About
At the end of 2024, I left my job as a UX designer to go full time into building on bitcoin. I’m currently a Human Rights Foundation grantee working on improving ecash design, and I’m the Lead Designer at Hoseki, where we’re building proof of ownership infrastructure for bitcoin.
Lately I’ve been getting deeper into UI engineering. I'm moving beyond Figma and ship my designs to life in code. I’ve been using Cursor a lot to build and ship faster, and it’s been fun pushing real projects out into the world.
Work Experience
Check out my latest work
I like building in public
- C
Cashu.me
I'm the second most active contributor to Cashu.me, responsible for much of the UI and UX design. I recently designed the mint review and web of trust features, helping users make more informed decisions about which mints to trust.
- B
Bitcoin For Signal
Created and led the Bitcoin for Signal campaign. I designed the brand identity, website, and promotional strategy that turned a hackathon project into a viral privacy-tech movement with significant community traction.
- B
Bitchat Cashu Wallet
Integrated a functional Cashu wallet into Bitchat for Android using Figma, Cursor, and Kotlin. Designed the UI in Figma and used Cursor to vibe coded the components into Kotlin. Entire build took 72 hours.
- M
Minor League Miners
My hackathon submission won first place in both the Software Prize and HashLeague tracks at ATL Bit Labs’ Battle of the Mine Hackers. It introduced a new leaderboard for small miners and solo Bitaxe users, ranking them by their best session difficulty rather than total hashrate. To build it I spun up my own public pool instance, connected its API to a forked version of HashLeague, and built a UI to display best-difficulty stats.
- A
Athenut
Athenut is a privacy-preserving, pay-per-query search engine built on Kagi and Cashu. I designed the brand identity and built the entire front-end. Users pay with ecash to search. No accounts, no tracking. For technical details, check out the No BS Bitcoin article.
- C
Cashu 95
Cashu 95 is a playful Figma prototype that reimagines the modern Cashu protocol with a retro Windows 95 interface. Built using a full Win95-style design system, it explores how old-school UI can still deliver a functional and fun ecash experience.
Speaking about bitcoin design
- 2
21 in 21, a Rapid-Fire Bitcoin Q&A Podcast
Recorded during Bitcoin Design Week in San Francisco. I talked about designing the future of money and how we can capture that feeling of 'magic' in digital money. Got into my experiments with ecash and bitchat, the magic of bump to pay NFC interactions, and how the small design details make a big difference. - B
Bitcoin Insider Interview
An interview with Lisa (Nity Nei), the founder of Bitcoin ++. We talked about how I got involved in Cashu, some designs I'm proud of, and what's coming next. - T
The State of Ecash Design
A talk I gave at Bitcoin ++ Privacy Edition in Riga focused on the current state of Cashu design, progress, challenges, and things that are ahead. - H
How Better Design Will Impact Bitcoin
Discussed the history of other peer to peer protocols like BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay, and how those early systems shaped my thinking around Bitcoin. We also got into wallet UX, how to simplify the orange pill process, and where scaling tools like ecash can make a difference. - W
What is "Good" Bitcoin Design?
This was a fun and thoughtful chat with Skyler, a fellow Bitcoin designer I really respect and admire. We talked about what it actually means to design in this space. Not just making things look good, but making them work well for real people. - E
Ecash Panel [Baltic Honey Badger]
A bit of a dream come true, I got to sit next to one of my heroes, Adam Back, and talk about ecash. This panel dives into what ecash is, what problems it solves (like privacy and scalability), and where it still falls short. - B
Bitcoin Design and Ecash UX
This was a fun one, recorded while walking along the river in Riga. We talked about designing peer-to-peer systems, the challenges of ecash UX, working on institutional products like Hoseki, and how cities like Stockholm and Riga inspire better design. - D
Designing for Ecash [Bitcoin Asia: Hong Kong]
A talk on the future of Bitcoin through the lens of ecash design, tracing its roots from David Chaum to modern Bitcoin implementations. It explores how ecash can improve privacy, reduce censorship risks, and bring better UX to Bitcoin. - S
Sprint Planning & Interviews
We talked about how sprint planning works in open source projects, and where user research can fit into the process to actually make an impact. - S
Scaling Bitcoin
A deep dive into Bitcoin design, privacy, and why tools like Cashu matter. We talked about scaling, culture, freedom of speech, and the trade-offs that come with building for a more open, resilient internet. - D
Designing for Bitcoin [Baltic Honey Badger]
A talk on the evolution of Bitcoin wallet UI, exploring common UX challenges and how different wallets address them. It also shares lessons from mainstream tech and the design trade-offs involved in building Bitcoin products. - N
Nostr 101: What the F#&* is Nostr?
Introduction to the Nostr protocol and its applications.
Get in Touch
Want to chat? Shoot me an email at erikcativo@pm.me, or reach out to me on X or Nostr and I'll respond as soon as I can.