Bullish — slwong

FinTech Strategy | Institutional UX | Trading Systems | Compliance & Risk Frameworks

Bullish: Institutional OTC Trade Builder

Architecting a high-throughput negotiation and execution engine for institutional-scale digital asset transactions.

Key Objective: To build a bespoke "request-for-quote" (RFQ) and trade-building environment that allows institutional counterparties to execute large-block orders with minimal slippage and maximum privacy.

Challenge: How might we design a high-precision tool for pro-traders that facilitates over-the-counter (OTC) trading, enabling the seamless execution of high-volume transactions while maintaining the rigorous transparency and risk management standards of a regulated exchange?

The Client:
Bullish
(NYSE: BLSH | Institutional Digital Asset Exchange)

Product Link >

My Role:
Senior Product Designer

Responsible for translating complex institutional trading workflows into a streamlined, compliant OTC negotiation interface.

The Delivery:

Strategic UX Flow:
End-to-end negotiation-to-settlement journey for complex OTC products.
Pro-Trader Interface (Responsive):
A high-density, low-latency UI optimized for rapid decision-making.
System Validation: Collaborative refinement of business and technical requirements with institutional stakeholders to ensure SOC2 and regulatory alignment.

The Impact:
🚀 Institutional Scaling: Supported a platform that reached $244.8 billion in annual digital asset sales (FY 2025), catering specifically to institutional-grade trading requirements.

🚀Rapid Adoption: Supported a product environment that enabled Bullish to become a Top 5 global venue by BTC volume and the #2 exchange for BTC options open interest ($4B as of Jan 2026).

🚀 Proven Reliability: Designed for a platform trusted by the world's largest liquidity providers (e.g., B2C2), facilitating seamless 24/7/365 institutional execution.

Feature Brief
The OTC UI provides a user interface to all the functionality provided by the OTC Trade facility. The primary features are:

OTC Booking UI: Provides an interface for users to book an OTC trade
OTC Match Blotter: View a live blotter of users’ OTC trades and status
OTC Positions: View all OTC positions held at Bullish
OTC Trades: View the history of OTC trade bookings and trade legs

1. Market Research

OTC vs RFQ Trading -

Market Insight:
In the current market, tools for Over-The-Counter (OTC) trading are limited, especially for pro traders. Instead, Request for Quote (RFQ) systems are more commonly used—particularly by retail clients.

Below is a comparison highlighting the key differences between OTC trading and RFQ:

2. Competitive Analysis

Derbit & Binance flow, features, UIUX analysis -

I analyzed the RFQ functions of two key industry players: Deribit (a leader in options and futures trading) and Binance (a leading retail crypto exchange). The review focused on their trading flows, feature sets, and included a UI/UX analysis to identify best practices and gaps.

3. Design Approach

Existing modal Audition(Bullish) -

Identifying reusable design patterns to implement new functions across the platform — ensuring UI/UX consistency while reducing development effort and improving scalability.

4. Design Process:

Ecosystem Flow Design Process -

I began by designing the overall user flow to understand how the ecosystem functions when a trade order is initiated within the OTC Trade Builder.

Trader Builder Flow Design Process -

I conducted a deep dive into the Cornea flow, detailing how users can construct a trade, add legs, simulate amount and risk, submit, and cancel orders within the interface.

Wireframe Exploration:

Builder structure -

I designed multiple wireframe options to help the business and development teams evaluate different structural approaches for the OTC Trade Builder:

Option 1: "Partial Reveal" – Optimized for a more engaging experience by progressively disclosing information, helping users manage complexity and reduce information overload.
Option 2: "Parallel Design" – Focused on efficiency, allowing traders to view and compare multiple trade components side by side to support faster decision-making.

Final Structure Design Decision:
The final approach reflects a constructive trade-off between business goals and stakeholder feedback, with a clear priority placed on streamlining the trade construction process to best support user needs and strategic objectives.

UI design:

Screen Flow Design-

I designed responsive desktop, tablet, and mobile versions of the OTC Trade Builder to ensure seamless Day 1 adoption across all key platforms and user environments.

Extreme Case Design -
Button and Data Overload in One Row

Objective

To test the limits of usability and visual clarity when an interface row must display:

Multiple action buttons
High-volume data fields
Limited horizontal space in mobile

Design Considerations

Action Prioritization
Use of space-saving patterns (iconography)
Use of a long-press gesture for the device

Agile Collaboration:

Future version (Adding trade with strategies) -

Following an agile approach, I typically provide multiple design versions to support the development team’s adaptation, aligning with their implementation timelines and sprint goals.

Launched: Sep 2025 | Product Link

Option Trading Reward Program Dashboard

Strategy:
Scales institutional liquidity by transforming complex incentive structures into a transparent, gamified performance ecosystem. By tracking real-time market share and leaderboards, it leverages behavioral psychology to stimulate high-volume trading among top-tier participants.

UX:
Reduces cognitive load by distilling multi-variable financial math into a skimmable, top-down hierarchy. Clear metric anchors provide instant performance validation, while a clear three-step calculation breakdown removes ambiguity for busy traders.

UI:
Utilizes a premium, high-contrast dark-mode theme engineered for high-density terminal screens. Complex data—like margin thresholds and reward pool distributions—is communicated via clean, minimal data visualizations that maximize readability under pressure.