While it’s been quite a chaotic year, the DeFi revolution has proven that the key to success in the crypto world is to make a complicated product much, much simpler and accessible. This ideology is manifested through projects that make the user interface (UI) a priority.
2020, after all, appears to be the year of UI in DeFi. This is something we have focused on greatly at Swapfolio and for our recent alpha launch.
Swapfolio is balanced between EtherDelta and Uniswap – as we’ve helped launch some of the first decentralized exchange (DEX) tools in 2014 and now, produce newer applications for the booming industry.
Bringing experience from the UI success of Uniswap and classic tech giants such as Apple
Our team at Swapfolio is based out of South East Asia, after years of working together. Our team first became involved in the cryptocurrency world in 2014, initially only as a passion project to learn about emerging technology, and made our way to helping BitShares with some of their UI.
Many years later, Swapfolio has become what it is today – a portfolio management application that helps traders on the Uniswap platform to track their balances and trading activities.
With the goal to make a suite of companion products for both new and advanced Uniswap users, such as a portfolio manager, personalized price monitoring, and trading assistance, we have built something that makes becoming involved in decentralized assets even easier.
Barry Chen, one of our members at Swapfolio, said he knew how to draw from their experience with BitShares and transfer some core concepts to their own platform. “It is pretty much the same goal, to get casual crowds to feel at ease while using DEX or trading DeFi tokens,” he said, “But this time we want to simplify the experience and make it as easy as possible, with a one-click setup and you’re ready to go. Something intuitive this time.”
Our team saw the wild ascension of Uniswap, the decentralized protocol built for swapping ERC20 tokens, and took note of the impressive simplicity that platform offered. “Look at the success of Uniswap, it’s a powerful trading engine with only 2 input fields. For us, that’s like the iPhone of DEX.
We decided to remove all the fancy bells and whistles and left just one button, ‘swap’. Can’t get any simpler than that,” said Chen, “But its simplicity leaves a gap for a third-party app like us to enter the market. We try to find the right balance to bring back some core functionalities without adding unnecessary clutter to the whole trading experience."
Our ultimate goal for is to provide users with the tools they know and love such as charting, recognizing price, and routing orders, and putting it into one easily manageable application.
In the case of complicated DeFi products, less is definitely more.
To create a Swapfolio account, users need only one thing: a MetaMask wallet or an Ethereum address. After that, members are greeted with a stunning terminal that displays portfolio growth, the Uniswap trade volume, and members’ total portfolio value.
Chen says that, "The UI should not intimidate users of any level while still allowing users to efficiently trade tokens. This is exactly what happened to DEX’s like BitShares, it was too complicated for casual users.” Here lies the success of Uniswap and auxiliary applications like Swapfolio – you don’t need a complicated nightmare of a trading page to make educated investments.
The future of decentralized finance and assets is only growing, as generations of investors slowly lose interest in institutional investing. According to a national Bankrate survey in 2019, Millennials are three times as likely to invest in crypto than Gen X. In the study, crypto is also cited as American’s 7th most popular long-term investment.
While more centralized crypto investment services like BlockFi and eToro allow investors to get a taste of the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, DEX’s have proven to be a tried and true method of gaining exposure to smaller, more interesting assets over time.
“DEX’s and DeFi have come a long way. Mobile P2P trading is possible now, that’s pretty cool. We get new younger crowds to finally try crypto with the help of centralized services like Robinhood,” explained Chen, “Then they get to know DEX and fall in love with it.”