GoldLink · Simplifying DeFi Lending
- RoleRole
- Founder
- FocusFocus
- Design and Product
- YearYear
- 2024
- CompanyCompany
- GoldLink
Creating an interface that simplifies transparency and builds trust in DeFi, using familiar user flows and clear framing of complex topics.
Crypto Was Losing Trust.
Crypto's initial promise was to create a more open financial system, especially for people underserved by traditional banking. In 2023, after a recent $200B market wipeout put trust under a microscope, the question across the industry became what needs to change to prevent the next scam.
Web 3.0 companies often get bucketed together, but one dividing line is between Centralized Finance (CeFi) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). CeFi may use crypto tokens and infrastructure, but the products function more like banks or investment firms (think Coinbase, Celsius, FTX). DeFi protocols operate fully on-chain, with transparency and self-custody by default.
With recent CeFi exploits top of mind, DeFi had an opportunity to attract new users seeking more transparency and control of their investments on-chain. My co-founder and I wanted to build a product that could be that bridge for consumers and institutions.
Lenders Needed Trust. Borrowers Needed Execution.
DeFi offers faster and cheaper transactions than banking, with full control over funds. This level of control also brings new risks, including irreversible transactions, no support line, and no insurance. The returns and the control are real, but the cognitive load of managing it yourself deters most users. To sway potential users, protocols would need to highlight transparency to quickly build the trust that took banks decades to earn.
Loans are the foundation of all financial systems. Lending jumpstarts the flow of capital, which enables returns on capital, credit markets, and leveraged positions. For on-chain finance to be a true alternative to traditional banking, these services had to work, and they had to be trustworthy. That meant designing an experience that attracted lenders to supply capital and gave borrowers the tools to maximize returns against their borrow costs.
Equal Access on Both Sides
The solution was to build one product where both sides had equal access to information. Instead of separating lending and borrowing into different surfaces, we needed to combine them into parallel flows that shared the same strategy model and risk framework.
To bridge that gap, GoldLink would be an on-chain lending protocol offering leverage trading restricted to predefined delta-neutral trading strategies. Lenders supplied capital into strategy-specific pools. Borrowers accessed up to 4x leverage to run strategies they'd otherwise need a quant background to execute.
That leverage created the borrow demand that drove higher lender APYs. The design work was making leverage feel safe by keeping constraints, risk, and fund flow legible at every step. On-chain transparency, made possible by DeFi, was now visible inside the UI.
Making leverage feel safe meant keeping risks visible at every step.
The risk scoring framework was shared across both experiences. Scores stayed visible, so both sides evaluated strategies using the same model.
- Verify everything on-chain, without reading a block explorer.
- The trust signal lives inside the product, not the explorer.
- Fast enough to support a decision in seconds.
- Delta-neutral strategies demand constant rebalancing.
- Absorb that operational complexity with familiar trading patterns.
- Show the consequence of every action.
Explorations
The first step in earning trust started with our name and branding. Web 3.0 brand constraints tend to be looser, with many products committed to appealing to their community. Our audience, however, would ideally span from long-term DeFi users to institutions looking for more transparent exposure to crypto assets. Planning for institutions in particular, we set out to create a brand that conveyed security without abandoning our crypto ethos, and presented as clean and safe for crypto natives or new on-chain users.
Design System
We landed on the name "GoldLink," leaning into traditional currency and the preservation of value, and the connection to new technology and ways to invest that the product would enable. The logo followed, along with the final typography and color system. With all the brand components assembled, we moved forward with the creation of the design system, building out the components that would make up the interface.
Lending
The lender experience was built to support both quick decisions and deep diligence. It made expected return, deposit flows, and withdrawals clear without forcing a research workflow, while still giving lenders the tools to understand how capital was deployed and how the borrow side of the marketplace worked.
Rather than separating lending and borrowing into isolated views, the lending interface combined strategy education with live status to clarify what was driving yield. Utilization, strategy allocation, and the interest rate model were presented alongside APY, so lenders could compare demand, constraints, and risk in one place. If they wanted to go deeper, the same strategy and risk framework stayed consistent across both sides of the marketplace.
The Risk Score module addressed trust directly by making the key risk vectors common to DeFi scannable, with inline explainers for users less familiar with the terms. Instead of a single "Safe" label, the UI broke strategies into five dimension-level bars, so lenders could see where risk was coming from without leaving the page.
We categorized risk along five dimensions instead of simple labels.
For lenders with active deposits, the Position Overview module consolidated the day-to-day metrics that mattered for monitoring: performance, PnL, and strategy health as demand shifted on the borrow side. The lender flow used progressive disclosure, combining clear education with real-time metrics.
Borrowing
GoldLink loans functioned more like mortgages than credit cards. The use was predetermined and the downside limited, but borrowers still had to maintain a positive standing. They would deposit collateral (the down payment) and deploy their loan, topping up their balance to cover losses as needed. If an account dropped below the required health threshold, the remaining capital was foreclosed to pay back lenders.
GoldLink loans functioned more like mortgages than credit cards.
Our launch strategy, GMX Funding Rate Farming, earned incentive rewards paid by exchanges to balance their markets. By taking a less popular but highly incentivized side (for example, shorting Bitcoin after positive crypto news) and pairing it with the inverse position, a trader could earn a steady return with no directional risk.
