Bringing Crypto To Millions With Pluang's Crypto Wallet.
Pluang is a multi-investment app where users can buy stocks, crypto, gold, mutual funds, ETFs, and more. One of the key projects I worked on at Pluang was the development of our custodian crypto wallet. A core promise of decentralized finance (DeFi) is to enable users to send and receive cryptocurrency on the blockchain effortlessly. However, Pluang couldn’t fully deliver on this promise—until we launched this feature.
My Role
As the Senior Product Designer for this project, I led the exploration, competitive benchmarking, and user research to shape the crypto wallet experience.
My Teammates
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VP of Product, Crypto - Head of product for all crypto-related initiatives at Pluang, responsible for defining the product strategy and driving revenue growth through this feature.
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Product Manager - My go-to person for understanding technical limitations, aligning on objectives and goals, and defining feature requirements.
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UX Researcher - My key collaborator in conducting surveys, user testing, and interviews to ensure a user-centric approach.
Background
Pluang was relatively new to the crypto space, having previously launched its US stocks and mutual funds products. As a newcomer to the cryptocurrency exchange market, it was working to catch up with competitors. Many Indonesian crypto exchanges already offered blockchain features—such as CeFi wallets with sending and receiving capabilities—making this crypto wallet project a crucial step toward achieving feature parity.
The Problem
This project came with its own set of challenges. Below are the key obstacles we aimed to solve with the crypto wallet feature.
Beginner User-Base
The majority (52%) of Pluang’s users are beginners in investing and trading, and over 70% are first-time crypto investors. This raised a critical challenge: how do we protect them from scams and mis-transfers while also educating them on safeguarding their crypto?
Assurances
Users were skeptical—how could we assure them that their funds were safe when transferring crypto into Pluang’s wallet?
Approach & Process
Me and the PM decided to set a brief kick-off meeting with the different stakeholders and agreed on the following design process for us to move forward. I put milestone deadlines for each step on how long it would take to complete each step.
The goal of the survey was to better understand the proportion of our user base that is familiar with crypto wallets and how they function.
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Preliminary Product Research – Understanding user needs and pain points.
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Surveys – Gathering quantitative insights from our user base.
To encourage participation, we offered a $7 voucher to the first 100 respondents of our user survey. The survey was distributed to over 1,000 crypto investors using Pluang, resulting in more than 150 responses. We used Typeform to collect data and asked key questions such as:
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How long have you been investing in cryptocurrency?
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How risk-averse are you?
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Have you ever sent crypto using a Web3 wallet or other methods?
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Have you ever received crypto from the blockchain?
Key Takeaways
The majority of our users were unfamiliar with how sending and receiving crypto on the blockchain works and perceived it as risky.
Users lacked trust in third-party platforms like Pluang when it came to entrusting custody of their investment assets.
Less than half of the respondents had ever sent or received crypto on the blockchain.
User Research - Survey
Product Goal
Our user research revealed a key insight: many users lacked an understanding of blockchain and had rarely interacted with it in the past. This raised an important question—why did we need this feature in the first place? Key stakeholders provided the following reasons and goals for introducing the crypto wallet feature:
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Enable seamless crypto transactions – Allow users to send and receive crypto within Pluang, aiming to convert users from other exchanges by encouraging them to transfer their assets and trade on our platform.
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Monetization through gas fees – Pluang can capitalize on this feature by earning revenue from transaction (gas) fees.
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Achieve feature parity – Ensure Pluang remains competitive by matching key functionalities offered by other crypto exchanges.
User Flow & Information Architecture
First, we mapped out possible entry points across the application. The send/receive function needed to be easily accessible from both the homepage and asset-specific pages. This introduced a scenario where users would need to select an asset before being guided to the send or receive flow, requiring an intermediary page. The key information architecture is outlined below:
Wireframing
I created quick wireframes to present to the VP of Crypto and the Product Manager. The goal was to identify any technical feasibility concerns early on before committing time and effort to high-fidelity designs. Below are the key wireframe screens:
High Fidelity Designs
Based on the discussions on the wireframes, I created high-fiedlity mockups, with feedbacks incorporated from the wireframes directly. below are the Send Crypto flow
General spot wallet page
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Users can view their crypto wallet holdings from this page.
Select crypto to send
Users can select which cryptocurrency to send. Only assets they own, along with their available balances, are displayed.
Wallet address
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Users can manually enter a wallet address, scan a QR code, or paste an address. The paste and QR scan functions enhance ease of use and reduce the risk of human error when inputting the address.
Enter amount
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Users enter the amount they want to send. They can switch between entering the amount in IDR or its crypto equivalent.
Confirmation
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Users are prompted to double-check their transaction details. To minimize human error from accidental taps, a swipe-up gesture is implemented for final confirmation.
Below are the Receive Crypto flow
General spot wallet page
Users can view their crypto wallet holdings from this page.
Select crypto user want to receive
Users can select which cryptocurrency to receive. They can search for a specific asset or browse through the list, which is sorted alphabetically.
Wallet address empty
We intentionally included an empty state that prompts users to choose a network. This ensures they acknowledge their selected network, reducing the risk of sending funds to the wrong one.
Network selection
Users can select from the available crypto networks through this bottom sheet.
Wallet address
sers can scan the QR code to retrieve the wallet address or copy it instantly to their clipboard.
Tailored For Beginners
The experience above is designed to offer guidance throughout the process, especially since most of our users are beginners when it comes to utilizing blockchain. A few examples of this guidance in the design include:
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Network Selection Popup – An info box informs users about the potential consequences of sending to the wrong network.
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Sending Crypto – A simple tutorial guides users step-by-step within a modal when they tap the 'question' icon, explaining how the process works.
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Through user testing, we found that coachmarks and mandatory tutorials were ineffective in educating users, as many simply skipped or spammed the 'continue' button. Instead, we integrated helpful information directly into the send and receive flow, which users can access anytime by tapping the question mark icon in the top right.
What's Next & Takeaways
We user-tested the prototype multiple times with a few of our survey participants using Maze, making minor adjustments before development began a couple of weeks later. The crypto wallet feature was successfully launched, leading to an increase in Pluang's AUM per capita due to the influx of crypto assets transferred into the wallet.
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The project was challenging, particularly because we needed continuous validation from users to ensure they understood the risks of utilizing blockchain technology. Through this process, we learned as a team how to rapidly conduct user testing to validate assumptions and address gaps in our designs.
Got Questions About This Project?
Feel free to reach out, and let's have a chat! - email me at aldwin112@gmail.com