Kraken

Led end-to-end design for user experiences spanning concept to post-launch. This included sketching, mapping user journeys, creating wireframes, writing user stories, designing UX flows, visual interfaces, and building interactive prototypes.

Shaped product strategy in close partnership with PMs and Engineering, influencing roadmaps, feature prioritization, and launch planning to align with business goals.

Contributed to user research and translated insights into actionable design solutions to validate and refine product direction.

Delivered iterative improvements informed by data and user feedback, enhancing usability, engagement, and conversion.

My Role

Team Composition:

5 iOS, Android & Web Developers • 3 Designers • 2 PMs • 1 UX Researcher • 1 Product Marketing Manager • 1 Data Analyst

Collaborated cross-functionally with PMs, developers, QA, research, data, and fellow designers to deliver cohesive, scalable experiences across platforms.

Facilitated weekly design reviews to share progress, gather feedback, and align teams across product lines.

Directed stakeholder workshops to define goals, requirements, and scope—ensuring shared vision and alignment from concept through launch.

Challenge

Despite the benefits of staking, a large percentage of clients with eligible assets weren’t participating.

Data revealed:

• 92% of unstaked AUM was addressable

• 52% belonged to active traders in 2024

• 40% belonged to recently active but non-trading clients

• 8% to dormant clients

Understanding Data

Research

I worked with our Lead UX Researcher creating a research plan and designs to conduct usability testing with both clients and non-clients. User research and data analysis surfaced friction in the staking journey for new clients. These barriers created missed revenue opportunities and low engagement:

• Manual enrollment required multiple steps and technical knowledge.

• Users misunderstood how rewards were paid (many expected cash payouts).

• Confusing terminology around “Staking” vs “Opt-In Rewards.”

• Lack of clarity about what happens to assets when enrolled (are assets locked for a period of time or are they liquid?).

Design Strategy Planning

Strategy

To solve this, I led the product design and growth strategy for Auto-Earn, focusing on:

• Simplifying enrollment to make conversion and earning effortless.

• Integrating awareness across the entire product ecosystem.

• Experimenting and optimizing messaging, flows, and feature placement.

• Scaling legal & compliance frameworks for global auto-enrollment.

• Building a growth function for continuous experimentation and data-driven strategy.

Platform Audits

Collaboration & Process

• Product Strategy: Worked with leadership to align product and design goals to AUM growth.

• Legal & Compliance: Defined scalable UX patterns across variable regulatory geos.

• Marketing: Synced in-app comms with lifecycle campaigns.

• Engineering: Partnered to enable real-time asset tracking and enrollment logic.

• Design Systems: Created reusable templates, components, and messaging variants.

Awareness & Activation

• In-App Awareness Banner: Re-designed with simplified copy and liquidity messaging → +59% CTR.

• Portfolio Toggle: Added a one-tap Auto-Earn activation in portfolio view.

• Trade & Deposit Integration: Contextual prompts during deposits and trade confirmations for all earn eligible assets.

• Notification Center & Email: Targeted messaging to eligible asset holders.

Enrollment Flow Redesign

• Removed unnecessary steps and reduced terminology complexity.

• Included a list of eligible assets and asset-specific APR ranges.

• Added persistent bottom CTA bar with clear legal disclaimers.

Impact of V2 vs V1

Conversion increased from 12% → 72%

Drop-off reduced from 88% → 28%

Auto-Enrollment

(Growth Lever)

• Designed and shipped automatic enrollment for regions with legal clarity.

• Enrolled clients into all eligible programs by default → capturing idle AUM.

• Unified UI framework allowed scaling across Staking (PoS) and Opt-In Rewards (PoW).

• Introduced asset-specific messaging and APR-focused variants to test engagement.

Growth Approach

I introduced a new Growth function on the Earn team focused on:

• Segmentation: Defined user states — suspects, prospects, leads, clients — to target messaging.

• Experimentation: Built the first A/B testing framework (starting with headline tests).

• Data: Established connective tissue between FE and BE tracking.

• Cross-Domain Collaboration: Marketing, Trading, Portfolio, Data, Legal & Compliance.

• Lifecycle Messaging: Product marketing push notifications, email, interstitial modals, and banners aligned by user segment.

This systematic approach enabled rapid iteration and measurable impact.

Growth Strategy

Results

📈 AUM Growth: Substantial increase in assets enrolled in Earn programs.

💰 Revenue: Direct uplift through increased program participation.

🧠 Engagement: Significant conversion lift from awareness → activation.

🔁 Adoption: Expanded Earn program integrations across multiple client journeys.

🧭 Scalability: Single design system powering both Auto-Earn V2 and Auto-Enrollment initiatives.

Key Learnings

• Terminology matters: Replacing complex staking language with clear, value-based messaging had outsized impact.

• Seamless integrations beat single-entry funnels: Users enrolled more when Auto-Earn appeared throughout their journey, not just on a single page.

My work on Kraken Earn combined product design, growth strategy, and cross-functional leadership to transform a manual, low-conversion product into a high-performing, scalable platform that generates measurable business value while giving users effortless ways to grow their crypto.

We turned passive balances into active earnings — and transformed staking from a niche action into a seamless part of the investment experience.

Reflection

• Legal clarity unlocks scale: Auto-Enrollment massively boosts adoption when designed with compliance guardrails.

• Data + UX = Growth: Strong analytics frameworks enabled targeted, high-impact design decisions for both asset and client targeting.