Leveraged Mining
Designing a compliance-first mining management portal
TL;DR
Leveraged Mining is a web portal that helps Bitcoin mining clients document 100+ hours of business participation per year while also giving them a simple way to monitor mining performance, learn through curated content, and reach support. I designed the client product and admin system end to end, prioritizing credibility and consistent behavior over automation.
My Role
Role: Product Designer (End to End)
Platform: Web (desktop + mobile responsive)
Phase: MVP and V1
Scope: Client portal and internal admin dashboard
Core work: UX research, information architecture, interaction design, system patterns, admin tooling, iteration based on early usage signals
The Problem
Bitcoin mining clients in the U.S. face a documentation requirement: to qualify for common tax treatment, they often need to prove material participation, including maintaining a credible record of work performed over the year (commonly framed as 100+ hours).
The issue was not that clients were inactive. Most clients already:
check dashboards and payouts
review uptime and incidents
make decisions about expansion
learn about mining operations and strategy
communicate with hosting and support
The issue was that this activity was not documented consistently. Logs were scattered across spreadsheets, calendars, email threads, and memory. When tax season arrived, many clients tried to reconstruct months of work retroactively, producing records that were hard to defend.
Core problem: a credibility gap created by inconsistent documentation.
Research and What We Learned
Research was lightweight and embedded in real workflows rather than formal studies. I focused on understanding where documentation breaks down.
Research inputs
onboarding and support conversations with clients
review of recurring compliance-related questions and tickets
observation of how clients described their work and decisions
Key findings
Participation happens in short sessions (often 15 to 45 minutes).
Logging is delayed until it feels urgent, then becomes inaccurate.
Many users are unsure what qualifies as participation, so they under-log.
Automation reduces trust in this context. Users do not want a system that appears to manufacture hours.
These findings shaped both what we built and what we intentionally did not build.
Goals and Success Metrics
Product goals
Make participation logging easy enough to do consistently all year
Reduce ambiguity around what to log
Produce records that look credible and defensible over time
Keep the product simple enough to support as an MVP
Research-informed success metrics
Instead of focusing on usage vanity metrics, we defined metrics that reflect real documentation behavior:
Behavior metrics
Weekly logging frequency per client
Time to log a single activity
Ratio of same-day logs vs backfilled entries
Category usage rate (categories vs unstructured entries)
Outcome metrics
Percentage of clients reaching 100 hours before year-end
Reduction in compliance-related support questions
Constraints That Shaped the Design
This product evolved across two phases. The MVP focused on validating behavior change and credibility. V1 focused on improving clarity, robustness, and internal visibility based on early usage patterns.
Core constraints across both phases included:
Web-based delivery
Manual logging by design
Audit credibility prioritized over convenience
Logging needed to stay under one minute
Additional V1 constraints:
Preserve existing user behavior while improving structure
Avoid introducing features that weaken trust
Improve admin visibility without adding client-side friction
Users and Use Cases
Primary users: mining clients
risk-aware, time-conscious
not full-time operators, but actively engaged
need a reliable record without administrative overhead
Secondary users: internal admins
monitor participation patterns across clients
support audit readiness
manage content, categories, and client accounts
identify suspicious or risky logging behavior
Core use cases (client)
Log operational oversight and business work
Monitor performance and payouts
Learn through curated mining content
Reach support when issues arise
Track progress toward annual participation goals
Core use cases (admin)
Review activity patterns per client
Flag anomalies and investigate entries
Export records when requested
Maintain audit trails of edits and changes
Product Strategy Across MVP and V1
The product strategy unfolded in two deliberate stages.
MVP focus
The MVP was designed to answer one question:
Will users log participation consistently if ambiguity and friction are removed?
The MVP prioritized:
A simple participation logbook
Clear activity categories
Visible progress toward the annual goal
Read-only mining performance visibility
Basic support and expansion entry points
Automation, bulk backdating, and advanced reporting were intentionally excluded to protect credibility.
V1 focus
V1 built on validated MVP behavior and focused on:
Improving clarity and consistency of logged data
Strengthening admin oversight and audit readiness
Reducing edge-case ambiguity without restricting users
V1 additions emphasized system quality rather than feature expansion.
Information Architecture
The structure was built around a simple mental model clients already have:
What have I done?
How close am I to the goal?
What should I do next?
Logging and progress were central. Supporting features were always accessible but never dominant.
On the admin side, the structure mirrored the client model so internal reviews aligned with what clients actually see and do. This reduced confusion and helped maintain credibility during reviews.