Pair both sides of the market to earn a steady return.
To facilitate a clear sequential flow for users, I leaned on familiar patterns and layouts that would be recognizable to users who'd lent or traded on-chain. Clear information hierarchy was another need, as both lenders and borrowers needed to monitor the variable metrics tied to strategy risk while monitoring their positions.
Navigating Friction
Built-in safeguards kept strategies resilient against standard market swings, but borrowers still had to be prudent. Leverage in perpetual markets has been responsible for some of the largest market wipeouts in response to sudden economic events. Borrowers, lenders, and the protocol itself all relied on minimizing liquidations, so keeping risk, loan health, and account status top of mind at every step was imperative for a long-running ecosystem.
Knowing we were competing with superior CeFi UX, I wanted to streamline our user flows and reduce the clicks needed to reach a payoff. Our commitment to security came with a tradeoff. We wouldn't be able to chain multiple transactions at launch. My initial designs treated borrowing and deploying as a single action, but this constraint now required three separate steps (depositing, borrowing, and deploying) to launch capital.
We leaned into the friction, turning the extra steps into intentional safety features.
Rather than attempting to smooth the constraint away, I let it set the pace. Splitting the borrow flow into three distinct steps (deposit, borrow, and deploy) gave borrowers checkpoints to confirm the impact of each action on their account, keeping risk in view throughout.
Borrow Components
GoldLink automated execution, but borrowers still needed to track three primary data streams to maximize ROI: exchange funding rate, borrower demand, and lender supply and rates. Because rates could move quickly, the UI kept these metrics accessible and surfaced expected returns at the time of execution.
To keep traders aware of risk exposure, which could be affected by protocol activity, integrated apps, and market events, the UI surfaced account health indicators across all screens. Position changes, deposits, and withdrawals all included previews of impact on Health Factor before commit. Color encoding alerted traders when their account or positions were at risk of liquidation.
Every position change previewed its impact on account health before commit.
The positions table displayed a trader's active markets and metrics (net value, size, 7D APY, etc.) along with affordances to adjust or close positions within the module. Borrowers could also rotate capital in and out of strategies based on swings in funding rates and borrow costs, chasing the strongest yields without leaving the dashboard.
Onboarding
For new borrowers, an onboarding checklist sequenced the workflow from sign-up to trade execution. Each step expanded to reveal instructions, build domain knowledge, and reduce onboarding friction.
In addition to the information needed for execution, borrowers were able to access all components available to lenders in the Strategy Details tab. Detailed information would allow borrowers to explore the historical rates and better understand the mechanisms powering the strategy.
Launched, Raised and Grew
After defining the concept and initial architecture for GoldLink, we set out to fundraise before launching, knowing we would need a significant reserve of capital for ongoing protocol and strategy audits. To bring our vision to investors without an app to send, I created full-fidelity prototypes of the product, allowing us to demo the platform as users would see it at launch along with a deck explaining core concepts, rationale, and our strategy as a team.
By conveying a clear narrative and need in the market, paired with a demo to reinforce the vision we had for the project, we raised a $1.4M pre-seed round in 2023 led by Polychain Capital.
After launching on Arbitrum, the protocol grew through 2024, reaching $1.72M in peak TVL and accumulating $4.7M in total lending deposits and $1.3M in borrow volume before wind-down. Unfortunately, the trade imbalances that let our flagship delta-neutral strategy work consistently dissipated faster than they had in any previous crypto cycle. As funding rates dropped, GoldLink became less viable, leading the team to pivot to a new product in January 2025 despite the early growth.
Lean into Constraints
Be Your Own User
The Risk Score module was central to our transparency story. As a DeFi newcomer, I spent weeks researching before designing it to rely on visual cues and plain copy I could understand. Users later expressed they felt the same. Leaning into my newness let me better represent the audience in my designs.
Designing for Externalities
GoldLink was built for bear conditions. Security and steady returns outperformed a flat market. When the cycle reversed shortly after launch, we spent too long trying to reshape the product for bull-market behavior. Pivoting sooner would have given us more flexibility to move into faster-growing categories.
From Friction to Features
Our commitment to security led us to sacrifice execution speed and potential conversions. With trust and safety central to both the market and our team, I treated the constraint as an opportunity to reinforce our values and turn a disruption into a purposeful flow.
What's Next
We weren't able to fully realize the potential of GoldLink when we launched, but as of 2025, with increased crypto adoption across the financial industry, I expect a similar product to eventually compete with traditional savings accounts and yield-bearing assets. If we were to revive the product, two optimizations would top the list.
Streamlined Loan Lifecycle
Closing positions required manually returning loans, and borrowers who skipped this step continued accruing interest. That interest compounded at 4x leverage and pulled capital from circulation, making this edge case a drain on the system. A future version of this flow would surface clearer affordances to close loans alongside positions.
Automated Position Management
Borrowers and lenders were tasked with tracking strategy and lending pool metrics to protect their capital. Simple automation like stop-loss and auto-sell would give both audiences more control over their risk exposure and open the door to new strategy approaches on the platform.