[SCP 196] New Website Additional Funding

[thesmith]

1. Introduction

ShapeShift’s design has been defining DeFi generations since 2014. Over the years, our interface has evolved—from the classic swap experience to a more comprehensive portfolio manager… back to a classic swap experience but better.

As ShapeShift matures, so does its brand identity. In the last quarter, the marketing workstream has owned the overhaul and proliferation of the ShapeShift brand; view the new brand-guide here. As we continue to see this shift (no pun intended) happening across other competitors and industries, ShapeShift’s evolution ensures we stay visually relevant, user-friendly, and optimized for conversion.

This proposal seeks $20,000 of FOX and 50,000 USDC in additional funding for the development and overhaul of ShapeShift.com in partnership with the dev team Mom.

2. Motivation

The ShapeShift.com experience is the first-touch for new users looking to discover, use, and learn about ShapeShift. Having a compelling, measurable, and efficient funnel to onchain actions on the app is imperative to our success. The .com has not had a complete overhaul since the DAO genesis in 2021. Through the passing of time, various workstream leaders, and strategies, the website has become fragmented, disorienting, and inefficient for a users first touch.

After considering a couple quotes from different providers around the globe, the marketing workstream opted to work with the MOM team.

Who is Mom? The UI and marketing team behind popular brands such as Yearn, Ajna, and more. View their twitter here: https://x.com/built_by_mom

Mom’s design of the new ShapeShift website directly aligns and supports our brand’s evolution and movement toward data-driven marketing by offering:

• A modern, curved, and bolder visual identity that matches our refreshed branding and upgraded app experience.
• A more dynamic reading experience with optimized formatting.
  • Example:
    • Before: Blog | ShapeShift
    • After: ShapeShift
• A simplified framework built on Strapi, an open-source headless CMS, ensuring flexibility and scalability. Fewer clicks to value.
• More fluid, customizable, and accessible infrastructure, enabling all DAO workstreams to manage and update content independently.
• Additional functionality for banners, callouts, and funnels, empowering the marketing team to do more with pixels, UTM tracking, and customer acquisition and journey attribution.
• Long-term cost savings by abstracting infrastructure costs—initially self-hosted on Vercel’s Pro Plan via the Marketing Workstream. See below.

The previous .com experience lasted approximately four years, providing a reasonable benchmark for the longevity of this new website in a self-managed environment before requiring a major reassessment. By frontloading development costs, the DAO is positioning itself for long-term savings. By 2027 (two years from now), the DAO will have built $13,100 in equity in the website compared to maintaining the current setup. Beyond that, the investment continues to yield returns, with projected savings growing to $73,940 by the time we need to re-evaluate the .com experience (2029).

3. Specification

With no additional ask from the DAO, ShapeShift’s Marketing Workstream has already covered $30,000 which included design, POC, and coding. View the current demo of the new site here: https://shapeshift.builtby.dad

Preliminary tests indicate that the website performs better, even in its mockup stage. A 9 points difference in Performance according to PageSpeed. Therefore, the initial package already brings deliverables that instantly impact ShapeShift.com performance (Highlighting a 100 score in SEO, the new website should have its discoverability amplified because its lightweight nature).

Old ShapeShift.com performance by PageSpeed:

Mockup’s performance by PageSpeed:

The picture below shows absolute numbers (past 6 months) from ShapeShift.com traffic (Average 30k visitors monthly). The new website goal is to increase the number of inbound traffic in conjunction to increasing conversions to the app, however, we don’t have control on SERPs deliverables nor market conditions (which objectively impacts organic traffic). We would like to see a consistent 10% growth in conversions from home page to the dApp per year. Additionally we would like to see a 10% growth year-over-year of inbound traffic.

The total estimated cost for the full implementation of the .com is $100K.
To complete the project, Marketing Workstream requires an additional $70,000 in funding:

Funding Breakdown

Requested Amount	Allocation
$20K in FOX	50% complete milestone, revisions, incentive support. Completed week after payment.
$50K in USDC	Final development, and implementation. Finished once the website is approved/finalized.

