People used NetLeaders to create an account and buy a licence. The licence gave them access to the network and a quantity of Cycles, which they could submit to a minting queue to receive DasCoin. NetLeaders also handled referrals and marketing. Each NetLeaders account had a corresponding Vault in WebWallet. Someone with several accounts could therefore have several Vaults, each holding the balances associated with that account.

To use funds held in Vault, users needed to move them into Hot Wallet. The Validator, a hardware wallet based on the Ledger Nano S, was required to authorise access to Vault funds. Problems with setting up the device could block key WebWallet operations. People were learning the difference between accounts, balances and available funds while also learning how to handle cryptocurrency safely. Feedback from support, ambassadors and early adopters showed where they were getting stuck.

I’d worked directly with DasCoin’s CEO, Michael Mathias, since designing the visual identity. I knew what he wanted to build. But making the first WebWallet prototypes for promotional presentations exposed how much we still needed to learn about the people who would use it.

Michael and the ambassadors were taking DasCoin across Asia, presenting at events and opening local offices. I saw an opportunity to meet our users and proposed joining the team with a researcher from the UK. We spent five weeks travelling through Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong, talking with people at events and in one-to-one interviews. Those conversations revealed how little experience many people had with digital finance and how unfamiliar blockchain was to them. Using DasCoin would also mean learning how to store cryptocurrency safely and protect access to their funds. For a product that would ask people to manage their own funds, we had to help them feel safe and in control across the ecosystem. That required education beyond the interface, through blog posts and webinars explaining how licences, minting and wallets worked together.

WebWallet brought the financial side of the DasCoin ecosystem into one application. From there, users could trade, stake, send and receive DasCoin, or withdraw funds to their NetLeaders account. They could also access the ecosystem’s services: DasPay for card payments, DasMarketplace for shopping, Das33 for project crowdfunding, and Traveler for travel memberships and benefits.

Account setup required a lot from users, so I called in an old friend: the stepper.

Letting users edit details extracted from their ID risked creating a mismatch with the document. Those fields stayed locked, with corrections handled through support. A support request took more effort than editing a field, but a mismatch during verification was the greater risk.

The Validator hardware wallet was already set up before registration. Users could own several devices, but only one could be linked to an account. The public key helped users identify the connected device before confirming their choice with “Use this Validator”. Losing both the device and its recovery phrase meant losing access to the funds. Before finishing setup, users had to acknowledge that consequence and confirm their phrase was stored safely.

NetLeaders funds had to be transferred from Vault into Hot Wallet before they could be used, so we included this step in onboarding. The transfer required a signature on the Validator, with instructions at each stage explaining when to connect the device and when to confirm on it.

With funds in Hot Wallet, buying DasCoin became the final onboarding task. Users could then put their DasCoin to use across the ecosystem, including loading a DasPay card for payments.

With onboarding complete, the homepage shifted from setup tasks to using the wallet. Hot Wallet kept actions specific to each asset, while the homepage introduced services for putting DasCoin to use beyond trading.

During my three years on the project, NetLeaders sold over 30,000 licenses, generated more than €250 million in license sales revenue and paid out over €100 million in commissions. Across the wider DasCoin ecosystem, around 180,000 people used at least one product in more than 40 countries. Total transaction volume exceeded €500 million.