Digital Bond Design for Yield on Stablecoins by Tri KurniawanDigital Bond Design for Yield on Stablecoins by Tri Kurniawan

Digital Bond Design for Yield on Stablecoins

Tri Kurniawan

Completed work

Mobile Designer

Product Designer

UX Designer

Figma

Lottielab

FinTech & Payments

Designing Earn Feature That Turns Idle Stable Coins into Predictable Yield

Introduction

Designing a digital bond product that transforms idle USDT into a predictable, daily yield, positioning Haven Suite as a capital-efficient financial platform for business crypto treasury management.

The silent cost of idle stable coins

Haven Suite serves businesses managing crypto daily, including payments, transfers, and treasury operations. But a fundamental inefficiency existed: USDT holdings sat dormant between transactions. No yield. No return. No purpose beyond storage. For business finance teams, this represented a direct loss of capital efficiency, a problem that would never be acceptable in traditional treasury management.

Idle Capital

USDT between transactions earns nothing. For businesses holding large balances, this is a compounding financial inefficiency.

DeFi Distrust

Existing yield options (staking, farming) carry perceived high risk and require technical knowledge most business operators don't have.

No Predictability

Variable APY, impermanent loss, smart contract risk — none of these are acceptable for a business treasury. Finance teams need certainty.

"Business users don't avoid yield — they avoid uncertainty. Lower yield with full clarity beats higher yield with unknown risk."

Core design principle that determined every product decision in this feature.

Reframing DeFi as a familiar financial instrument

Rather than building another crypto staking interface, we made a deliberate strategic choice: position this as a digital bond; a concept business users already understand from traditional finance. This single framing decision resolved most of the trust and comprehension problems before any UI was designed.

Haven Earn Feature

1. Language reframe

Staking / Farming 👉 Earn / Digital Bond Replacing DeFi jargon with familiar finance vocabulary reduced perceived risk instantly; no product change needed, only a positioning shift (Mental Model Alignment).

2. Fixed over variable

Variable APY 👉 Fixed 2% p.a. A lower but predictable return is more valuable to a business treasury than higher uncertain returns. Certainty is the product (B2B-first Decision).

3. Known issuer

Anonymous protocol 👉 Global Capital Merchants Named institutional issuer provides accountability and signals this is a regulated, structured instrument, not an anonymous DeFi protocol (Trust Signal).

4. Daily Earnings Visibility

Lump sum at maturity 👉 Daily Earnings Accrual Showing earnings accumulate each day creates a positive feedback loop and reassures users that the system is working , even during lock periods (Behavioral Design).

How the design evolved across three explorations

The wireframes went through three documented iterations, each refining the investment threshold, dashboard visualization, and trust architecture.

Haven Earn Wireframes

View Wireframes

Initial concept (wireframes)

Minimum set at 1,000 USDT. Earn intro used "Effective, Smart, Reliable" messaging. Dashboard showed flat list of investments. Navigation bar included Earn as top-level item.

Haven Earn Exploration 1

View Exploration 1

Threshold raised (exploration 1)

Minimum raised to 10,000 USDT to target serious business treasury users. Intro refined to "Put your crypto to work." Dashboard evolved with circular progress ring showing maturity.

Haven Earn Exploration 2

View Exploration 2

Polished system (exploration 2)

Full lifecycle confirmed: entry → earn → confirmation → success → portfolio tracking → withdrawal → notifications → transactional emails. T&C integrated inline. Change the circular progress ring with the simple progress bar in the top bar.

Seven intentional design choices

1. Intro screen as trust primer

Before showing any numbers, the intro screen establishes what this product is (a digital bond), who issues it (Global Capital Merchants), and what users get (2% p.a. daily). First impressions handle most trust objections before the flow begins.

2. Return preview before commitment

Users see their estimated total return and daily earning breakdown before hitting confirm. This is not a feature — it's a conversion mechanism. Showing the outcome early removes hesitation from the decision.

3. Lock period made explicit

The confirmation screen explicitly states the lock period and maturity date before submission. Rather than hiding irreversibility, we surfaced it — because users who understand the constraint are less likely to regret the commitment.

4. Multi-chain flexibility

BNB, ETH, and TRX support lets users choose based on gas cost and existing wallet balance. This respects business operators who optimize for transaction efficiency — not just convenience.

5. Deposit flow integration

If a user has insufficient USDT, the flow surfaces a deposit path inline — removing a dead end that would otherwise kill conversion. The user completes the top-up without leaving the Earn context.

6. Full transactional email system

Three email templates designed: bond created, bond failed, payout successful. Each carries complete transaction details — ensuring business users have a paper trail for accounting and reconciliation purposes.

7. Push + in-app notifications

Users are notified at key lifecycle moments: investment confirmed, daily earning milestone, approaching maturity, and payout complete. Notifications close the loop — the system communicates even when the app is closed.

How trust was designed into every touchpoint

For business users committing 10,000+ USDT, trust is not a nice-to-have; it's the core product requirement. Three layers of trust were built into the design system.

Institutional clarity

Named issuer (Global Capital Merchants) on every key screen. Not an anonymous protocol, a structured financial counterparty with accountability.

Contractual transparency

Full T&C shown inline before confirmation. Users consent explicitly; this mirrors how traditional bond subscriptions work, creating legal familiarity.

Continuous proof of work

Daily earning updates and a progress ring that advances each day prove the system is working; preventing anxiety during the lock period.

The transformation this product enables

+20–35% Expected asset retention increase

TVL↑ Higher total value locked in ecosystem

10K+ USDT avg investment floor per user

365d Max lock creates long-term retention

How we measure this worked

We defined several metrics to track: Feature Adoption % of active wallets using Earn Capital Commitment Total value locked (TVL) in bonds

Investment Size Average USDT per investment order

Flow Completion Confirmation rate — entry to submit

Retention Signal Earn users vs non-Earn user retention

Renewal Behavior % re-investing at maturity

What this project taught me

Designing a yield product in crypto is not primarily a UI problem. The hardest design work happened before a single screen was drawn, in the product framing decision to call this a "digital bond" rather than staking or farming.

That single language choice changed everything: the tone of the intro screen, the way the T&C was presented, the naming of the confirmation CTA. When the mental model is right, the UI becomes almost obvious.

The second key lesson: for B2B financial products, trust is the most important UX layer. Every interaction, from the named issuer to the explicit lock period to the daily earnings update was a trust signal. Removing any one of them would have weakened the product.

This project also reinforced that end-to-end thinking matters more than screen-by-screen polish. The transactional emails and push notifications weren't afterthought, they were the system closing the loop on a commitment users couldn't reverse. That's where the product earns long-term trust.