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Case study Prediction markets · Avalanche

Rebuilding Bango for everyone.

Bango is a prediction market for micro-communities: bet on anything your circle cares about. As Design Lead I created the brand and led the relaunch, turning a crypto-native trading screen into something anyone can use, with social login, no gas fees and an XP economy.

Role
Design Lead
Brand identity, product & UI
Timeline
Jul – Nov 2025
Two production versions
Platform
Web + mobile web
Avalanche
Team
Founder-led startup
Same founder as DQN.red
Bango discovery screen in dark mode: a featured Bitcoin market with a live price chart, and a grid of category-tinted market cards with Up and Down odds.
Avalanche Retro9000$10Kgrant

Retroactive grant in Cohort 2, awarded to 8 projects shipping on Avalanche.

Shipped2versions

Two production interfaces, from a wallet-first V1 to a login-first V2.

Cost to bet$0gas

Social login and gasless predictions: log in, pick a market, send it.

Grant announced by the Avalanche Foundation on 27 Aug 2025. Gasless betting launched 17 Sep 2025.

01 The problem

Prediction markets were built for traders, not communities

Big prediction markets list the questions they choose, need a crypto wallet before you can do anything, and charge gas on every bet. A group of friends, a campus or a fan club can't easily bet on the things only they care about.

Bango's team named four problems to fix. Two were mine to solve through design; the other two shaped what the interface had to explain.

Design

Complex UX

Wallet-first onboarding and gas fees kept anyone outside crypto from placing a first bet.

Design

No niche markets

Market creation was centralised, so micro-community questions never got listed.

Product

Liquidity barrier

Creating a market needed deep liquidity, which a unified liquidity vault was built to solve.

Product

Slow resolution

Manual oracles were slow and didn't scale; an AI oracle resolves markets faster.

Problem list from Bango's own breakdown on X, Aug 2025.

What I owned
  • Brand identity: logo, palette, typography and the brand kit
  • Relaunch redesign across two production versions
  • Discovery, market and profile pages on web and mobile
  • Onboarding with social login instead of wallet-first
  • XP and Reward Center: quests, referrals, leaderboard
  • Social and launch graphics, plus a 60-second game concept
Constraints
  • Users new to crypto had to place a first bet without learning what a wallet is
  • Odds, prices and countdowns had to be readable at a glance on a phone
  • Markets range from Bitcoin prices to campus gossip, so cards needed to carry any topic
  • A small founding team shipping fast between launches
Brand identity

A number that holds a community together

Bango means "number" in Japanese, so the mark is an 8. Its soft, rounded corners hold everything in place, the way the product holds micro-communities together. Deep black stands for the boldness of truth-seekers; one bright blue adds trust and keeps it friendly for beginners.

Bango brand kit page showing the logo construction: the 8-shaped mark built on a grid of rounded rectangles.
Logo construction from the Bango brand kit I made.
Brand kit colour page: black primary, white secondary, electric blue accent and a deep navy tertiary.
Palette: black, white, electric blue, deep navy.
Brand kit typography page: DM Sans for headings and SF Pro Display for body text.
Type: DM Sans for headings, SF Pro Display for body.
The relaunch

From a trading screen to a feed anyone can read

V1 looked like an exchange: a wall of identical cards, an activity log of trades and a login that meant "connect your wallet". For V2 I rebuilt discovery around one question at a time, a live price and two big buttons: Up or Down.

V1 · wallet-firstBango V1 home screen: dark grid of identical Bitcoin market cards with yes and no percentage bars, an activity log of trades and a Login button.
V2 · login-firstBango V2 discovery screen in light mode: a USDC and XP toggle in the header, category tabs and a grid of market cards with Up and Down prices.
Connect wallet to startLog in with a social account; no gas
Yes / No percentage barsUp / Down buttons with a price in cents
Raw trade activity logCategories, live markets and a USDC / XP toggle
Market page

Everything you need to decide, on one screen

A bet is a decision under time pressure. The market page answers three questions in order: what's the target, where is it now, and how long do I have, with the buy panel always in reach.

Bango market page with a question title, To Beat and Current price chips, a countdown, a price chart with a target line, time-slot tabs, and a Buy and Sell panel with Up and Down prices. 1 2 3 4 5 6
  1. To beatThe target price the market resolves against.
  2. CurrentThe live price and its change, in blue so it reads as "now".
  3. CountdownTime left, in red, the only alarm colour on the page.
  4. Recurring time slotsHourly markets on the same question, so there's always a next round.
  5. Buy / Sell panelUp and Down priced in cents, quick-add amounts and the potential return before you commit.
  6. Description, rules and commentsResolution criteria in plain words, and a thread to argue your side.
Onboarding

Log in. Pick a market. Send it.

