DeFi

Stablecoins

Gamification

Gamifying Liquidity: Design Innovation in DeFi

RoleSenior Product Designer

Timeline2021

LocationRemote / Fantom

Impact metrics$100M+ TVL maintained / $20M Scream TVL / 2M tokens distributed

Business context

Market situation:

DeFi Market Context

In 2021 the DeFi market was flooded with algorithmic stablecoins that promised high yields but collapsed when their pegs broke.

Seigniorage Mechanism

Tomb Finance's $TOMB token is pegged to Fantom ($FTM) through a complex seigniorage mechanism: users must buy TBOND when TOMB is below $FTM and stake TSHARE when it is above.

User Panic Selling

Without clear guidance, most users panic‑sold during contractions, causing death spirals.

V1 UI Issues

The V1 UI looked like a spreadsheet; it hid key indicators like Time‑Weighted Average Price (TWAP) and epoch timers.

Trust Erosion

A gatekeeper tax exploit further eroded trust. In a landscape of rug pulls and scams, Tomb lacked a trust engine to calm the crowd and teach them how to behave rationally.

Tomb Kingdom Ecosystem

Medieval metaphor ecosystem connecting protocol components

Build your kingdom, don't gamble

Tomb Kingdom

Algorithmic stablecoin protocol

Masonry

Staking

TSHARE StakingReward PrintingEpoch Cycles

Cemetery

Liquidity

LP ProvisionLong-term Yield

Partners

White-Label

ScreamOther Forks

REVENUE OPPORTUNITY:

Design as Trust Engine

Use design as a trust engine to translate hidden seigniorage math into intuitive gauges.

Gamified Cycles

Gamify the contraction and expansion cycles with dopamine‑reinforcing success states.

Kingdom Metaphor

Reframe the protocol as a 'Kingdom' where users build rather than gamble; deploy metaphors like Masonry and Cemetery to educate users about staking and liquidity provision.

Modular White-Label System

Build a modular design system that partners can white‑label to capture secondary liquidity streams.

Seigniorage Cycle

Protocol state transitions and user actions

State

Initial State

Transition

Strategic interventions

Radical Transparency

Elevated key indicators (TWAP, epoch countdown and peg status) to the primary visual hierarchy. Gauges and color‑coded bands indicate whether the protocol is in expansion or contraction. Tooltips and popovers explain seigniorage cycles and the actions required (buy TBOND or stake TSHARE). An epoch timer counts down to the next ‘printing’ event, telling users exactly when rewards will materialize. By reducing information asymmetry, the design teaches users how the system works and encourages rational, long‑term behavior.

Result: Users understood when yields were printing, held through contraction and resisted panic selling.

Gamified Feedback Loops

Crafted a sense of anticipation and relief through motion and sound. When TOMB is above peg and the Masonry prints, the interface erupts with animations: coins overflow from vaults, the money printer goes ‘BRRR’, and confetti rewards the user. This positive reinforcement trains users to check back every six hours, aligning their behaviours with the protocol’s cycles. Progress bars and countdowns create a sense of momentum, making liquidity provision a habit rather than a chore.

Result: Wallet connections and daily check‑ins grew as users formed habits around the expansion cycles.

Visual Metaphors

Reframed DeFi jargon into a medieval saga. The ‘Masonry’ becomes the royal mint where citizens stake to print new money; the ‘Cemetery’ becomes the royal vault where tokens are buried to generate long‑term yield. Even the graph icons resemble castle towers and dungeon gates. By inviting users to ‘build their kingdom’, the narrative shifts mindsets from short‑term speculation to empire building, forging emotional attachment and social memes.

Result: Helped maintain $100M+ in TVL during the 2021 cycle (per DefiLlama) and created meme‑able community identities that persisted beyond the bull run.

Modular White-Label System

Designed the entire interface as a component library that could be skinned and re‑used by other projects in the Fantom ecosystem. Partners like Scream forked the ‘kingdom’ UI, plugging in their own tokens and mechanics without building from scratch. This modularity captured partner liquidity and proved that design systems can scale revenue beyond the core protocol.

Result: The incubator distributed 2M tokens via FTMPad and captured $20M in TVL for the Scream Protocol integration.