Redesigning trust for Bitcoin borrowers
Within four months of launching Zero, Sovryn's new Bitcoin lending product, $24 million worth of Bitcoin was locked into the platform. For a new product in a space that runs on trust, that kind of adoption doesn't come from the product working technically alone. This is the story of how we got there.
The opportunity
Sovryn identified an opportunity to bring interest-free Bitcoin lending to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The concept had proven itself on Ethereum through a protocol called Liquity. The strategy was to fork the open source product, adapt it for Bitcoin, and test it with Sovryn's existing user base. My role was to work alongside the product manager to shape the experience and iterate based on what we found.
My role
I worked as the sole product designer on Zero, collaborating closely with the product manager and development team. My responsibilities spanned the full cycle, from shaping the initial hypothesis and running the alpha test, to identifying the core problems and designing the solution that shipped.
How Zero works
Zero lets Bitcoin holders borrow dollars against their Bitcoin, interest free. You deposit Bitcoin as collateral, borrow ZUSD, a dollar pegged stablecoin, and repay whenever you choose.
The one number that controls everything is your collateral ratio. It is the relationship between the value of your Bitcoin deposit and the amount you have borrowed. If it drops below 110% your deposit is seized automatically. No grace period, no warning.
There is also a less obvious risk. Anyone holding ZUSD can redeem it for Bitcoin at face value, and that Bitcoin is pulled from the borrower with the lowest collateral ratio in the system. Most users in the alpha had no idea this mechanism existed.
The alpha test
We launched the forked product to roughly 300 users with real money. The goal was simple: was there genuine demand, and how would users behave with a live position to manage? The data confirmed the demand. But it also surfaced where the experience was falling short.
Three problems stood out.
The collateral ratio was a plain number with no visual context. Users could see a percentage but had no sense of whether they were safe or close to losing everything.
The liquidation price was not visible on the main dashboard. In a volatile market, not knowing that number is a constant source of anxiety.
The liquidation page listed all at-risk positions in the system but gave users no way to identify their own. During a market dip, users had no idea if they were about to be liquidated.
The solution
The dashboard was rebuilt around position health as the primary signal. A visual health bar with clear safe and danger zones replaced the raw number. Liquidation price became a prominent figure rather than a buried detail. A graph showing the user's position relative to all other active lines of credit made redemption risk visible for the first time. Everything updated in real time as users adjusted their position.
Users were also given the option to receive email alerts if their ratio moved toward a risky threshold, removing the need to monitor constantly.
Results
Within four months, $24 million in Bitcoin was locked into Zero. It validated the hypothesis, confirmed demand for Bitcoin native lending, and helped establish Sovryn as one of the first teams to bring this kind of product to the Bitcoin ecosystem in a meaningful way.
TVL in the first 4 months
$24 million
giladrfg@gmail.com