The single biggest change: no wallet and no gas before the first bet. Social login replaced wallet-first onboarding, and after Bango integrated 0xGasless, predictions cost no gas at all. The interface never asks a newcomer to understand the chain.

Log in

Sign in with a social account. No wallet setup, no seed phrase up front.

Pick a market

Categories and live markets surface something worth betting on in seconds.

Send it

Choose Up or Down, set an amount, confirm. No gas prompt, no network switch.

Bango launch graphic announcing the official partnership with 0xGasless: zero gas fees on Bango, live on app.bango.fun.
Partnership launch graphic for 0xGasless, Sep 2025.
XP economy

A way to play before you pay

Newcomers needed a reason to try a bet without risking money. The XP system lets them earn points from daily quests and referrals, then bet with XP instead of USDC, switched with one toggle in the header. Leaderboards turn it into a game.

Bango Reward Center showing an XP balance card, referral and daily quest tabs, and a list of quests with XP rewards.
Reward Center: XP balance, quests, referrals.
Bango leaderboard with a podium of the top three predictors and a ranked table of users with their volume and returns.
Leaderboard with a top-three podium.
Bango profile page with avatar, followers, portfolio stats and a list of the user's positions.
Profile: followers, portfolio stats, positions.
Mobile

Colour-coded, so a feed of questions never blurs together

On a phone every card is the same size, so I gave each market a soft colour glow taken from its own image. You can tell a Porsche question from a campus party at a glance, and live markets expand to show the price chart right in the feed.

Bango mobile home: featured market, search, popular and ending soon tabs, and market cards each tinted with a different colour glow.
Bango mobile search results for BTC with a live market card expanded to show To Beat, Current price, countdown and a price chart.
Decision

One card component carries every topic. Colour comes from the market image, so new markets get a distinct look without extra design work.

Share cardBango share card for a winning position: Will Trump meet with Putin again by Dec 2025, plus 9.8 percent, with entry and market price.

A shareable PnL card, so wins spread back into the community.

Exploration

60-second Bango

A faster format: will Solana go up or down in the next 60 seconds? I designed the full loop, from choosing a side to the resolving state and the win, with streaks and multipliers to keep people playing.

60-second market page: Solana up or down, price chart, Up and Down buttons and expected return.
Choose a sideOne question, one chart, Up or Down, and the expected return.
Resolving state with a striped progress bar counting down the seconds.
ResolvingA striped progress bar makes the wait feel like part of the game.
Win popup: a gold coin, Prediction Correct, plus 30.12 dollars and a Try Bango Today button.
WinA clear payout moment, then straight into the next round.
Game page with a win multiplier of 3x, a current streak of 2 and a beta tester badge above the chart.
StreaksMultiplier and streak counters reward coming back.

NoteThis was a design exploration from October 2025. I'm showing it for the interaction design, not as a shipped feature.

02 Shipped in public

What went live, in order

  1. Testnet live, featured by AvaCloud

    Bango was an L1 Builder Spotlight on AvaCloud with an exclusive testnet code.

    View on X
  2. Funded by Avalanche Retro9000

    One of 8 projects in Cohort 2, which shared over $250K from the $40M pool.

    View on X
  3. Predictions go gasless

    0xGasless integration: no gas on any bet, powered by Avalanche.

    View on X
  4. XP point system live

    Earn XP, bet with XP, climb the leaderboard.

    View on X
  5. At TOKEN2049 Singapore

    The team met builders and investors; I designed the event graphics.

    View on X
  6. "Log in. Pick a market. Send it."

    Bango's walkthrough of the three-step betting flow.

    View on X
Bango graphic: our team will be at TOKEN2049 Singapore, Marina Bay Sands, 28 Sep to 2 Oct 2025.
TOKEN2049 announcement graphic.
03 Outcomes

A brand, two launches and a grant

Product
  • Two production versions shipped
  • Social login and gasless betting replaced wallet-first onboarding
Recognition
  • $10K Avalanche Retro9000 grant, Cohort 2
  • Featured in AvaCloud's L1 Builder Spotlight
Brand
  • A full brand kit used across product, socials and events
  • One UI system across web and mobile
04 Reflection

What I'd keep, change and do next

What worked
  • Removing the wallet from the first five minutes
  • Up / Down in cents is easier to read than yes / no percentages
  • XP gave newcomers a no-risk first bet
What I'd do next
  • Usability-test the market page with people who have never used crypto
  • Surface resolution rules earlier, before the first bet
  • Make market creation as simple as betting, for micro-communities
What I learned
  • The best crypto UX hides the crypto
  • A brand is a system, not a logo: it has to work in a feed card at 40px