Key Deliverables

• Open-source framework for ShapeShift.com (homepage, blog, tracking, landing pages, etc).
• Rebranded UI/UX aligned with ShapeShift’s evolved identity.
• CMS transition to Strapi for improved content management and SEO optimization.
• Self-hosting on Vercel’s Pro Plan, abstracting infrastructure costs
  
• Enhanced analytics & tracking integration for marketing SEO and funnel optimization.

4. Benefits

• Improved UX/UI: More engaging, modern, and in sync with ShapeShift’s branding.
• Increased content agility: Open-source CMS enables workstream contributors to make updates independently.
• Scalability: The new structure supports future integrations and improvements. Decreasing clicks to conversion and embedding product elements in landing pages.
• Open-source: More aligned with DAO ethos. Reducing liability on the Foundation.
• Cost Efficiency: Long-term infrastructure savings and marketing-driven performance optimizations.
  • Better tracking
  • Removal of a need for a dedicated webmaster (see chart above for total savings)

5. Drawbacks

• Upfront cost: this is paying for code development, proper documentation and deployment support.
• Rely on Vercel’s SLA
• It’s a dev-friendly website that could be difficult for future contributors to understand (despite documentation)

5. Conclusion

This proposal seeks to finalize the new ShapeShift.com homepage by securing the remaining $70,000 in funding. This milestone aligns with our ongoing brand evolution, enhances the DAO’s ability to manage content, and ensures that ShapeShift remains a leading force in DeFi with a modern, conversion-optimized digital presence.

By investing in this update, ShapeShift will not only refresh its branding but also improve its core infrastructure, making it more adaptable, efficient, and community-driven.

[Giantkin]

https://snapshot.box/#/s:ideation.shapeshiftdao.eth/proposal/0x9b5cbbe90563d9eb3dbcc9ae4872d8fa0592ddc89ae51497d33b627ed7538fc0 Ideation posted.

(too many images) formating …not bad actually

[thesmith]

Thanks GK, as usual =)
I would like to encourage everyone to compare old vs new. Feedbacks are welcome.

Old website: https://shapeshift.com/
Proposed website: https://shapeshift.builtby.dad/

[Fireb0mb1]

Thanks @thesmith, for writing this proposal. I really like the redesign both visually and conceptually, and I support this proposal. Having more flexibility if we want to better integrate the app and our website in the future seems very important to me, and opting for open-source solutions instead of closed or third-party systems aligns with our DAO’s goals too.

As we’ve mostly discussed this privately, I’d like to mention that the integration with our current system for the Website translations using Weglot has been planned/tested by MOM for this redesign. We will continue to provide content in the languages we currently support at the same cost, as long as we don’t require significantly more translated strings than we currently do (we’re getting close to the limit of our Weglot plan though).

We have explored the possibility of switching to a self-hosted solution for translations, without such limits, but unfortunately, the existing plugins for strapi’s i18n (Internationalization) are relatively rudimentary and wouldn’t meet our requirements for machine translation and review processes/permissions. If we had to change this, it would increase our translation costs and time, so we opted to continue with Weglot.

Lastly, I have a couple of questions about the proposal:

1. Vercel is a popular option for cloud computing, but have we investigated other reputable providers that would accept cryptocurrency payments from the DAO for similar or compatible services? This way, we could reduce our dependency on the Foundation (or GK?) even more for the hosting aspect of the website.

2. Regarding the open-source deliverable:
   2.1. Will it include everything delivered by MOM, as well as the content of the website?
   2.2. Will it be published as a public project on GitHub?
   2.3. Which license will we be used? I’m assuming the same as strapi: MIT, which is compatible with other ShapeShift projects/repositories.
   2.4. And have we ensured that all development artifacts provided by MOM will also be open-source?

