The Spin Wheel was Fold's most beloved feature and its biggest financial liability. I inherited it and spent 18 months evolving it from an unsustainable reward mechanic (3.5% average rewards tied to Bitcoin price) to a sustainable engagement engine that still drives 50k daily spins.
What It Is
A daily spin wheel where users win sats (bitcoin). Simple on the surface, but the journey to get here was anything but.
The wheel started as a purchase-tied reward system: buy something with your Fold Card, spin for rewards up to 100% back. Users loved it. The problem was that as Bitcoin's price rose, our reward costs scaled with it. We were on track to reward ourselves out of existence.
What I Did
I owned this feature end-to-end for 18 months: product strategy, pricing models, community communication, GTM, and internal tooling.
Iterated through multiple reward models - from purchase-tied spins to base rate plus wheel, to choose-your-own-reward, to action-based earning, and finally to simple daily free spins. Each iteration taught us something about what users actually valued versus what we thought they valued.
Built self-service admin tooling - spec'd and shipped an internal tool that let me control odds, prizes, scheduling, and design components without engineering. This enabled monthly themed wheel launches, seasonal campaigns, and sponsorship integrations.
Created a sponsorship program - turned the wheel from a cost center into a revenue stream. Built tiered packages ($10k-$20k), sales collateral with engagement metrics, and managed sponsor relationships end-to-end.
Built a sustainable pricing model - replaced a legacy VM-based simulation (15-minute runs) with a Google Sheets model that pulls live Bitcoin price and works at any price up to $1M. Target cost per spin: ~$0.01.
Shipped winner notifications - push alerts when someone wins 100k+ sats (roughly every 1.5 days) drive engagement through FOMO rather than complexity.
The Key Insight
Users don't build spreadsheets to maximize rewards on a debit card. Every layer of complexity we added - 3x3 earning mechanics, spin banks, tiered wheels - made the product feel less like a reward and more like homework.
The final model is the simplest: one free spin per day, flat sat prizes, 24-hour expiration, daily push reminders. Spin+ users get all wedges including a chance at 1 BTC. Free users see locked wedges with an upgrade CTA.
Current State
- ~50k daily spins
- Sustainable at any Bitcoin price up to $1M
- Spins used as promotional currency for feature launches
- Winner notifications drive regular engagement spikes
- One wheel (retired the separate Purchase Wheel entirely)
