Crypto Exchange Gamification.

The exchange offered cryptocurrencies, digital assets, tokens and NFTs. The challenge: help people understand investing in crypto, and engage them so the product felt less intimidating. Neither the company nor I knew how to apply gamification well at the start, so I studied it from scratch and used Octalysis, Yu-kai Chou's framework of eight core drives, as the lens for every decision. A new squad was created to build it.

Before adding a single badge, I scored the product as it was against the eight core drives. It already did a lot without knowing it: a sense of mission in the home page, a financial bio the person builds themselves, live trading volume as social proof, fee levels that unlock with use. And it had gaps: a sign-up progress bar with no reward at the end, a 24-hour link with no explained consequence.

Four player types, mapped by knowledge and behavior. Merchants were a small share of users and moved most of the volume. Beginners were the large majority of users. We designed the first version for the beginners, and not for the experts.

The drives explain why that changes the design. Merchants are moved by loss and avoidance (CD8): scarcity and risk work on them. Beginners are moved by empowerment, social influence and unpredictability (CD3, CD5, CD7), the intrinsic drives on the right of the octagon. They listen to friends and family, they are ashamed of their losses, and they withdraw their money as soon as they feel they are losing. Fear of missing out would push them out, and not in.

Every idea in the brainstorm was tagged with the drives it activates. The set leaned white hat, fourteen tags to seven, with empowerment and social influence at the top, which is where the beginners lean. In a workshop with business leaders, designers and developers, we chose the first feature together: the player area, with a profile, a level, missions and a quiz at the end of each milestone. It runs on accomplishment, empowerment and ownership.

Every mechanic was traced to a business metric before it was designed: what the player commits to, how they track progress, what triggers the next action, and which number it moves.

We designed for one player, not four. Beginners were the large majority of users, so the first version was built for them and for the Scaffolding phase, and Merchants were left out.

Every mechanic had to trace back to a business metric on the strategy board. Of the 24 ideas, the MVP kept the player profile and player level, which run on accomplishment, empowerment and ownership, with no black hat drives. The booster store, stamps, wallets and rankings were left for later.