Unlockd - DeFi Lending Platform Case Study

A portfolio case study documenting my frontend engineering work on a DeFi lending platform that enabled NFT-backed loans.

Next.jsTypeScriptWeb3DeFiReact

Portfolio Case Study: This page is a professional portfolio case study documenting my engineering work. Unlockd ceased operations in 2025. This is not an active financial service or application. All content describes past technical contributions as a Senior Frontend Blockchain Engineer.

Project Overview

Unlockd was a DeFi lending platform that enabled NFT holders to unlock instant liquidity by using their digital assets as collateral—without selling them. By integrating directly with major NFT marketplaces, Unlockd allowed users to borrow against blue-chip collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and other high-value NFTs, offering competitive lending rates and automated liquidation protection.

I joined Unlockd as a Senior Frontend Blockchain Developer during a critical scaling phase, working remotely with a lean frontend team. At this stage, the business needed to improve conversion, retention, and observability while continuing to ship complex Web3 features safely in a high-risk financial environment. My role focused on translating business requirements—growth, analytics, engagement, and operational efficiency—into robust frontend architecture and user-facing features.

The platform’s complexity stemmed from tight coupling between UI state, wallet interactions, on-chain data, and financial risk calculations, where frontend reliability directly impacted user trust, platform revenue, and regulatory exposure.

Core Platform Capabilities

  • NFT-Collateralized Lending – Borrow against NFTs without liquidating long-term holdings
  • Earn Module – Liquidity providers deposit assets to earn yield
  • Marketplace & Auctions – Buy, sell, and liquidate NFTs directly within the platform
  • Loan Health Monitoring – Real-time alerts to prevent forced liquidations
  • Multi-Wallet Support – MetaMask, WalletConnect, and other Web3 wallets
  • Cross-Collection Valuation – Dynamic pricing across multiple NFT collections
  • Marketing-Driven Landing Pages – CMS-managed content for rapid growth experiments

My Role & Contributions

Senior Frontend Blockchain Developer

Unlockd · Spain (Remote)
February 2023 – September 2023

I operated at the intersection of product, engineering, and growth, ensuring frontend systems scaled with increasing user demand while remaining secure, observable, and maintainable.

Contribution Areas (Linked to Business Outcomes)

1. Web3 Frontend Architecture & Smart Contract Integration

Business Need:
Enable secure, intuitive user interactions with blockchain smart contracts while minimizing errors in a high-stakes financial environment.

Technical Implementation:

  • Built interactive Next.js layouts using TypeScript, closely aligned with Figma designs to ensure design-to-code accuracy.
  • Integrated Ethers.js library for blockchain connectivity, request signing, and smart contract interactions.
  • Enforced strong typing across blockchain interaction flows, reducing runtime failures and edge-case bugs.
  • Improved error handling and user feedback across lending, earning, and dashboard modules.

Business Impact:
Clearer interface states and more reliable blockchain interactions increased user confidence, reduced failed actions, and improved retention.

2. Analytics & Product Intelligence (Primary Ownership)

Business Need:
The platform lacked visibility into user behavior, making it difficult to identify funnel drop-offs, feature adoption, and revenue-impacting actions.

Technical Solution:
Implemented a centralized analytics architecture using Raleon, designed to be type-safe, environment-aware, and easy to extend.

What I Implemented:

  • Built a reusable registerRaleonEvent utility to standardize analytics across the app.
  • Instrumented critical user journeys:
    • Borrow and repay flows
    • Earn deposits and withdrawals
    • Marketplace actions (bids, listings, purchases)
    • Wallet approvals and navigation behavior
  • Ensured mainnet-only tracking to preserve data quality.
  • Established event naming conventions and documentation for team-wide consistency.

Business Impact:
Product and growth teams gained actionable insights into conversion funnels, user friction, and feature adoption, enabling data-driven roadmap and UX decisions.

3. Blockchain-Native Messaging & Notifications (Full Ownership)

Business Need:
Users required timely, blockchain-native communication for account health updates, auction notifications, and critical system events.

Technical Implementation:

  • Integrated Hashmail messaging system for blockchain address-based notifications.
  • Developed a reusable HashmailScript component for secure initialization and user identification.
  • Implemented connection state management to maintain notification consistency.
  • Resolved mainnet notification delivery issues affecting alert reliability.

Business Impact:
Improved user engagement and platform awareness, reducing missed notifications and increasing trust in platform reliability.

4. Marketplace & Auction Experience (Shared Ownership)

Business Need:
Marketplace and auction flows were core revenue drivers and required transparent, responsive UX.

Contributions:

  • Enhanced marketplace UI components, including auction cards and activity feeds.
  • Added analytics tracking for bids, listings, and purchases.
  • Improved real-time feedback during auction and bidding flows.

Business Impact:
Clearer interactions and better analytics visibility into revenue-generating actions across the NFT marketplace.

5. CMS-Driven Landing Pages for Growth Teams

Business Need:
Marketing teams needed the ability to iterate on landing pages without engineering bottlenecks.

Technical Solution:
Built and integrated a dynamic landing page using Sanity CMS and GraphQL.

What I Delivered:

  • Enabled non-technical teams to update copy, layouts, and campaigns independently.

Business Impact:
Reduced developer dependency for marketing updates and accelerated go-to-market experiments.

6. Scalable UI & Design Systems

Business Need:
Support rapid product iteration without sacrificing consistency, performance, or maintainability.

What I Delivered:

  • Built responsive, utility-first React components using TailwindCSS.
  • Ensured mobile-first compatibility across all core user flows.
  • Leveraged Storybook to promote component reuse and design consistency.
  • Evaluated emerging frontend tools to ensure alignment with scaling and product goals.

Technologies Used

Frontend & Web3

  • React, Next.js, TypeScript, Ethers.js

Styling & UI

  • TailwindCSS, Figma, Storybook

Data & CMS

  • Sanity CMS, GraphQL

Analytics & Messaging

  • Raleon, Hashmail

Tooling & Collaboration

  • Git, Linear

Conclusion

Working at Unlockd reinforced the critical intersection between frontend engineering and business outcomes in DeFi. In a high-stakes financial environment, every frontend decision—from analytics implementation to wallet messaging—directly impacted user trust, platform revenue, and risk management. My contributions enabled product teams to measure and optimize growth, empowered users with timely wallet-native communication, and freed marketing teams from engineering bottlenecks. This experience deepened my understanding of how thoughtful frontend architecture serves not just users, but the entire business, ensuring the platform remained secure, observable, and maintainable as it scaled. Unlockd taught me that in Web3 financial products, the frontend is not just an interface—it’s a critical layer of the business infrastructure.