Auto-Earn

Investors effortlessly earn rewards on their crypto holdings, turning idle assets into passive income.

My Role

I lead end-to-end design for Kraken Earn, a platform that allows clients to grow their crypto holdings through rewards programs.

Platform

Consumer & Pro

iOS, Android, Web

Timeline

Q2 - Q4 ‘24

Home v1: Consumer

Auto-Earn Enrollment

Rewards

Background

As a prominent crypto exchange, we offer staking services that allow clients to grow their assets while supporting blockchain network security.

Despite the potential benefits, we observed a significant number of clients with eligible assets not participating in staking programs and an increasing trend of ETH withdrawals.

Recognizing that manual staking requires effort and a learning curve, we identified an opportunity to simplify the process.​

I designed Auto-Earn, a key feature that automatically activates earning opportunities—turning idle assets into passive income while boosting engagement, retention, and driving revenue growth.

Objective

Launch Auto-Earn to automate staking, thereby increasing AUM and capturing all eligible assets from existing and future clients

Approach

I collaborated with multiple cross-functional teams—including Product, Business Operations, Data, Engineering, Legal, and Marketing to design and implement Auto-Earn.

Our strategy encompassed:​

User Research and Insights: Conducted interviews to understand user pain points and preferences, informing design decisions to enhance usability and adoption

Client Segmentation: Identified distinct user groups—Pro users with advanced needs and Consumer users with simpler goals—to tailor experiences accordingly

Lifecycle Targeting: Segmented users by stages (suspect, prospect, lead, client) and developed targeted messaging to guide them through the enrollment process

Experimentation: Implemented A/B tests and experimentation frameworks to evaluate design variants and optimize conversion rates

growth

I established an internal Growth function to introduce systematic experimentation and data-driven optimization for all Earn products. My focus is increasing user acquisition by expanding entry points and delivering targeted content based on user segmentation and research insights.

I led a cross-functional effort to unify fragmented front-end and back-end data systems—resolving issues with inconsistent event tracking and unclear tagging. This alignment enabled precise targeting across user journeys and significantly improved conversion rates.

By leveraging back-end data, I identified high-potential assets and monitored their flow across the platform. This insight, combined with front-end user behavior, allowed us to tailor interventions that directly influenced client engagement and retention.

Messaging Approaches

I initiated and led A/B testing to establish a foundation for experimentation for our team. Our first test focused on headlines—critical for capturing attention in the first few seconds of a user's experience. By experimenting with different messaging approaches, I identified high-performing content strategies that significantly improved first-impression conversion rates, while also validating our experimentation framework, team workflow, and key assumptions.

Ease of Use

Highest APR

Assets Owned

Integrations

To enhance client awareness and adoption, we implemented several key solutions by integrating with cross-platform products, teams, and features:​

  • Notification Center: Deployed targeted in-app notifications to inform users about Auto-Earn

  • Banners: Placed targeted banners across the platform to increase awareness

  • Portfolio: Added a toggle feature within client portfolios for easy activation of Auto-Earn.

  • Settings: Incorporated badges in the settings menu to nudge user engagement

  • Trades and Conversions: Integrated primary call-to-action buttons within trading interfaces to encourage enrollment

  • Deposits & Withdrawals: Provided prompts during ETH deposit and withdrawal processes to inform users about Auto-Earn opportunities

  • Push Notifications & Emails: Sent targeted communications to keep clients informed and engaged.​

Portfolio

Buy Orders

Withdrawals

Auto-Enroll

While integrations and experiments were underway, I leveraged the scalable template from Auto-Earn V2 and created Auto-Enrollment for regions with legal clarity, enabling automatic activation of Auto-Earn for all existing and future clients. This streamlined approach enrolls clients in all eligible rewards programs by default, significantly increasing participation and AUM in compliant jurisdictions.

Email Announcement

Auto-Enrollment Variant

challenges & constraints

To meet tight deadlines for two overlapping projects—Auto-Enrollment and Auto-Earn V2—I designed a scalable template that accommodated all required content and variations. This solution allowed us to efficiently build, test, and launch both initiatives in parallel.

Legal & Compliance

  • Ensured clarity in program names, text content, labels, and eligibility by asset.

    • Included client acknowledgments via checkboxes, disclaimers, and clear CTAs.

  • Supported enrollment in one or both programs dependent on client scenario:

    • Program 1: Staking Rewards (PoS assets)

    • Program 2: Opt-in Rewards (PoW assets)

  • Enabled users to toggle on/off participation at any time.

  • Accounted for regional restrictions and localized content, in collaboration with the Localization team.

Client Experience

  • Planned and executed a phased rollout of the Opt-in Rewards program to clients already using the Staking Rewards program, reusing existing flows and components to streamline adoption.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

  • Collaborated with multiple cross-functional teams—including Trade, Portfolio, Funding, Settings & Account, and Marketing—to ensure a seamless client experience, streamline the rewards enrollment journey, and drive client adoption.

Results

The launch of Auto-Earn simplified the staking process, driving higher client engagement and improved asset retention. By identifying user pain points and applying targeted design solutions, we elevated the overall user experience and supported Kraken’s broader growth goals. For existing clients in particular, we successfully captured a substantial volume of assets into our rewards programs, establishing Kraken Earn as one of the company’s most profitable and high-retention offerings.