Key UX Flows
1) Logging an activity (primary flow)
The most important flow was designed around speed and clarity.
Design choices
default date set to today to reduce input
categories to reduce ambiguity and improve consistency
free-text description for narrative detail
optional notes for evidence and context
immediate feedback and recent entries visible after logging
UX target: under one minute per entry.
2) Progress visibility (reinforcement)
Progress toward the annual goal is always visible. The UI is intentionally neutral:
no gamification
no pressure cues
no reward language
The goal is to encourage steady behavior without encouraging inflated entries.
3) Mining dashboard (supporting legitimacy)
Mining stats are presented as read-only, focused on oversight. This makes routine monitoring easier and keeps complexity out of the MVP.
Tradeoffs and Integrity Safeguards
This product required balancing usability with accountability.
Editing and deleting entries
Users can correct mistakes, but changes are tracked internally. This supports honest usage while keeping records explainable.
Anomalies are flagged, not blocked
Instead of hard limits, extreme entries are flagged for review. This avoids punishing legitimate edge cases while still surfacing risk patterns.
Manual logging is a feature here
Manual input reinforces intent and produces more credible records than passive automation, aligning with the product’s core job.
Admin Tooling
Admin tooling became a stronger focus in V1 after validating the core client behavior during MVP. As logging volume increased, internal visibility and explainability became critical to maintaining trust.
V1 improvements emphasized:
Better global visibility across clients
Clearer anomaly detection patterns
Stronger audit trails around edits and changes
More reliable export workflows
The admin system evolved alongside the client product, ensuring internal teams could confidently support audits and compliance questions.
Outcomes and Learnings
Impact signals we used
Across MVP and V1, success was evaluated through behavior signals rather than feature usage. MVP validated that consistent logging was possible when ambiguity was removed. V1 focused on reinforcing that behavior at scale and improving internal confidence in the data.
What V1 validated
Logging behavior remained consistent without adding automation
Clear categories improved data quality over time
Admin visibility reduced reactive compliance support
Trust was preserved by avoiding convenience shortcuts
What this project reinforced
Consistency beats intensity. Small actions recorded regularly win.
Convenience can erode trust in regulated contexts.
Restraint is a design skill, especially in MVPs.
Admin tooling is critical for long-term product integrity.
If I Took This to V2
Better exports (PDF/CSV) built for accountant workflows
Optional evidence attachments (with clear guidelines)
More proactive nudges that encourage consistency without pressuring inflation
Deeper admin analytics to spot disengagement early
V2 would build on V1 stability rather than expanding scope prematurely.
This project reinforced that strong product design is often about restraint rather than addition. By focusing on reducing ambiguity instead of automating behavior, Leveraged Mining helped turn work clients were already doing into records they could trust. Moving from MVP to V1 validated that credibility, consistency, and internal visibility matter more than feature breadth in regulated contexts. The result is a system designed not just to be used, but to hold up over time.
Check out some of my recent projects.
Leveraged Mining
Designing a compliance-first mining management portal
TL;DR
Leveraged Mining is a web portal that helps Bitcoin mining clients document 100+ hours of business participation per year while also giving them a simple way to monitor mining performance, learn through curated content, and reach support. I designed the client product and admin system end to end, prioritizing credibility and consistent behavior over automation.
My Role
Role: Product Designer (End to End)
Platform: Web (desktop + mobile responsive)
Phase: MVP and V1
Scope: Client portal and internal admin dashboard
Core work: UX research, information architecture, interaction design, system patterns, admin tooling, iteration based on early usage signals
The Problem
Bitcoin mining clients in the U.S. face a documentation requirement: to qualify for common tax treatment, they often need to prove material participation, including maintaining a credible record of work performed over the year (commonly framed as 100+ hours).
The issue was not that clients were inactive. Most clients already:
check dashboards and payouts
review uptime and incidents
make decisions about expansion
learn about mining operations and strategy
communicate with hosting and support
The issue was that this activity was not documented consistently. Logs were scattered across spreadsheets, calendars, email threads, and memory. When tax season arrived, many clients tried to reconstruct months of work retroactively, producing records that were hard to defend.
Core problem: a credibility gap created by inconsistent documentation.
Research and What We Learned
Research was lightweight and embedded in real workflows rather than formal studies. I focused on understanding where documentation breaks down.
