Swirly: the Circle Invest assistant

Now that my beloved Circle Invest has reached the end of its journey, I wanted to look back at an awesome feature that never made it from concept to launch: the Crypto Assistant, AKA "Swirly."

Circle Invest aimed to make buying crypto assets simple and approachable. To further that mission, we devised a friendly little "assistant" character. Swirly would pop up now and then to suggest coins to buy, explain tough crypto concepts, and help you to write letters. Swirly really like writing letters.

I had the distinct honor of designing Swirly, with its eager googly eyes, goofy grin, and twisty body—which, of course, represented the convoluted world of crypto. I also designed Swirly's presentation in the app, as shown in these high fidelity mockups created in cutting-edge design software.

Sadly, Swirly never made it to production. Resources were tight, and we had to prioritize features like recurring buys, crypto collections, and the "Explore" tab. Alas, I can't help but wonder: if we had shipped Swirly, would Circle Invest's fate have been different? The world will never know.