The Crypto / Web3 aesthetic emerged alongside the Ethereum ecosystem in the mid-2010s, but crystallized as a recognizable visual language during the DeFi Summer of 2020 and the NFT boom of 2021. Early crypto interfaces were utilitarian — spreadsheets with wallet connections. As the space attracted designers and venture capital, a distinct visual identity formed.
The dark backgrounds came from developer culture — terminals, code editors, the default mode of people who build in the dark. The gradients came from a need to feel futuristic, to visually distinguish this new financial layer from the blue-and-white conservatism of traditional fintech. The glassmorphism came from Apple's design language, filtered through the desire to make complex financial data feel premium and approachable.
By 2022, the aesthetic was so codified that you could identify a crypto project from a single screenshot: dark background, gradient accent, glass card, Space Grotesk heading. It became both a genuine design language and a mild parody of itself — a visual shorthand for "we are building the future" that was as much about signaling as about usability.