SCP‑220: Renewal of the International UX Workstream, September 2026 to December 2026
[IDEATION]
Workstream Name: International UX Workstream
Workstream Leader: Giantkin
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Empowered per SCP‑92 and SCP‑151 (granted budget allocation, administrative authority, and leadership responsibilities).
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Oversees contributor payments and bounty distributions, and manages the Workstream budget.
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Requests no personal compensation during this term.
Executive Contributor: Fireb0mb1
International UX and Translations Lead (Full Job Description)
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Responsible for operational execution of translations
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Translation coordination, translation tooling setup/maintenance
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French translations
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QA reviews, bounty translations budget tracking, and DAO documentation updates concerning translation processes.
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Contributes to Ops/Engineering efforts through frequent testing, bug reporting, and UI refinement suggestions. Both to enhance the quality of the English and localized user experiences (UX).
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Maintains the listings for ShapeShift products that require any amount of development and GitHub Pull requests (e.g. Zapper, Defilama, ethereum.org, etc.).
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Ensures community engagement on Discord (sometimes referred to as the “greeter” role) to guide users seeking help/support or just joining our community.
Summary
Following the first term of International UX Workstream, there are still recurrent translation/maintenance needed but the cadence of work has diminished, so this proposal for a renewal scales down the budget by approximately 45%. It remains under the leadership of Giantkin. The length of the term is also reduced, this time, at the request of the DFC in order to align with other Workstreams’ future renewals and the calendar year, making the overall budget planning for the DAO easier to manage.
The Workstream will continue to provide professional multilingual support and a variety of important operational activities overseen by Fireb0mb1 (previously within the MKDB Workstream). The Workstream will ensure high-quality translations of ShapeShift’s app and website in order to preserve brand trust and global user engagement. The term will run from September 1, 2026, through December 31, 2026.
Abstract
The translation services and other operational activities described here have already been provided to the DAO by the same team of qualified contributors under multiple Workstreams over the year and for the last 6 months as a standalone Workstream.
Motivation
Translations are essential for a global DeFi platform like ShapeShift, providing clarity and trust for international users making financial decisions. During the current Workstream’s term (~6 months), approximately 20% of users who connected a wallet used a language other than English. This metric has been maintained stable from the start of the previous term.
To preserve this, the Workstream will:
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Provide translations for:
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The app: app.shapeshift.com in French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Simplified Chinese.
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The official Website: shapeshift.com in French (manually reviewed), German, Russian, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese.
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Maintain the tasks and role executed by Fireb0mb1 (see Job Description above)
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Continue tests, bug reporting, UX improvements, and suggestions in both English and translated versions of the app.
For information, the automation for translations using AI agents which had been started by Engineering in February 2026 has now been paused due to both lacking funding and motivation considering the lower volume of translations required. This leaves the task exclusively to our translators who do use Machine Translation partially (but not in an automated manner, every translation is manually crafted/reviewed).
From a financial standpoint, quality translations still show as a strategically valuable investment for the DAO. Over the last term (6 months), users whose app locale was set to a non-English language generated approximately $5.03 million in trading volume, resulting in about $30,180 in protocol revenues (assuming the constant 60 bps). This is about 27% of the total volume (English included) for this period.
At the same time, the cost of the previous Workstream’s term was $25,100, meaning localization efforts covered and exceeded their cost. This assumes translations have driven part/most of the non‑English trading volume, which is likely but difficult to prove. This also doesn’t include the revenues from private.shapeshift.com where such tracking is not possible, but it suggests the overall impact of localization is likely higher.
Translation expenses are relatively fixed and independent of trading volume or user count but promote a wider global access to the DAO’s services, therefore, any growth in these areas enabled by these translations directly increases the DAO’s net revenue.
Specification
Translation Bounties
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7 active translators are maintaining the following languages: German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Chinese. All native speakers, experienced in crypto, and with knowledge of the ShapeShift products acquired over the years.
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Current translation bounty rates: $0.16 per word (equivalent value in FOX).
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Fireb0mb1 maintains a transparent budgeting spreadsheet. Giantkin is in charge of the monthly distribution of the bounty compensations.
Budget Summary
Recurrent monthly:
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Fireb0mb1 (Part Time): $2,000 paid in FOX
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Bounty translators (On-demand): $250 paid in FOX.
This amount varies monthly based on the volume of work. The latter depends on the frequency/size of the new features and changes in the app. This budget estimation is relying on the previous term’s volume.The previous budget for bounty translations was largely spent as planned, currently 38,309.37 FOX are left (~$160 at the current rate) and will be transferred to the next term if the Workstream were to be renewed, otherwise they will be returned to the DAO.
Likewise, any surplus from this budget item will be returned to the DAO or transferred to the next term if the Workstream were to be renewed.
Tooling/Misc.:
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Weglot “Pro” Plan has been renewed for a full year in July (at a preferable rate) with the funds allocated thus the line is zeroed out for this term.
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Gitlocalize: $0 (Translation SaaS platform for the app translations, currently free).
Four-Month Total: $9,000 (paid in FOX)
Compensation Policy:
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All salaries and compensations for contributors and bounties are paid in FOX.
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The DAO contributors may choose to receive locked FOX incentives (per SCP-81), this does not apply to bounties.
Benefits
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Ensures seamless continuity with proven translators familiar with ShapeShift’s brand and DeFi-specific terminology.
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Delivers professional translations to maintain trust and credibility for international users of our financial app.
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Supports global accessibility (~20% non-English users) to widen the potential audience of our products.
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Generates positive ROI by supporting non-English user segments that already drive significant trade volumes.
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Retains Fireb0mb1’s proven coordination role for translations, UX testing, bug reporting, and community support.
Drawbacks
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The Workstream introduces a recurring monthly expense which may reduce treasury flexibility for other initiatives.
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The ROI on these services depends on growing volume, a major decline in international usage could reduce its direct profitability.
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The Workstream generally requires coordination with other Workstreams (currently mostly Engineering) to keep content aligned and translatable across languages which occasionally involves small time commitments from those teams.
Goals and KPIs
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Maintain translation coverage for all supported languages with an overall target of 95% of content translated at all times.
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Deliver and maintain accurate language glossaries and rules to support Engineering’s AI-assisted translation pipeline, enabling measurable efficiency improvements.
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Support improving UX through proactive testing, bug reporting, and UI/UX feedback in both English and localized versions.
Vote
Yes: Approve the creation and funding of a 6-month International UX Workstream (September 1 2026 to December 31, 2026).
No: Reject this proposal. Evaluate other alternatives
Yes, with changes: Support this proposal but request modifications. Please specify changes in comments/forum.