fintech · product design · SHIPPED 2024
Trust at the Final Tap
Redesigning the send flow for first-time Bitcoin users making irreversible transactions.
ROLE
Sole Product Designer
Team
Design (Solo) · Engineering, no PM
focus
UX · UI · Interaction
Timeline
2023- 2024
OVERVIEW
How do you make a transaction people can't undo feel safe enough to send in the first place?
I joined ByteWallet, a Bitcoin ATM wallet, as its first product designer, and redesigned the send flow end to end: from the first tap to a confirmed or failed transfer.
THE PROBLEM
Users reached the final step without understanding the full transaction.
Support conversations and app reviews showed the same pattern: the information existed, but it wasn't clear what would actually leave the wallet.
01
Assumed crypto literacy
Jargon like UTXO, gas fee, little explanation.
02
Inconsistent balances
Max returned a lower number than shown, unexplained.
03
Confirmation created doubt
Dense, technical, at the highest-risk moment.
04
No recovery path
Generic errors, no cause, no next step.
RESEARCH
"I pressed Max and the number wasn't what I expected. I don't understand why it's showing me a different amount than my balance."
The clearest signal came from the Max button. Users expected it to match the balance they could already see. Instead, a hidden network deduction handed them a different number, with nothing on screen explaining why. The interface left people to reconcile two numbers and calculate a fee the product already knew.
Exploring the Confirmation CopY
The final step had to answer questions, not create new ones.
Sending Bitcoin can't be undone. By the time someone reached confirmation, they'd already made the decision. The screen's job was to help them check it, not make them second-guess it.
My first pass leaned legal. A softer version didn't fix it either; it just repeated the risk. What actually worked was dropping the warning language and restating the facts.
FIRST ATTEMPT
“Please verify all transaction details before authorizing. This action cannot be reversed.”
STILL DIDN'T WORK
“Review carefully. Crypto transactions are irreversible.”
WHAT SHIPPED
“You’re sending 0.048 BTC to [address]. Network fee: $3.20.”
Restated the facts and introduced no new question.
KEY DESIGN DECISIONS
Four decisions that changed how sending felt.
DECISION 01
Users shouldn't calculate network fees.
Pressing Max exposed the biggest misunderstanding in the flow — users expected it to match their visible balance, but hidden network deductions produced a different number.
→ Review stays disabled until a valid amount is entered
→ Network deduction explained the moment Max is selected
→ Fee repeats as a line item at confirmation
DECISION 02
Funding and sending are different jobs. They should feel different.
Tradeoff
One extra screen.
Fewer compounded decisions.
DECISION 03
Friction at confirmation. Nowhere else.
Confirmation is the one place the flow intentionally slows down, so the recipient, amount, source, fee, and total can be verified together.
DECISION 04
Every error needed a next step.
I split the two failure patterns support saw most often: a network timeout reassures users their funds are safe and offers a retry; an insufficient balance explains the exact shortfall.
FINAL EXPERIENCE
Each screen answered one question.
The shipped flow separates source, recipient, amount, fee review, confirmation, processing, and recovery instead of combining several decisions on the same screen.
other flows / system
While stabilizing the send flow, the home screen kept expanding: merchant tools, investing, rewards, ATM discovery, news. All of it competed with the one thing users actually came to do after buying Bitcoin.
OUTCOME
What changed after the redesign.
01
3.6★ App Store rating at the time of writing
Approximately 2.8–3.0 when I joined; one of several changes made before it reached 3.6.
02
Max confusion stopped resurfacing
Support confirmed the repeated Max-button questions stopped appearing after launch.
03
A clearer
core flow
Sending, reviewing, and recovering from failure became easier to follow.
REFLECTION
What I'd carry forward
Validate the wait.
I'd want to know whether the processing state makes people feel secure enough to close the app, not just informed about what's happening.
Document as you go.
Most of what I compromised on, like the progress indicator and fee copy, was agreed to verbally. There was no PM to track what changed and why.
The redesign was not about making every transaction shorter. It was about making each decision easier to understand before money moved.
ByteWallet has since rebranded as ByteVault.