katana

Polygon Labs came to us with katana, a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) project built on bold ambition. In a crypto world where assets sit idle and apps fight for scraps of liquidity, katana set out to bring order. By concentrating assets into a single ecosystem, it aimed to turn idle capital into productive capital, building strength through unity.

Our challenge was to take that vision and translate it into a digital identity. katana already had the seeds of a Japanese-inspired aesthetic, with gradients and anime references. We expanded that into a full brand world rooted in the discipline of the samurai: sharp, loyal, and community-driven. The goal was not just to design visuals, but to create an experience where users could see themselves as part of katana’s mission.

We built katana’s launch site as an immersive journey, designed to unfold with rhythm and energy. Each scroll revealed new layers, drawing users deeper into a landscape of glowing gradients, fluid motion, and sharp, samurai-inspired visuals.

The story followed the flow of the system itself: deposits streaming into vaults, liquidity gathering like water into a reservoir, yields cycling back through the network in steady pulses. What could have felt abstract was turned into a living sequence of motion and light, almost like watching the ecosystem power itself in real time.

To deepen user understanding, we created a set of looping 3D animations. The Vault Bridge became a dynamic tunnel of moving assets, showing how funds flow safely into katana. Chain-Owned Liquidity was visualized as a growing reservoir, filling as more users joined. These weren’t just decorative graphics; they were visual metaphors that made complex mechanics feel intuitive and alive.

For katana’s first phase, Polygon specifically wanted deposits to feel less like a transaction and more like an interactive experience. The answer was a gacha machine, a playful nod to the Japanese capsule toys where you never know what prize you’ll get. Each deposit unlocks a crate, carrying with it the rush of chance and surprise.

Sometimes the crate contains Kat Coins, and other times it reveals an NFT collectible, with levels of rarity ranging from common rewards to coveted treasures that only a few users will ever uncover.

What happened next was even better. Users began comparing pulls, sharing their luck, and turning a financial action into a communal game. The gacha machine gave the katana community a reason to gather around the launch, not just to earn, but to play.

By combining storytelling, motion, and gamification, we helped katana launch not just as a product but as a living digital world. The samurai-inspired visuals gave the community a shared identity, the site made a complex financial system feel clear and engaging, and the interactive elements turned transactions into experiences.

For us, creating this project with katana was a chance to help shape a new kind of digital community. In a space often dominated by mercenary behavior—where users chase quick gains and then disappear—katana wanted to build something different: an ecosystem of loyal participants who see themselves as part of a shared mission.

Our role was not only to explain katana’s mechanics, but to make its community values visible. The samurai-inspired branding gave us a way to express discipline, loyalty, and cooperation. The gamified elements, like the gacha machine, reflected katana’s belief that trading and participation can be playful and rewarding rather than dry or transactional. Every design choice, from interactive storytelling to immersive 3D animation, centered on one goal: turning individual users into engaged community members.

By pairing with katana, we were able to bring a fresh perspective to how decentralized finance can look and feel. Instead of numbers on a dashboard, users entered a world that valued their role, rewarded their activity, and invited them into a collective experience. That blend of engagement and cooperation was the foundation of our partnership.