What is Juno?

Juno is a two-in-one crypto and banking platform that serves individuals in the United States. Juno was founded in 2020 by Varun Deshpande, Siddharth Verma, and Ratnesh Ray, 3 crypto native builders. They had previously built Nuo Protocol which was a top 5 DeFi project in 2018, having more TVL than current leaders such as Uniswap and Aave.

Across seed and series A rounds, Juno has raised over $23 million so far from top investors like Sequoia, Polychain, GIC, Dragonfly Capital, and prominent angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan, Sandeep Nailwal, and Joseph Lumin (Co-founder of Ethereum) among others.

Value prop of Juno

Juno allows users to instantly onramp to crypto and offramp from crypto using banking rails they're familiar with.

• Users can buy and send crypto to their external wallet instantly (onramp)
• Users can deposit crypto from their external wallet and sell it instantly (offramp)
• Transfer money in and out of Juno using familiar methods
• • ACH
  • Wire
  • Cash App
  • Debit Card

Monetization Litmus Test - Is Juno ready to monetize?

1. Retention curve - Since Juno is a crypto x banking platform, the retention curve would be tracked based on transacting users (not app opens, time spent on the app, etc.). The 12 month retention curve for Juno looks like this:

✅ The retention curve is a smile curve and it has touched 50% at the end of 12 months. Juno passes the retention litmus test for monetization readiness

2. Depth of engagement

✅ Since greater than 50% of the user base is core + power, Juno passes the depth of engagement litmus test

3. Willingness to pay

Juno is a transactional product and is already monetizing in the following ways:

• Crypto Spreads - Crypto spread is a markup in the buy price and a markdown in the selling price of crypto. For example, if the mid market price of Bitcoin is $45,000 - a 1% spread would mean the users would see the buy price as $45,450 and the selling price as $44,550. This spread counts as revenue for Juno
• Crypto Withdrawal Fee - Every time a user is withdrawing crypto from Juno to their external wallet, Juno charges the user a withdrawal fee. The fee is different based on the coin being withdrawn.
• Cash App Fees - Juno charges a fee when a user wants to deposit money via Cash App or transfer money to their Cash App account

✅ Since Juno introduced these fees, the retention curve has continued to be a smile curve as seen above. That is proof that customers are willing to pay.

Is Juno ready to monetize? Yes

Since Juno is already monetizing, the next step would be the pricing design

Pricing design

Who to charge

Since Juno is a transactional product, Juno should charge everyone.

When to charge

Perceived value of Juno

1. Juno is one of the only ways to buy crypto by adding money via Cash App. Since a lot of Americans have money in their Cash App wallet (similar to Paytm wallet), this has a high perceived value.
2. Some crypto exchanges enforce a 7-10 holding period on crypto withdrawals (image below). But, Juno allows users to withdraw their crypto instantly. This is the biggest perceived value for Juno users
   

The perceived value of Juno is time and efficiency. Users can move money in ways that they're familiar with and can withdraw crypto instantly

Perceived value vs time graph

The graph shows two user flows

1. The green line shows perceived value of users who use Cash App
2. The white line shows perceived value of users who use ACH transfers to fund their account

Cash App flow: The perceived value of Juno for users who use Cash App starts off extremely high since they can send money to a crypto product via Cash App. The perceived value increases further when they can buy crypto and instantly withdraw it to their external wallet

ACH flow: The perceived value of Juno for use who ACH transfers starts off relatively lower. Once their ACH transfer is completed (which takes 1-2 days), they can immediately buy and withdraw crypto, that's when their perceived value is the highest.

When to charge

Juno should charge users when the perceived value is very high compared to perceived price. This is in 4 main points in the flow

1. When a user deposits money via Cash App
2. When a user buys crypto
3. When a user withdraws crypto instantly to their wallet
4. When a user withdraws the money to Cash App

What to charge for

How much to charge

How to show pricing

The design choice should be a system 2 design for the following reasons

• average order value is close to average salary
• use case is finance related
• decision is irreversible

Existing Page on Juno for Cash App Deposits

Suggested page design

1. Highlight processing time to communicate perceived value better
2. Change text to "Instant Transfer Fee"

Crypto purchase flow

1. Show users how much they'll be saving versus Coinbase (most popular crypto exchange in the US)
2. Show how many users bought crypto in the last hour (Social proof)

Crypto withdrawal flow

1. Better communication of instant withdrawals in withdraw CTAs by adding a lightning element
   

2. Add a 3 day delay zero fee option during crypto withdrawal (surround effect)
   

Strategy to sell more to the users

Campaign - It pays to be loyal

Juno has a loyalty program called Juno Points. Users can redeem Juno Points for Gift Cards and Juno Points boosts. Incentivizing crypto trading volumes with Juno Points can help increase trading volumes and thereby help Juno monetize more via crypto spreads, Cash App fees, and crypto withdrawals