Mode Mobile Brings Crypto Rewards to 50+ Million Users with Smart Wallets

Mode Mobile pioneered the EarnPhone, a smartphone experience powered by their proprietary EarnOS that turns everyday activities into earning opportunities. Users earn real money on everyday activities like listening to music, playing games, reading news, and watching videos. To date, users have earned over $325 million across 170+ countries, with Mode boasting 2+ million five-star reviews on Google Play.

Mode's Mystery Box system provides a user-friendly gateway into crypto through their $EARNM token. Their users are everyday people: college students, retirees, people with normal jobs and some extra time on their hands, people navigating life transitions - in short, budget-conscious people that  want to optimize time already spent on phones by turning it into real rewards.

Blockchain Complexity Blocks Financial Opportunity

Mode built strong monetization for U.S. users through advertiser demand, but this approach struggled internationally, especially in developing regions where traditional cashout methods like PayPal are unavailable or unreliable. International users were earning points but had no practical way to convert them to real value.

"At Mode, one of our biggest challenges has been creating meaningful earning opportunities for our international users," the team explained. "Crypto rewards work the same everywhere. Users can earn and cash out regardless of their local banking infrastructure."

So Mode turned to web3 as a solution, integrating Mystery Box rewards directly into their main app using another wallet provider. Users could claim $EARNM rewards without leaving the familiar Mode experience. But even this integrated approach created unexpected friction for their mainstream audience.

The core problem? Email verification. Even though users were already logged into Mode, they still had to verify their email to access crypto rewards, and most users dropped off at this step. Their existing provider's closed-source system made it nearly impossible to troubleshoot where the remaining failures were happening.

The result? Only 30% of users could successfully go from receiving a Mystery Box to having it revealed and vested. With no clear path to improve the experience, they knew they needed a better solution.

Smart Wallets Deliver 3x Better Results

After evaluating providers, Mode chose Alchemy Smart Wallets. The open-source SDK gave Mode the visibility and debugging power they needed after wrestling with black-box limitations from their previous solution, and both teams collaborated to create Android-native functionality, with Mode becoming the first partner to implement this new code.

The breakthrough came when Mode discovered they could eliminate email verification entirely - their biggest known drop-off point. This led to completely redesigning the experience:

• Invisible backend authentication: The system generates JWTs on demand to authenticate users without OTP verification. Everything happens seamlessly when users interact with Mystery Boxes.

• One-time authorization: The app signs a single authorization transaction, allowing the backend to handle all subsequent transactions automatically.

• Lightning-fast reveals: Users simply request Mystery Box reveals, and backend jobs execute everything instantly, cutting reveal time from 30 minutes to 3 minutes.

The solution uses Smart Wallets (one per user), various APIs for transaction management, and a gas management policy that sponsors all transactions, keeping the experience completely free for users.

The results were dramatic:

• 3x improvement in successful reveals: Success rate jumped from 30% to over 90%, meaning far more users actually access their earned crypto rewards.

• >90% reduction in reveal time: What took 30 minutes now happens in 3 minutes, creating immediate satisfaction.

• Eliminated friction completely: By removing email verification and wallet complexity, users seamlessly transition from earning to claiming crypto rewards.

• Better global accessibility: International users can have identical earning opportunities as domestic users, with crypto rewards that work anywhere worldwide.

Better Financial Opportunities With Crypto

Mode’s mission is to enable every person with a phone to earn crypto easily, connecting the world to better financial opportunities. We’re here to help you do the same.

• Learn about Smart Wallets and try the demo

• Get in touch with our team to chat pricing, integration paths, and more.

• Start building today