Research inputs
onboarding and support conversations with clients
review of recurring compliance-related questions and tickets
observation of how clients described their work and decisions
Key findings
Participation happens in short sessions (often 15 to 45 minutes).
Logging is delayed until it feels urgent, then becomes inaccurate.
Many users are unsure what qualifies as participation, so they under-log.
Automation reduces trust in this context. Users do not want a system that appears to manufacture hours.
These findings shaped both what we built and what we intentionally did not build.
Goals and Success Metrics
Product goals
Make participation logging easy enough to do consistently all year
Reduce ambiguity around what to log
Produce records that look credible and defensible over time
Keep the product simple enough to support as an MVP
Research-informed success metrics
Instead of focusing on usage vanity metrics, we defined metrics that reflect real documentation behavior:
Behavior metrics
Weekly logging frequency per client
Time to log a single activity
Ratio of same-day logs vs backfilled entries
Category usage rate (categories vs unstructured entries)
Outcome metrics
Percentage of clients reaching 100 hours before year-end
Reduction in compliance-related support questions
Constraints That Shaped the Design
This product evolved across two phases. The MVP focused on validating behavior change and credibility. V1 focused on improving clarity, robustness, and internal visibility based on early usage patterns.
Core constraints across both phases included:
Web-based delivery
Manual logging by design
Audit credibility prioritized over convenience
Logging needed to stay under one minute
Additional V1 constraints:
Preserve existing user behavior while improving structure
Avoid introducing features that weaken trust
Improve admin visibility without adding client-side friction
Users and Use Cases
Primary users: mining clients
risk-aware, time-conscious
not full-time operators, but actively engaged
need a reliable record without administrative overhead
Secondary users: internal admins
monitor participation patterns across clients
support audit readiness
manage content, categories, and client accounts
identify suspicious or risky logging behavior
Core use cases (client)
Log operational oversight and business work
Monitor performance and payouts
Learn through curated mining content
Reach support when issues arise
Track progress toward annual participation goals
Core use cases (admin)
Review activity patterns per client
Flag anomalies and investigate entries
Export records when requested
Maintain audit trails of edits and changes
Product Strategy Across MVP and V1
The product strategy unfolded in two deliberate stages.
MVP focus
The MVP was designed to answer one question:
Will users log participation consistently if ambiguity and friction are removed?
The MVP prioritized:
A simple participation logbook
Clear activity categories
Visible progress toward the annual goal
Read-only mining performance visibility
Basic support and expansion entry points
Automation, bulk backdating, and advanced reporting were intentionally excluded to protect credibility.
V1 focus
V1 built on validated MVP behavior and focused on:
Improving clarity and consistency of logged data
Strengthening admin oversight and audit readiness
Reducing edge-case ambiguity without restricting users
V1 additions emphasized system quality rather than feature expansion.
Information Architecture
The structure was built around a simple mental model clients already have:
What have I done?
How close am I to the goal?
What should I do next?
Logging and progress were central. Supporting features were always accessible but never dominant.
On the admin side, the structure mirrored the client model so internal reviews aligned with what clients actually see and do. This reduced confusion and helped maintain credibility during reviews.
Key UX Flows
1) Logging an activity (primary flow)
The most important flow was designed around speed and clarity.
Design choices
default date set to today to reduce input
categories to reduce ambiguity and improve consistency
free-text description for narrative detail
optional notes for evidence and context
immediate feedback and recent entries visible after logging
UX target: under one minute per entry.
2) Progress visibility (reinforcement)
Progress toward the annual goal is always visible. The UI is intentionally neutral:
no gamification
no pressure cues
no reward language
The goal is to encourage steady behavior without encouraging inflated entries.
3) Mining dashboard (supporting legitimacy)
Mining stats are presented as read-only, focused on oversight. This makes routine monitoring easier and keeps complexity out of the MVP.
Tradeoffs and Integrity Safeguards
This product required balancing usability with accountability.
Editing and deleting entries
Users can correct mistakes, but changes are tracked internally. This supports honest usage while keeping records explainable.
Anomalies are flagged, not blocked
Instead of hard limits, extreme entries are flagged for review. This avoids punishing legitimate edge cases while still surfacing risk patterns.
Manual logging is a feature here
Manual input reinforces intent and produces more credible records than passive automation, aligning with the product’s core job.
Admin Tooling
Admin tooling became a stronger focus in V1 after validating the core client behavior during MVP. As logging volume increased, internal visibility and explainability became critical to maintaining trust.
