Pan-European Crypto UX Research: Unlocking Onboarding Insights Across Six Markets

Cryptocurrency platforms face a universal challenge: turning curious visitors into confident users. The onboarding journey — those critical first moments when someone creates an account, verifies their identity, and makes their first transaction — can make or break user retention. Get it right, and you've gained a loyal customer. Get it wrong, and they've already downloaded a competitor's app.

With European fintech adoption surging past 547 million users, cryptocurrency platforms are racing to capture market share. When a leading cryptocurrency exchange approached MindMarket to understand why European users were dropping off during onboarding, we knew this wasn't a job for surveys or analytics dashboards alone. The numbers told them what was happening. They needed us to uncover why.

The Challenge: Understanding Crypto Users Across Borders

Our client, Coinbase, had ambitious European expansion plans but faced a familiar problem: onboarding flows that worked brilliantly in one market fell flat in another. Completion rates varied wildly between countries, and internal teams were divided on whether the issues were technical, cultural, or something else entirely.

They needed answers — and they needed them fast.

The brief was clear: conduct qualitative UX research across six key European markets to understand how users experience the onboarding process on competitor platforms. What frustrates them? What builds trust? What makes them abandon ship halfway through KYC verification?

Most importantly, they wanted insights they could actually use — not a 200-page report that would gather dust on a shared drive.

Our Approach: Human-First Research at Scale

Here's where things get interesting. Traditional market research might tackle a project like this sequentially — one country at a time, stretched over months. But cryptocurrency moves fast, and our client couldn't afford to wait.

We assembled a team spanning six countries — Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom — and ran the entire study simultaneously. Ten participants per market. Sixty in-depth interviews. All completed within three weeks.

✨ The secret? Local expertise paired with central coordination.

Each market had native-speaking moderators who understood not just the language, but the cultural nuances that shape how people think about money, technology, and trust. A German user's concerns about data security aren't the same as a Spanish user's expectations around customer support. These differences matter enormously when you're trying to build a platform that feels intuitive to everyone.

Our recruitment process was deliberately rigorous. We weren't looking for crypto enthusiasts who'd happily talk about blockchain for hours. We targeted active users of competitor platforms — people who had recently gone through onboarding elsewhere and could compare experiences with fresh eyes. Finding these participants required careful screening: they needed to meet specific usage criteria, have accounts on particular exchanges, and be willing to share honest feedback about their experiences.

Inside the Research: What We Actually Did

Each interview lasted 60-90 minutes and followed a semi-structured format. We wanted consistency across markets, but we also wanted space for participants to surprise us — and they did.

The sessions combined several elements:

Retrospective walkthroughs — Participants talked us through their actual onboarding experiences, screen by screen, emotion by emotion. Where did they feel confident? Where did they hesitate? What nearly made them give up?

Comparative exploration — We showed participants elements from various crypto exchange interfaces (anonymised, of course) and asked them to react. Which designs felt trustworthy? Which felt confusing or suspicious?

Future visioning — What would their ideal onboarding experience look like? If they could wave a magic wand, what would change?

Throughout the process, our client team observed sessions in real-time via live video links with simultaneous interpretation. This wasn't research that disappeared into a black box for weeks — they were hearing user voices directly, watching reactions unfold, and already forming hypotheses before we'd finished fieldwork.

One product manager told us:

I learned more in three days of watching interviews than I had in six months of looking at dashboards.

The Insights: What European Crypto Users Actually Want

The findings challenged several assumptions the client team had held dear. Here's what emerged:

Trust is built in unexpected moments. Users didn't just want security features — they wanted visible security features. Progress indicators during document verification, clear explanations of why certain information was needed, and confirmation messages that acknowledged the sensitivity of what they were sharing. The absence of these small touches created anxiety, even when the underlying security was robust.

