growth design back then but we did a lot of small experiments and features to nudge metrics. We started with hypotheses based on user needs, like the demand for more detailed crypto charts. Each idea was broken down into smaller, actionable tasks.

SOLUTIONS

The SolutionS

SolutionS

Redesign

Phased release to see if we're helping customers

I learned to design the ideal version first and manage how it would be broken down into multiple releases so we could continuously learn and improve performance. Through a phased release approach, we gathered feedback from a few groups of users and slowly released it to more people if deemed effective.

Side note: The visuals presented here have been redesigned to reflect my current design approach and may differ from the original.

Before

After

Acquisition

Least friction as possible

Fintech is known to have strict regulations and is always under scrutiny as we were handling people’s hard-earned money. I continuously optimized our KYC flows as these were the biggest barriers before people started to use our app regularly.

A smartphone screen displaying detailed Bitcoin price information in a mobile app, including a price chart, current balance, and trading buttons.

With the legal team's input, I removed the ID requirement when taking a selfie

A smartphone screen showing a crypto app's homepage with Bitcoin and Ethereum price trends and educational content on how to buy cryptocurrencies.

I provided clear instructions on how to upload an ID to reduce mistakes

This screen displays a cryptocurrency mobile app homepage featuring educational content links such as "How to buy Bitcoin Cash," "How to transfer AXS and SLP to Coins.ph from Ronin," and explanations of various crypto terms. The screen also shows a navigation bar with prices and learn more options.

We delayed asking for info–only if certain transaction limits were reached

Activation

Making users spend on the app

Coins.ph is a super app, an app that has multiple services. This strategy is fairly common in Asian countries. With this, people were more comfortable spending through the app with their day-to-day expenses like topping up their mobile phones, paying bills and transferring money.

A smartphone screen blurred in the background, displaying a cryptocurrency app's main menu with various options like trading, payments, and wallet management highlighted.

We gave immediate value to users, even if they weren't ready to trade crypto, with the aim of eventual conversion

A mobile notification screen showing real-time price alerts for cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Ripple, indicating significant percentage changes in their values over different times.

I made copy and UI experiments to nudge users to trade crypto

Once in the crypto service, I displayed tutorials upfront, teaching users how to trade popular coins

Retention

Encouraging users to keep coming back

Once users have spent money on the platform, we had to make sure users came back. I designed features that did not require customers to open our app just to check prices. Perhaps most crucially, we expanded our offering of detailed price charts for all coins, meeting a key user demand and encouraging regular app usage.

Alerts are available to notify users of price changes.

A smartphone home screen displaying a crypto price widget showing the current prices and trends of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash with percentage changes highlighted.

Customers can check prices with a glance on the phone’s home screen.

Customers can check a list of coins and their prices

Revenue & Referral

Buying and selling crypto

The primary revenue driver was facilitating crypto buying and selling. We optimized this core functionality to ensure a smooth, intuitive trading experience, encouraging increased transaction volume and frequency. We also implemented a referral bonus system which incentivized users to invite friends and family to the platform, creating a viral growth loop.

Price charts are used to know when it’s a good time to buy or sell a coin

We scaled the number of coins that were supported from 5 to 20

We created referral schemes to encourage other users to sign up

Other Features

Postponing development

We still had more plans for the product but these were deprioritized due to manpower and time constraints. We also considered how useful these would be to our target audience and deemed that other features were more important.

A detailed information screen for Bitcoin in a cryptocurrency app showing current market statistics such as market cap, volume, and circulating supply, along with options to buy or sell.

Deprioritized as we were still looking for reliable APIs to source coin information

The screen shows a detailed list of cryptocurrency prices in a mobile app, featuring a profit and loss indicator, a graph of Bitcoin's price fluctuation and a list of other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Ripple with their current prices and trends.

Profit/loss Indicators are shown to gauge how much one has gained or lost.

A detailed view of a cryptocurrency app's news section showing recent articles related to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from various news outlets.

Those who follow price fluctuations can understand the market better.

RESULTS

The Results

Results

All-time highs

Cashing in on the opportunity, our conversions reached all-time-highs as Bitcoin reached record prices by December 2020. More users were reading articles about cryptocurrency and have initiated their first trades.

1.74M

crypto transactions

+138%

interactions for crypto services

+20

total crypto trading volume

400k

monthly active users

REFLECTIONS

Reflections

Designing for personal growth

At Coins.ph, we set clear app-wide metrics and developed hypotheses based on user behavior, using a data-driven approach to drive growth.

I learned that great ideas can come from anywhere on the team. Involving customer support and marketing in prioritization provided insights we might have otherwise missed. This experience deepened my appreciation for how personal and sensitive money is to people, reinforcing the need to design with extra care to ensure they don’t lose it.

I also saw the value of capitalizing on market opportunities. When Bitcoin prices surged, we were ready to capture significant market share by proactively preparing features—small initiatives that compounded into larger objectives over time.

These lessons have shaped my approach to product design and continue to influence the work that I do.

TEAM

The Team

Product Team

Eprom Galang

John Yap

Graphic designer

Vanessa Ablola

Software Engineers

Kevin Mun
Nikos Bitoulas
Sherie Yu
Seph Remotigue
Ivan Gromov
Alexander Fedorov
Lenar Fattakhov

“

Keith collaborates effectively across functions

Keith is self-motivated, always seeking to improve our product as well as his own work and processes. He collaborates effectively across functions, and is able to synthesize input from various sources into cohesive design choices. Importantly, he considers a wide range of users in his work, enabling our product to become more inclusive.

Janna Fuller

Former head of product AT coins.ph
Michigan 🇺🇸

Next Project

Care Benefits Platform

Leading design to unlock new market opportunities

Coins.ph Crypto Service

_

Growth design for the largest crypto platform in the Philippines

User Perspectives

Business Objectives

Solution

Team & Role

Client

Duration

Location

+60%

crypto transactions

+15%

crypto MAUs

+20

tokens supported

The Process

Process

Research

Hypothesis

Metrics

Growth Design

The SolutionS

SolutionS

Redesign

Before

After

Acquisition

Activation

Retention

Revenue & Referral

Other Features

The Results

Results

1.74M

crypto transactions

+138%

interactions for crypto services

+20

total crypto trading volume

400k

monthly active users

Reflections

The Team

Product Team

Graphic designer

Software Engineers

Keith collaborates effectively across functions

Janna Fuller

Janna Fuller

Former head of product AT coins.phMichigan 🇺🇸

Next Project

Former head of product AT coins.ph
Michigan 🇺🇸