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Crowdfunding, built on a chain with no tooling

Bittensor is one of the most interesting networks in crypto, but its ecosystem is young. No mature wallet libraries, no drop-in connection kits, none of the infrastructure EVM developers take for granted. Bitstarter needed a full crowdfunding platform where Kickstarter mechanics meets Reddit-style community engagement.

I led design and frontend across the platform. Early launches raised 2k+ TAO ($500K+ USD) across 5 projects from over 200 contributors, with the fastest crowdfund closing in under an hour.

My responsibilities

Lead Product Designer — Designed the platform end-to-end: project pages with live pledge trackers, a Reddit-style comment and voting system, an ideas forum, submission flows, and an admin CMS for managing crowdloans.
Frontend Development — Built the frontend across the platform. Designing and developing in the same hands meant edge cases got caught in code rather than lost in a design handover.
Onchain UX on an unsupported chain — Bittensor has no wagmi, no RainbowKit, no drop-in wallet modal. Polkadot.js sits under the hood, but it's low-level Substrate tooling, not a developer experience built for consumer products. A lot of custom work went into making wallet connection and transaction flows feel as seamless as what users expect from more established ecosystems.

Product design

Animated assets

Marketing website

Dan Heywood

Senior Product Designer & Dev

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