Vexl by Ondra

Why

Buying Bitcoin these days takes a lot

Vexl proposes something simpler

Complex flows & all your data

People you know, reveal what you want

Following the original Bitcoin vision

No middleman

Trade with people directly

Anonymous

Until both sides want to meet

People

Not only for people who care about their privacy

Three main protopersonas were created to fully understand which funcionalities should be prioritized. The persona of vexlák — active buyer and seller — previewed bellow, is the most unique one, with most use cases. Validated at a legendary Czech community Paralelní Polis.

We heard a lot of great thoughts while validating journeys and personas. Many of them shaped our approach.

What

...wait a minute,
what is “vexl”?

From the word [vekslák]

A "vekslák" was a slang term used in socialist Czechoslovakia to refer to someone involved in the illegal buying and selling of foreign currencies (such as currency or vouchers), used to purchase foreign goods at Tuzex stores. The word "veksl" itself comes from the German "der Wechsel," meaning exchange.

Visual & graphic explorations

We tried drawing obvious parallels to "veksláctví", explored multiple palettes and various concepts of anonymity.

Where we've landed

We landed on anonymous avatars, drawing color inspiration from real-life "bony" (vouchers for foreign goods used during times of active "veksláctví").

The wonderful illustrations, avatars & glasses were created by Adam Žďára.

Process

Back to what we're making. By analyzing:

Competition

Mapping out P2P marketplaces

Users

Depth user interviews

Jobs to be done

Interviews and internal knowledge

...we’ve defined a key set of functionality, which we’ve started prototyping & testing.

Many ways to group & structure it

Buy & Sell separated on a bottom navigation level, with third tab being Bitcoin price (could show BTC price in navbar).

Chat related to specific screens with contextual notifications.

Buy & Sell as a segmented controls on the first tab. Global chat and profile (contacts + settings) as other tabs.

Trade entry point is an universal input — e.g. “I want 100 BTC for USD” > Show offers. Chat is present on homepage, same as my active offers.

Buy & Sell separated on a bottom navigation level, with third tab being Bitcoin price (could show BTC price in navbar).

Chat related to specific screens with contextual notifications.

Buy & Sell as a segmented controls on the first tab. Global chat and profile (contacts + settings) as other tabs.

Trade entry point is an universal input — e.g. “I want 100 BTC for USD” > Show offers. Chat is present on homepage, same as my active offers.

MVP

All things considered, this is the direction we've chosen for the MVP launch: a version that focuses on core functionality while allowing room for future improvements.