An exchange inside Telegram, for people who had never traded.

Most people who opened Blum had never placed a trade, and Telegram was where they already were. So Blum put the exchange inside Telegram: tokens from centralised and decentralised markets in one list, trades from the wallet people already had, and no chain to choose.

The first screen does what a trading app usually leaves for later: a watchlist and what is moving today, before any account. Creating one is a single button above the market, not a wall in front of it.

Blum still had to bring people to the first trade. The way in was a loop: farm points, play a thirty-second drop game, keep a daily streak, invite friends. Each step introduced something trading would later rely on: a balance that grows, a timer, a reward you claim.

The game is three rules. Catch the falling clovers; a freeze stops the clock for three seconds; a bomb costs points and flashes the screen red. The working file specifies every state, the haptics and how the score counts up, so engineers could build it exactly.

On 4 July 2024 the calligraffiti artist Pokras Lampas posted that he had hacked Blum. It was a collaboration. The app wore his hand: magenta calligraffiti over the home screen, a drop game of chrome flowers, hearts and stars, a reward with a chrome thumbs-up, and a system dialog that reads Hacked by Pokras Lampas.

Everything stayed in the hacker’s voice, down to a to-do list with “Get hacked by Pokras” at number four and a poster of demands: complete new tasks in the game, follow the artist, share his work.

Blum grew from a points app into an exchange: spot trading and Memepad launches on TON, then the Terminal across Solana and BNB Chain, then perpetual futures in September 2025.

Perps is where a design can hurt people, so the order slows down where it should. Leverage shows the margin it puts at risk before you commit; anything high comes with a plain warning that it raises the risk of liquidation and that newer traders should go lower. Orders end on a confirmation with type, margin, leverage, size and liquidation price, which an experienced trader can switch off.

The Exchange Kit holds 108 designed states for placing a perps order, on mobile and desktop, and the Wallet Kit puts four wallets behind one hub: spot, perps, points and a connected wallet.

Brand OS was a pilot for a second register: calm and future-neutral, for the moments inside the app. Light sources, shadow and atmosphere instead of coins and charts. Minimal copy, soft shadows, velvet blacks, sand and rose neutrals.

It came as rules, not moodboards. A story cover gets one hero image, a title of two words at most, one short line and one action, and no busy collages, meme sprites or stock-icon mashups. A big launch gets a looped spotlight of four to six seconds; a concept gets two or three slides: what it is, how it works, what to do.

Success was written down as measures: quiz completion, time to first action and share taps on the refreshed surfaces, and a usability score before and after.