V1 improvements emphasized:
Better global visibility across clients
Clearer anomaly detection patterns
Stronger audit trails around edits and changes
More reliable export workflows
The admin system evolved alongside the client product, ensuring internal teams could confidently support audits and compliance questions.
Outcomes and Learnings
Impact signals we used
Across MVP and V1, success was evaluated through behavior signals rather than feature usage. MVP validated that consistent logging was possible when ambiguity was removed. V1 focused on reinforcing that behavior at scale and improving internal confidence in the data.
What V1 validated
Logging behavior remained consistent without adding automation
Clear categories improved data quality over time
Admin visibility reduced reactive compliance support
Trust was preserved by avoiding convenience shortcuts
What this project reinforced
Consistency beats intensity. Small actions recorded regularly win.
Convenience can erode trust in regulated contexts.
Restraint is a design skill, especially in MVPs.
Admin tooling is critical for long-term product integrity.
If I Took This to V2
Better exports (PDF/CSV) built for accountant workflows
Optional evidence attachments (with clear guidelines)
More proactive nudges that encourage consistency without pressuring inflation
Deeper admin analytics to spot disengagement early
V2 would build on V1 stability rather than expanding scope prematurely.
This project reinforced that strong product design is often about restraint rather than addition. By focusing on reducing ambiguity instead of automating behavior, Leveraged Mining helped turn work clients were already doing into records they could trust. Moving from MVP to V1 validated that credibility, consistency, and internal visibility matter more than feature breadth in regulated contexts. The result is a system designed not just to be used, but to hold up over time.
Check out some of my recent projects.
Leveraged Mining
Designing a compliance-first mining management portal
TL;DR
Leveraged Mining is a web portal that helps Bitcoin mining clients document 100+ hours of business participation per year while also giving them a simple way to monitor mining performance, learn through curated content, and reach support. I designed the client product and admin system end to end, prioritizing credibility and consistent behavior over automation.
My Role
Role: Product Designer (End to End)
Platform: Web (desktop + mobile responsive)
Phase: MVP and V1
Scope: Client portal and internal admin dashboard
Core work: UX research, information architecture, interaction design, system patterns, admin tooling, iteration based on early usage signals
The Problem
Bitcoin mining clients in the U.S. face a documentation requirement: to qualify for common tax treatment, they often need to prove material participation, including maintaining a credible record of work performed over the year (commonly framed as 100+ hours).
The issue was not that clients were inactive. Most clients already:
check dashboards and payouts
review uptime and incidents
make decisions about expansion
learn about mining operations and strategy
communicate with hosting and support
The issue was that this activity was not documented consistently. Logs were scattered across spreadsheets, calendars, email threads, and memory. When tax season arrived, many clients tried to reconstruct months of work retroactively, producing records that were hard to defend.
Core problem: a credibility gap created by inconsistent documentation.
Research and What We Learned
Research was lightweight and embedded in real workflows rather than formal studies. I focused on understanding where documentation breaks down.
Research inputs
onboarding and support conversations with clients
review of recurring compliance-related questions and tickets
observation of how clients described their work and decisions
Key findings
Participation happens in short sessions (often 15 to 45 minutes).
Logging is delayed until it feels urgent, then becomes inaccurate.
Many users are unsure what qualifies as participation, so they under-log.
Automation reduces trust in this context. Users do not want a system that appears to manufacture hours.
These findings shaped both what we built and what we intentionally did not build.
Goals and Success Metrics
Product goals
Make participation logging easy enough to do consistently all year
Reduce ambiguity around what to log
Produce records that look credible and defensible over time
Keep the product simple enough to support as an MVP
Research-informed success metrics
Instead of focusing on usage vanity metrics, we defined metrics that reflect real documentation behavior:
Behavior metrics
Weekly logging frequency per client
Time to log a single activity
Ratio of same-day logs vs backfilled entries
Category usage rate (categories vs unstructured entries)
Outcome metrics
Percentage of clients reaching 100 hours before year-end
Reduction in compliance-related support questions
Constraints That Shaped the Design
This product evolved across two phases. The MVP focused on validating behavior change and credibility. V1 focused on improving clarity, robustness, and internal visibility based on early usage patterns.
