How to Design a User-friendly Web3 Experience from Wallet to dApp
ETHSafari panel featuring Markus Franke, Isha Varshney and Tosin Onikosi, moderated by Angelo Kalaw
Angelo:
My name is Angelo, and I work for the Celo Foundation. Welcome to our panel on building and designing user-friendly Web3 experiences and products. It’s my second time here at ETHSafari, and I’m excited to be back and see how the community has grown. I’m joined today by a fantastic group of builders and colleagues from the Celo ecosystem, and we’re excited to share our thoughts and experiences on this topic. Let’s start by asking the panelists to introduce themselves—what they’re building and what brought them to ETHSafari today.
Markus:
I’m thrilled to be here—it’s my first time at ETHSafari, and it’s such a cool setup. I work with Mento Labs, and together with MiniPay, Celo, and other friends in the ecosystem.
I’ve been in the Celo ecosystem for over six years, mostly building on stablecoins. Celo is an ideal place for stablecoins, and today we’ll dive into why it’s so user-friendly. A unique feature of Celo is that users can pay for gas fees using stablecoins, so they only need one currency in their wallets.
I come from a traditional finance background and love discussing everything related to stablecoins.
Isha:
I’m Isha, head of the ecosystem at Celo Foundation. This is my third time at ETHSafari, and I’m always excited to come back and see how the community is growing.
Celo is an L1 blockchain that is transitioning to an L2 using OP Stack. What sets us apart is our mission—prosperity for all. We focus on real-world use cases, with stablecoins being one of the largest focuses. We’re aiming for Celo to be the home of stablecoins, and we’re constantly adding more to the ecosystem.
Our goal is to make Web3 so easy to use that even my mom and grandma could navigate it. We have incredible partners, like Haraka, working on lending solutions and HaloFi helping with savings. The idea is to replicate what people already do in their everyday lives on-chain, making it simple and accessible.
Tosin:
I’m Tosin, and I lead Web3 marketing at Opera. Opera is well-known for its browser products, and MiniPay is one of those products—a peer-to-peer stablecoin wallet built on Celo.
MiniPay allows users to send money using just a phone number, abstracting gas fees and lowering costs, which makes it incredibly user-friendly. We wanted to create a Web3 wallet that anyone, even my grandma, could use. It’s been great to see how well it’s been received in Africa. I’ve paid for everything in Kenya with MiniPay, from Ubers to food, and it’s just one example of how practical this can be.
Angelo:
It’s fantastic to hear how real-world use cases are driving growth. Now, let’s talk about what “user-friendly” means to you all, especially in the context of Web3. What have you learned in your journey of building products?
Isha:
One of the biggest lessons for me is the importance of listening to communities. Web3 started with products available for a select few, but now we’re seeing more community-driven demand. It’s essential to ask, “What do users actually want?” before we build anything.
Tosin:
Absolutely! I agree. We launched MiniPay by listening to what people in our target markets needed. We turned their pain points into features, making sure that everything we build is useful in everyday life. For example, the “Drag and Drop” Pockets feature in MiniPay powered by Mento makes it easy to swap stablecoins with a simple gesture, removing the complexity of gas fees.
Markus:
I also think it’s critical to create global solutions that are locally relevant. While Celo has global features like paying gas fees with stablecoins, local currencies and specific needs still drive adoption. For instance, the Kenya Shilling stablecoin (cKES) was developed in response to community demand.
Angelo:
Great points! Let’s shift to growth. How do you see your efforts towards user-friendly designs linking to growth, and what has your growth journey been like so far?
Markus:
Celo’s focus on real end users has been key to our steady growth. While some DeFi products are volatile, stablecoins provide reliable use cases for everyday transactions. The infrastructure we’re building on Celo is sticky—people will keep using stablecoins because they’re useful for everyday transactions like paying for Ubers.
Isha:
Exactly. At Celo, we measure growth by daily active users, and stablecoins play a big part in that. We focus on onboarding real-world users rather than just chasing total value locked (TVL) metrics. That’s where sustainable growth comes from.
Tosin:
MiniPay’s growth has been phenomenal. We’ve activated over 3.5 million wallets across seven countries in just a year! And it’s not just about the numbers—it’s about providing a product that users find genuinely useful. The more use cases we add, the more we’ll continue to grow organically.
Angelo:
As builders, you’re always innovating. What’s the next hypothesis or product feature you’re testing that will push the boundaries of user-friendliness?
Tosin:
The big next step for us is launching MiniPay as a standalone app on iOS and Android. Right now, it’s embedded in Opera Mini, but we’ve heard users’ feedback and are expanding to make it even more accessible.
Markus:
For us at Mento Labs, we’re focusing on local currency stablecoins. The Kenya Shilling (cKES) and Philippine Peso (PUSO) have been launched on Mento, and more local digital currencies are in the pipeline. We’re also developing governance mechanisms to let the Mento Community decide which local currency stablecoin should be launched next.
Isha:
And for Celo, we’re excited about our transition to an L2 on the OP Stack. This will bring more scalability, distribution, and adoption of real-world use cases in the Ethereum ecosystem.