[thesmith]

Thanks for putting this together, @Fireb0mb1

1.Yes, we study crypto friendly places for hosting, but they are conventional (like Hostinger, Namecheap) solutions. Suggestions are welcome too.
2.1: Yes
2.2: They will handover the code to us. So yes, we can even publish the new code on ShapeShift’s github
2.3: I cannot confirm it right now, but MIT probably
2.4 : the only secrets are the API keys (usually placed in .env files) that can be handled inside Vercel’s environment

[Apotheosis]

gm @thesmith,

The new website is looking great so far! I have a few points and questions for clarification:

1. The “New ShapeShift.com” table might need an update to reflect accurate costs. Based on the details provided, the project has incurred $30,000 to date, with an additional $70,000 requested, which would bring the total cost to $100,000 for the DAO. Could we adjust this for transparency?

2. Could you provide a detailed breakdown of what the additional $50,000 in USDC and $20,000 in FOX will accomplish? The website already looks strong at $30,000—how will this further investment (an increase of approximately 230% over current spending) enhance its value?

3. What was the original cost estimate for this project? Was the work initiated with the assumption that the $30,000 marketing budget would suffice, or was it anticipated that a supplemental proposal would be needed once the full scope became clearer?

4. The stated old/current annual cost of $30,000 for personnel feels potentially misleading. My understanding is that this expense is no longer active, and the current annual cost of the website is $420. Could you confirm if I’ve misunderstood?

Thank you ser

[thesmith]

Hi @Apotheosis! Thanks for joining the convo =)

Check my answers bellow.

The “New ShapeShift.com” table might need an update to reflect accurate costs. Based on the details provided, the project has incurred $30,000 to date, with an additional $70,000 requested, which would bring the total cost to $100,000 for the DAO. Could we adjust this for transparency?

• The cost for the DAO is $70,000. Marketing WS covered $30,000 with own budget. $100,000 corresponds to the full development.

Could you provide a detailed breakdown of what the additional $50,000 in USDC and $20,000 in FOX will accomplish? The website already looks strong at $30,000—how will this further investment (an increase of approximately 230% over current spending) enhance its value?

• We can get a POC with $30,000, so this initial budget covered the website staging only. Beyond that, we still have other development sprints in order to adjust the website, its APIs, docs etc to production. This means additional 50k in usdc and 20k in FOX is part of a negotiation to keep the things rolling (developer hours, features implementation, testing, final design, content import). I’m willing to timeframe next actions and report it during MKT Office Hours if the proposal pass, since well be turning this official and moving to production stage.

What was the original cost estimate for this project? Was the work initiated with the assumption that the $30,000 marketing budget would suffice, or was it anticipated that a supplemental proposal would be needed once the full scope became clearer?

• That was anticipated, the $30,000 budget is a discretionary budget we intend to spend strategically. In this case, delivering a frontend code to the DAO.

The stated old/current annual cost of $30,000 for personnel feels potentially misleading. My understanding is that this expense is no longer active, and the current annual cost of the website is $420. Could you confirm if I’ve misunderstood?

• Webflow is a 4y (or plus?) legacy, it have been handled by a single person until the current mkt ws term. Initially, we thought about keeping Webflow as the main tool, but after bringing the new branding to light, we realized pain points like being a blocky and limited framework with lack of documentation (there’s no reason to train a new contributor just to operate webflow if we can find a decentralized solution). In addition to being centrally hosted and paid by the Foundation. With an opensource framework, access will not be restricted to marketing ws but to all ws and future contributors. Therefore, I consider this a save since the idea is to decentralize frontend control, even if mkt ws takes over the operation in the beginning.

Cheers.

~~ thesmith

[thesmith]

PS. The 30k budget mentioned above was acquired independently by marketing ws

[Apotheosis]

gm @thesmith,

@thesmith

The cost for the DAO is $70,000. Marketing WS covered $30,000 with own budget. $100,000 corresponds to the full development.

I’d like to clarify that the cost to the DAO for this website would still be $100,000. The $30,000 of discretionary funds spent on it so far would have otherwise been returned to the DAO treasury. I’m not critiquing this expenditure; I want to ensure the case for additional funding is made using the correct figures.

To provide an analogy, the Engineering budget has $49,750 in contingency funds available. If we choose to spend this amount this cycle it would be incorrect to say it will cost the DAO nothing, as not spending it would have left the DAO treasury $49,750 better off.

@thesmith

We can get a POC with $30,000, so this initial budget covered the website staging only. Beyond that, we still have other development sprints in order to adjust the website, its APIs, docs etc to production.