Core constraints across both phases included:
Web-based delivery
Manual logging by design
Audit credibility prioritized over convenience
Logging needed to stay under one minute
Additional V1 constraints:
Preserve existing user behavior while improving structure
Avoid introducing features that weaken trust
Improve admin visibility without adding client-side friction
Users and Use Cases
Primary users: mining clients
risk-aware, time-conscious
not full-time operators, but actively engaged
need a reliable record without administrative overhead
Secondary users: internal admins
monitor participation patterns across clients
support audit readiness
manage content, categories, and client accounts
identify suspicious or risky logging behavior
Core use cases (client)
Log operational oversight and business work
Monitor performance and payouts
Learn through curated mining content
Reach support when issues arise
Track progress toward annual participation goals
Core use cases (admin)
Review activity patterns per client
Flag anomalies and investigate entries
Export records when requested
Maintain audit trails of edits and changes
Product Strategy Across MVP and V1
The product strategy unfolded in two deliberate stages.
MVP focus
The MVP was designed to answer one question:
Will users log participation consistently if ambiguity and friction are removed?
The MVP prioritized:
A simple participation logbook
Clear activity categories
Visible progress toward the annual goal
Read-only mining performance visibility
Basic support and expansion entry points
Automation, bulk backdating, and advanced reporting were intentionally excluded to protect credibility.
V1 focus
V1 built on validated MVP behavior and focused on:
Improving clarity and consistency of logged data
Strengthening admin oversight and audit readiness
Reducing edge-case ambiguity without restricting users
V1 additions emphasized system quality rather than feature expansion.
Information Architecture
The structure was built around a simple mental model clients already have:
What have I done?
How close am I to the goal?
What should I do next?
Logging and progress were central. Supporting features were always accessible but never dominant.
On the admin side, the structure mirrored the client model so internal reviews aligned with what clients actually see and do. This reduced confusion and helped maintain credibility during reviews.
Key UX Flows
1) Logging an activity (primary flow)
The most important flow was designed around speed and clarity.
Design choices
default date set to today to reduce input
categories to reduce ambiguity and improve consistency
free-text description for narrative detail
optional notes for evidence and context
immediate feedback and recent entries visible after logging
UX target: under one minute per entry.
2) Progress visibility (reinforcement)
Progress toward the annual goal is always visible. The UI is intentionally neutral:
no gamification
no pressure cues
no reward language
The goal is to encourage steady behavior without encouraging inflated entries.
3) Mining dashboard (supporting legitimacy)
Mining stats are presented as read-only, focused on oversight. This makes routine monitoring easier and keeps complexity out of the MVP.
Tradeoffs and Integrity Safeguards
This product required balancing usability with accountability.
Editing and deleting entries
Users can correct mistakes, but changes are tracked internally. This supports honest usage while keeping records explainable.
Anomalies are flagged, not blocked
Instead of hard limits, extreme entries are flagged for review. This avoids punishing legitimate edge cases while still surfacing risk patterns.
Manual logging is a feature here
Manual input reinforces intent and produces more credible records than passive automation, aligning with the product’s core job.
Admin Tooling
Admin tooling became a stronger focus in V1 after validating the core client behavior during MVP. As logging volume increased, internal visibility and explainability became critical to maintaining trust.
V1 improvements emphasized:
Better global visibility across clients
Clearer anomaly detection patterns
Stronger audit trails around edits and changes
More reliable export workflows
The admin system evolved alongside the client product, ensuring internal teams could confidently support audits and compliance questions.
Outcomes and Learnings
Impact signals we used
Across MVP and V1, success was evaluated through behavior signals rather than feature usage. MVP validated that consistent logging was possible when ambiguity was removed. V1 focused on reinforcing that behavior at scale and improving internal confidence in the data.
What V1 validated
Logging behavior remained consistent without adding automation
Clear categories improved data quality over time
Admin visibility reduced reactive compliance support
Trust was preserved by avoiding convenience shortcuts
What this project reinforced
Consistency beats intensity. Small actions recorded regularly win.
Convenience can erode trust in regulated contexts.
Restraint is a design skill, especially in MVPs.
Admin tooling is critical for long-term product integrity.
If I Took This to V2
Better exports (PDF/CSV) built for accountant workflows
Optional evidence attachments (with clear guidelines)
More proactive nudges that encourage consistency without pressuring inflation
Deeper admin analytics to spot disengagement early
V2 would build on V1 stability rather than expanding scope prematurely.
This project reinforced that strong product design is often about restraint rather than addition. By focusing on reducing ambiguity instead of automating behavior, Leveraged Mining helped turn work clients were already doing into records they could trust. Moving from MVP to V1 validated that credibility, consistency, and internal visibility matter more than feature breadth in regulated contexts. The result is a system designed not just to be used, but to hold up over time.