Led design for Moby and the Signal payments integration — making private, encrypted payments accessible to everyday users at scale.

I led design across MobileCoin's brand and product — from the ground-up creation of Moby, a private peer-to-peer payments app, to the Signal payments integration. Working with a team of two designers, I owned the full design system, UX architecture, and partnership prototypes while collaborating directly with executive leadership, compliance, engineering, and Signal's own design team.

Overview

TITLE

Lead Product Designer

TEAM

2 designers (led)

PLATFORM

iOS · Android · Web

STAGE

0 → shipped, 2021–2023

Bob Lee — Chief Product Officer
Josh Goldbard — CEO
David Ackerman — Head of Compliance
Razan Hantash — Product Manager
Signal design team — Partnership integration
Engineering, legal & security — Cross-functional

Worked directly with

UX architecture & systems
End-to-end flows, design system, interaction patterns, iconography

Brand direction
MobileCoin rebrand and full Moby consumer brand from scratch

Partnership design
Signal integration and Western Union prototype for executive discussions

Compliance & trust flows
KYC wait states, privacy communication, PrivatePay trademark

The Challenge

MobileCoin's technology was technically sophisticated — privacy-preserving, fast, and built for real-world payments. The design challenge wasn't the technology. It was making people trust it enough to use it.

PROBLEM 1

Trust

Crypto terminology, abstract brand language, and an unfamiliar product category created a wall between MobileCoin and everyday users. People didn't understand it — and what people don't understand, they don't trust with their money.

PROBLEM 2

Complexity

Wallets, blockchain addresses, KYC delays, volatile assets — none of it mapped to how non-technical users think about sending money to a friend. Every step that required crypto knowledge was a step closer to abandonment.

PROBLEM 3

Stakes

This wasn't a greenfield product with room to iterate quietly. Signal payments, a stablecoin launch, a consumer app, and regulatory scrutiny were all live simultaneously. The design had to be right — and it had to hold together across all of it.

Adoption and credibility depended on making complex technology feel simple, trustworthy, and human. That was the brief.

Core UX problems I solved

  • Explaining wallets without crypto knowledge

    Most users didn't know what a wallet was, why they needed one, or how blockchain worked. I designed onboarding that framed wallet creation as a simple account setup — familiar language, no technical prerequisites.

  • Hiding blockchain complexity

    Users interacted with familiar payment metaphors — contacts, amount entry, confirmation. Blockchain operations happened entirely in the background. The technology was invisible; the experience was human.

  • KYC wait states

    Compliance checks created delays with no feedback — a recipe for abandonment. I designed status messaging and progressive disclosure so users always knew where they were in the process and why the wait was worth it.

  • Stablecoin education

    We introduced eUSD to solve crypto volatility — but only if users understood what made it different from MOB. I created visual and interaction patterns that clearly distinguished stable value from volatile assets without requiring a finance degree.

  • Sending without a recipient wallet

    We enabled payments to phone numbers or contacts even if the recipient hadn't created an account yet. Funds held securely until they onboarded. This removed the biggest edge-case friction point in peer-to-peer crypto payments.

Key Design Contributions

Designing payments for Signal

40M+ existing users · Cross-company collaboration

Signal had built one of the world's most trusted communication platforms on a single promise: privacy. Adding payments meant extending that promise into a category — financial transactions — where trust is even harder to earn. Getting it wrong wouldn't just be a bad feature. It would break what Signal had spent years building.

I led the design of the in-message payment experience, working directly with Signal's design team to ensure every interaction felt native to their product — not bolted on from ours.

Sending to non-activated users
Payments had to work even if the recipient hadn't set up payments yet — funds held until they did.

Signal’s design standards
Every pattern had to feel indistinguishable from Signal's existing UI — their brand, their philosophy, their users.

Funding wallets inside Signal
Users needed a way to add funds without leaving the app or encountering crypto friction.

External wallet interactions
Designed flows for users moving funds between MobileCoin and external wallets without confusion.

The Result

A payments experience that shipped to Signal's full user base — designed to feel as private and trustworthy as the messages it sat beside. This required sustained cross-company collaboration, careful UX judgment under constraint, and the ability to design for an audience and brand that weren't mine.

Covered at launch by TechCrunch and CoinDesk

Communicating Privacy Simply

We trademarked PrivatePay to make encryption understandable.

UX strategies included:

  • Clear labeling of private transactions

  • Subtle visual treatments such as blurred sensitive data

  • Consistent iconography signaling security

  • Plain language explanations

The goal was confidence without fear.

Covered at launch by Business Wire

Western Union Prototype

I worked with the executive team to design a prototype demonstrating how users could:

  • Convert MOB or eUSD to cash

  • Transfer funds through Western Union

  • Withdraw at physical locations

The prototype supported partnership discussions and strategic alignment.

What shipped

Detailed analytics are confidential — but the work shipped, the partnerships held, and the product it built is still live.

January 2023

Moby launched

Consumer payments app live in app stores — built from zero to shipped with a team of two designers.

Covered at launch by TechCrunch • Business Wire

Partnership

Signal integration shipped

Payments accessible to 40M+ existing Signal users at launch — designed to feel native to Signal's product.

Announced on Signal’s official blog

Executive partnership

Western Union prototype

Prototype designed to support strategic partnership discussions at the executive level.

February 2023

eUSD stablecoin launched

First stable asset on the platform, with new UX patterns distinguishing it clearly from volatile crypto.

Covered at launch by CoinDesk

IP

PrivatePay trademarked

A UX concept I developed to communicate encryption in plain language became a trademarked brand asset.

Covered at launch by Business Wire

Lasting foundation

Product continues as Sentz

The design system and product foundation built during this period continues to underpin the product today.

Reflection

This project strengthened my ability to translate complex technology into accessible experiences. Designing at the intersection of finance, privacy, and compliance required deep collaboration across engineering, legal, and leadership teams.

It also reinforced the importance of trust as a design outcome. Users adopt financial tools when they feel safe, not when they understand every technical detail.

Acknowledgment

Bob Lee was not only the Chief Product Officer on this project, but also a dear friend and mentor to me. His belief in building technology that empowers individuals shaped the direction of this work and my growth as a designer.

After Bob’s passing in 2023, I chose to step away from the company to process the loss and take time for reflection. Working alongside him remains one of the most meaningful experiences of my career, and his commitment to accessibility, generosity, and human-centered technology continues to influence how I design today.