I’m still not clear how $70,000 additional dollars is required to adjust the website, its APIs (what APIs?), and its documents (which documents?). As far as I can tell, the website is mostly done. I could be missing something about the way this arrangement is structured.

Can the Engineering WS assist with these APIs or docs in any way?

[thesmith]

@Apotheosis

I’d like to clarify that the cost to the DAO for this website would still be $100,000. The $30,000 of discretionary funds spent on it so far would have otherwise been returned to the DAO treasury. I’m not critiquing this expenditure; I want to ensure the case for additional funding is made using the correct figures.

I appreciate the idea here. Perhaps I expressed myself poorly about the discretionary budget meaning, it was acquired independently by us so we are not using the proposal funding. Requesting $ 70,000 from the DAO means a 70/30 on a $100,000 negotiation.

@Apotheosis

I’m still not clear how $70,000 additional dollars is required to adjust the website, its APIs (what APIs?), and its documents (which documents?). As far as I can tell, the website is mostly done. I could be missing something about the way this arrangement is structured.

Can the Engineering WS assist with these APIs or docs in any way?

That’s fair. Here’s the initial proposal (we’ve added blog/library support): https://builtbymom.notion.site/Shapeshift-com-Redesign-130dea6256cb801a82d0e6bbe9b57527
Isn’t a full time framed roadmap. But I hope it can clarify that design, copywriting and development lasts for 6w consuming the proposed budget.

@Apotheosis

Can the Engineering WS assist with these APIs or docs in any way?

As soon we move forward with final copy, translations, library and design, Mom should provide a concrete documentation so yes, would love Engineering WS assisting Marketing WS with Docs feedback and also during frontend deployment/maintenance.

[thesmith]

As mentioned in the last governance meeting (4/3/25/), here’s the final version of the proposal:

Proposal: New Website Additional Funding - HackMD

[Giantkin]

Proposal: New Website Additional Funding

1. Introduction

ShapeShift’s design has been defining DeFi generations since 2014. Over the years, our interface has evolved—from the classic swap experience to a more comprehensive portfolio manager… back to a classic swap experience. As ShapeShift matures, so does its brand identity. In the last quarter, the marketing workstream has owned the overhaul and proliferation of the ShapeShift brand; view the new brand-guide here. As we continue to see this shift (no pun intended) happening across other competitors and industries, ShapeShift’s evolution ensures we stay visually relevant, user-friendly, and optimized for conversion.

This proposal seeks $20,000 of FOX and 50,000 USDC in funding for the development and overhaul of ShapeShift.com in partnership with the dev team Mom. The ShapeShift marketing team independently secured $30,000 USDC from the sale of a portion of its VVV airdrop. This request of $70,000 is for the remaining costs of development.

2. Motivation

ShapeShift.com is our most critical first-touchpoint. Yet it hasn’t had a full overhaul since DAO genesis in 2021—resulting in a fragmented experience, outdated infrastructure, and marketing bottlenecks.
As ShapeShift’s brand evolves, so must our digital presence. This rebuild unlocks:

• A modern, bold, UX-forward site

• CMS migration to Strapi (faster updates, improved SEO, better tracking)

• Self-hosting (cost-efficient, scalable, marketing-owned)

• Open-source code (DAO-aligned and future-friendly)

After considering four quotes from different providers, the marketing workstream opted to work with the MOM team.

Who is Mom? The UI and marketing team behind popular brands such as Yearn, Ajna, and more. View their twitter here: https://x.com/built_by_mom

Mom’s design of the new ShapeShift website directly aligns and supports our brand’s evolution and movement toward data-driven marketing by offering:

• A modern, curved, and bolder visual identity that matches our refreshed branding and upgraded app experience.

• A more dynamic reading experience with optimized formatting. Example:

  Before: Blog | ShapeShift
  After: ShapeShift

• More fluid, customizable, and accessible infrastructure, enabling all DAO workstreams to manage and update content independently.
  Additional functionality for banners, callouts, and funnels, empowering the marketing team to do more with pixels, UTM tracking, and customer acquisition and journey attribution.

