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AistakeFinance

A multi-validator staking protocol on the Solana network designed to maximize capital efficiency and community-driven delegation.

Aistake Finance
RoleProduct Design
ClientAistake
Duration2 months
Year2022

A multi-validator staking protocol on the Solana network designed to maximize capital efficiency and community-driven delegation.

Aistake is a protocol built to enhance the decentralization of staking on the Solana. The goal is to allow users manage complex stake delegations across multiple validators simultaneously.

Aistake Finance redefines the staking experience by utilizing an Automated Market Maker (AMM) framework to provide instant liquidity for staked assets. By allowing users to delegate across multiple high-performing validators simultaneously, the protocol eliminates single points of failure and empowers the community to earn passive yield without sacrificing the ability to trade or reinvest in real-time.

Problem Statement & Research Synthesis

Through deep-dive market analysis and user interviews, I identified a critical friction point: Liquidity Paralysis. Traditional staking locks assets for 2–3 days (epochs), preventing users from reacting to market volatility or participating in DeFi. This "all-or-nothing" model forces users to sacrifice either network security or capital opportunity.

The Core Challenges & Constraints

  • The Liquidity Gap: Users want to earn rewards but fear their funds being "frozen" during sudden market shifts.
  • Validator Centralization: The complexity of picking reliable validators leads users to "set and forget" with large entities, creating single points of failure for the network.
  • Operational Friction: Navigating stake accounts, epoch boundaries, and delegation flows is technically intimidating for non-expert users.

Design Execution

The Dynamic Dashboard: Real-Time Performance Analytics

The dashboard serves as the central nervous system of the Aistake protocol, designed to provide immediate clarity. I prioritized a high-density, low-friction information architecture that surfaces critical metrics, such as total SOL staked, real-time earnings, and investment status.

By integrating volume and liquidity trends directly into the primary view, I empowered stakers to make rapid, data-driven decisions. This design moves away from abstract blockchain data toward an engaging, fintech-inspired interface that helps users visualize their wealth growth and protocol health at a glance.

The Dynamic Dashboard: Real-Time Performance Analytics

Solana Staking: Humanizing Liquid Infrastructure

Staking is often an intimidating "black box" for new users who don't understand epoch durations or delegation mechanics. I designed the staking interface as a primary value proposition, using simplified visual cues and concise explanations to guide users through the process of securing the network while maintaining asset mobility.

The interface provides granular visibility into current staking status, balance distributions, and historical withdrawal data. By including an integrated yield calculator, I allowed users to project their estimated earnings before committing capital, transforming a technical transaction into a strategic financial planning exercise.

Solana Staking: Humanizing Liquid Infrastructure

Validator Listing: Transparent Delegator Selection

The primary hurdle for stakers is knowing which validators to trust without needing advanced technical command-line knowledge. To bridge this trust gap, I designed a comprehensive Validator Marketplace that surfaces the "best and top" nodes based on uptime, fees, and community reputation.

I integrated direct links to third-party explorers for every validator, providing a layer of "social proof" and operational transparency. This design ensures that users can vet their choices with the same rigor as a Solana block explorer, replacing blind faith with verified, data-backed confidence.

Validator Listing: Transparent Delegator Selection
Validator detail view

Validator Collections: Crowdsourced Risk Diversification

Leveraging the psychological principle of "Social Proof," I designed Validator Collections, a community-driven feature that allows expert users to curate sets of high-performing validators. This simplifies the delegation process for novices, who can now stake into a diversified "playlist" of nodes with a single transaction.

This feature incentivizes community participation by rewarding curators with a portion of protocol fees, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem of mutual growth. By allowing users to react to and "thumbs up" specific collections, the UI fosters a sense of collective intelligence, ensuring the best validators naturally rise to the top.

Validator Collections: Crowdsourced Risk Diversification
Validator collection detail

Swaps & Bridge Tokens: Seamless Cross-Chain Mobility

To maximize capital efficiency, I integrated a high-performance Swap and Bridge suite directly into the protocol. This foundational feature allows users to pivot between different assets or networks without ever leaving the Aistake environment, significantly reducing the drop-off associated with multi-platform hopping.

The design focuses on "zero-anxiety" transactions, providing clear feedback on slippage and bridging times. This serves as a vital entry and exit point for liquidity, ensuring that a user’s staked position remains a liquid, tradeable asset rather than a frozen liability.

Swaps & Bridge Tokens: Seamless Cross-Chain Mobility

Farming Investments: Compounding Capital Utility

Farming allows users to earn extra yield by staking their Liquidity Pool (LP) tokens, but it often confuses users who don't understand how their "receipt tokens" work. I designed the Farming Interface to clearly display how users can earn from their pool investments.

By providing a clear receipt of the user's LP investment power, the interface helps users track their "bonus" earnings without losing sight of their core liquidity. This creates a high-retention loop where users are incentivized to keep their assets within the ecosystem to maximize their yield.

Farming Investments: Compounding Capital Utility

Liquidity Pools: Collaborative Yield Generation

The Liquidity Pool interface was designed to allow users to participate in the protocol’s foundational market-making activities. I simplified the process of creating or joining a pool, allowing users to deposit asset pairs and earn a share of transaction fees in a few clicks.

If a specific token combination already exists, the UI automatically directs the user to the existing pool to prevent liquidity fragmentation. This proactive design choice ensures the protocol remains healthy and liquid while providing users with a simple, high-transparency pathway to becoming an LP holder.

Liquidity Pools: Collaborative Yield Generation

Mobile Designs: Built for the Pocket, Not Just the Screen

I treated the mobile version as a "Financial Command Center." In DeFi, the market doesn't wait for you to get back to your desk. If a validator goes down or a price swings, you need to act now. My goal was to make sure the user felt just as powerful on a 6-inch screen as they do on a 30-inch monitor.

Aistake mobile screens

Key Takeaways

  • Clarity is equal to Security: In Web3, the interface is the trust. If a user doesn't understand "Slashing" or "Epochs," they won't use the product. By humanizing these terms, we didn't just make it "pretty", we made it usable for the next wave of investors.
  • Systems Over Screens: This wasn't just about drawing boxes; it was about building a Scalable System. Every component was designed to grow. Whether Aistake has 10 validators or 1,000, the UI won't break, and the user won't get lost.
  • Being the User’s Guardian: Adding things like "Trust Scores" and "Safety Alerts" shifted the app from a tool to a partner. It reminded me that as a designer, my job is to look out for the person on the other side of the glass, especially when their hard-earned money is on the line.

Delegators stopped bouncing on the validator-comparison page.

Measured by the Aistake team and reported in the first quarter after the redesigned flow shipped.

Multi-million
Stake delegated through the protocol inside the first 90 days, per the team's post-launch read.
Sharp drop
Drop-off on the validator comparison step versus the prior flow.
≈3 min
Median time from landing to first stake. The old flow took roughly four times as long.

Solana staking is a low-trust transaction with a high-trust outcome. Treating the validator card like a credit card line item, same fields, same hierarchy, every time, helped users pick faster and commit harder.

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