KYC friction isn't always bad. This surprised everyone. Participants from markets with stricter financial regulations — shaped by frameworks like the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) — such as Germany or the Netherlands actually expected thorough verification processes. When onboarding felt too quick or too easy, it triggered suspicion rather than delight. This aligns with the stringent KYC and verification standards now required across European crypto platforms. "If they're not checking my identity properly," one German participant explained, "how do I know they're checking everyone else's?"

Language localisation goes deeper than translation. Several platforms had technically accurate translations that still felt wrong to native speakers. Financial terminology, error messages, and support content all needed local adaptation — not just linguistic conversion. Italian users, for instance, responded much better to warmer, more conversational tone in help text, while Dutch users preferred direct, no-nonsense communication.

Mobile experience expectations vary dramatically. UK users overwhelmingly preferred completing onboarding on mobile, while German and French users were more likely to start on desktop, particularly for document uploads. Platforms optimised exclusively for mobile were losing conversions in key markets.

The "why" behind data requests matters. Users across all markets were willing to provide personal information when they understood the purpose. Unexplained data requests — particularly those that seemed unrelated to financial services — created immediate friction and drop-off.

The Outcome: Research That Actually Changed Things

The intelligence gathered wasn't just interesting — it was transformative.

Our client used the insights to fundamentally rethink their European onboarding flow. Specific changes included redesigned progress indicators, market-specific copy adaptations, and a new approach to explaining verification requirements that addressed the "why" before asking for sensitive information.

The research also influenced broader strategic decisions about market prioritisation and localisation investment. Understanding how different European users think about cryptocurrency — not just whether they use it — gave the product and marketing teams a foundation for smarter decision-making.

📈 Perhaps most valuably, the client team now had a shared understanding of their users. Those 60 hours of interview footage became a reference library that product managers, designers, and marketers could return to whenever they needed to ground decisions in real user voices rather than assumptions.

Why This Approach Works

Multi-country qualitative research is notoriously complex. Coordinating across languages, time zones, and cultural contexts while maintaining research quality requires infrastructure that most brands simply don't have in-house.

That's precisely why MindMarket exists.

We handled everything: recruitment, screening, moderation, interpretation, analysis, and reporting. Our client had a single point of contact throughout — no juggling multiple agency relationships or trying to synthesise findings from disconnected studies.

The result? Deep, nuanced, culturally intelligent insights delivered in weeks rather than months. Real human understanding that no survey or analytics platform could replicate.

Ready to Understand Your Users?

Whether you're launching in new markets, optimising existing experiences, or trying to understand why your conversion rates don't match your expectations, qualitative research delivers answers that data alone cannot provide.

Get in touch to discuss how MindMarket can help you hear what your users are really thinking — wherever in the world they are.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you recruit cryptocurrency users for qualitative research?

We use specialist recruitment networks combined with targeted screening to find active crypto platform users who match specific criteria — whether that's usage frequency, platform experience, or demographic profile. For competitive research, we focus on users of rival platforms who can offer comparative perspectives.

What's the typical timeline for multi-country UX research?

Most pan-European qualitative studies can be completed within 2-4 weeks, depending on participant criteria and the number of markets involved. Our simultaneous fieldwork approach means adding markets doesn't necessarily extend timelines.

Can clients observe research sessions in real-time?

Absolutely. We provide live video links with professional simultaneous interpretation, so your team can watch interviews as they happen — even across multiple languages. Many clients find this direct observation as valuable as the final report.

How does cultural context affect cryptocurrency research?

Attitudes toward money, privacy, technology, and institutional trust vary significantly across European markets. Our native-speaking moderators understand these nuances and can probe beyond surface responses to uncover culturally-specific motivations and concerns.

What makes qualitative research different from surveys or analytics?

Quantitative methods tell you what is happening; qualitative research explains why. In-depth interviews reveal the emotions, mental models, and decision-making processes behind user behaviour — insights that are impossible to capture through multiple-choice questions or clickstream data.

Do you handle research in markets outside Europe?

Yes. MindMarket operates across 30+ countries worldwide, with established networks in North America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East. The same single-point-of-contact model applies regardless of geographic scope.