It was great to see so many bitcoiners in Riga last month! It was my first time in Europe and I’m itching to get back. Next year, probably. Enjoy this edition of the newsletter my friends.
- SAHIL
Meme of the month
Been there, brother.
Testing test-transactions: Yashraj
Even if you’ve been in bitcoin for years, sending a large transaction can be a terrifying experience. Here, Yashraj mocks up an idea to do a test transaction with the ability to “reverse” or confirm it, thanks to RBF (replace-by-fee).
What I like the most about this approach is it doesn’t expose the technical “umm akshully”s about RBF. The language is very friendly: “send test payment”, “finalize payment”, “revert this payment”. Very cool!
Law of Common Region: Visual grouping!
This principle talks about grouping related elements together in a way that makes it easy for a user to get a quick sense at a glance of what’s related. A couple ways of doing this are by adding a border, or a background around the elements.
Above is a clear example of before and after using this principle. To the left, it’s confusing which UI elements are supposed to be grouped together. Are the review stars related to the top tacos or bottom tacos? Add a visual grouping, and it becomes much more clear.
Slack does this well, by adding a background to the chrome and letting the content be separated. Use this principle sparingly - if there’s enough visual grouping using other Gestalt principles, you may not need an explicit border (which will only add to visual clutter).
Which bitcoin products do this well? Which ones could use some more work?
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Casa adds Yubikey support
Casa provides a multi-key vault that lets you secure your bitcoin without any single point of failure. Many of those devices (keys) made by manufacturers can be clunky and difficult to use. Adding Yubikey support as a type of hardware key is a big step in my opinion, making it a lot easier to self custody with multkey vaults.
There are definitely tradeoffs: without a screen, you are blind-signing, unable to confirm the destination. That said, I see this product offering similar to Bitkey. It’s a progression: strictly better than storing with third party custody. The great thing about this offering from Casa is as you accumulate more bitcoin, you can always upgrade your setup to something more secure: for example, a 3 of 5 with 5 different hardware manufacturer brands.
Adding new product offerings that lower the UX friction and barrier to entry to self custody is a win in my book.
Not everyone agrees with this comment from Nick, but I’d be willing to bet he’s right. If I feel that way, I bet the average Joe does too.
In general, I feel like there are two strategies here: try and convince the world that they are wrong and that they must see it your way or the highway — or, see reality the way it is, empathize with the average person, and bring them along for a journey of upgrading their security over time.
eCash for Windows… 95?
In this prototype GIF (click the link!), Erik designs an ecash wallet in the style of Windows 95. I just thought it was cute! So nostalgic.
Though it’s not the prettiest thing, it’s interesting how Windows 95’s UI patterns make actions and hierarchy extremely clear. It does feel like we are RETVRNing to a world where UIs have more depth, which I’m all for!
Brad shares Cash App’s bitcoin education
Brad, a designer at Cash App working on bitcoin, shares this great stories-style educational flow for onboarding newcoiners.
I love how much care goes into every detail of the Cash App experience. While the branding might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it’s consistent across other channels and in line with their target audience + positioning. Love it!
Rebrand and relaunch of SNI
If you’ve been around bitcoin for any length of time, chances are you’ve read at least one article from the legendary Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Shoutout to Bitstein, friend of the newsletter!
This rebrand of SNI was led by Skyler, also a friend of the newsletter. It feels really well done to me: the gorgeous stitching, choice of a deep red as the primary color, the paper-like surface. It feels almost weighty, yet elegant to me.
Someone at Austin Bitcoin Design Club gave the feedback that, it would be nice if there was another CTA for a “Start here”-like action. For someone' who’s completely new and not sure where to start. I agree!
Proton launches a bitcoin wallet
Ever since Proton’s rebrand, I’ve been loving all the new products they’ve been putting out. Now, they’ve launched a bitcoin wallet!
While it looks really simple and clean, I’m just wondering about the positioning. Without lightning, it’s not really a practical spending wallet. Without multi-key, it’s not a practical savings wallet. Without privacy tools, it’s not a privacy-focused wallet. I’m sure there’s a long term game plan here and this is just the first iteration, but it’s just what I’m thinking (and that’s what you signed up for!)
See you next month!
Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think on Twitter or Nostr. Feedback is welcome!
Love u,
- SAHIL
Beautiful