• Long-term cost savings by abstracting infrastructure costs—initially self-hosted on Vercel’s Pro Plan via the Marketing Workstream or better option (Digital Ocean, Linode and similars, with progressive scaling) See below.

In November of 2024, we were paying a part-time workstream contributor to maintain the .com. We spent $30,000 that year on that contributor who effectively had their hands tied with partial access to the platform as well as a non-fully customizable experience that took weeks to push changes to.

The previous .com experience lasted approximately four years since it was overhauled. This provides a reasonable benchmark for the longevity of this new website in a self-managed environment before requiring a major reassessment (obo 4 years before we might need to revisit it). The marketing workstream will be able to work faster and ship more by unblocking this website relic. Additionally, we will be able to understand more information on users, actions, and interests and use that to better convert people from the .com.

3. Specification

Last year, the ShapeShift marketing team let go of its web developer and halted updates on the old shapeshift.com in preparation for this migration. Over the following months, the team sourced quotes from 4 different external teams from both traditional web2 and web3 development companies and decided on the best one based on cost, perception of ability to create a hybrid web2/web3 environment, and ability to work with a DAO. View the initial proposal from the mom team.
View the current demo of the new site here: https://shapeshift.builtby.dad
The current website demo performs better, even in its mockup stage. Highlighting a 100 score in SEO, the new website should have its discoverability amplified.

Old ShapeShift.com performance by PageSpeed:

Mockup’s performance by PageSpeed:

The picture below shows the past 6 months of ShapeShift.com traffic (Average 30k visitors monthly). The new website goal is to increase the number of inbound traffic in conjunction with increasing conversions to the app, however, we don’t have control on SERPs deliverables nor market conditions which objectively impacts organic traffic.
From this new website we would like to see:

• A consistent 10% growth in conversions from home page to the dApp per year.
  A 10% growth year-over-year of inbound traffic.
• The ability to pixel and track users on the .com => reinform outbound marketing efforts on Socials. (We recently acquired licenses to run crypto ads).
• Aggressively continuing our landing page + SEO discovery work. This new website structure will empower us to spin up pages in seconds vs. weeks with appropriate tracking, links, and analytics.

ShapeShift.com avg. organic traffic - Source: ahrefs

The total cost for the full implementation of the new .com is $100K.
To complete the project, Marketing Workstream requires an additional $70,000 in funding:

Requested Amount	Allocation
$20K in FOX	Immediate dev work (Marketing is behind on this due to FOX price dip)
$50K in USDC	Final payment upon delivery and key handoff

Key Deliverables

• Open-source framework for ShapeShift.com (homepage, blog, tracking, landing pages, etc).

• Rebranded UI/UX aligned with ShapeShift’s evolved identity.
  CMS transition to Strapi for improved content management and SEO optimization.

• Self-hosting: abstracting infrastructure costs and access from the foundation and putting the .com firmly inside of the marketing workstreams control.
  

  

• Enhanced analytics & tracking integration for marketing SEO and funnel optimization. Currently the limitations inside of webflow make user journeys, edits, and analytics borderline unmanageable and not useful. This new system will allow for custom user journeys, advanced tracking features, and for a better content management system.

4. Benefits

• Improved UX/UI: More engaging, modern, and in sync with ShapeShift’s branding.
• Increased content agility: Open-source CMS enables workstream contributors to make updates independently.
• Scalability: The new structure supports future integrations and improvements. Decreasing clicks to conversion and embedding product elements in landing pages.
• Open-source: More aligned with DAO ethos. Reducing liability on the Foundation.
• Cost Efficiency: Long-term infrastructure savings and marketing-driven performance optimizations.
  • Better tracking
  • Removal of a need for a dedicated webmaster (see chart above for total savings)

5. Drawbacks

• Upfront cost: this is paying for code development, proper documentation and deployment support.
• Rely on self-hosting SLA
• It’s a dev-friendly website that could be difficult for future contributors to understand (despite documentation)

6. Conclusion

This proposal enables the marketing team to finally unblock shapeshift.com, supercharge our growth funnel, and take full ownership of the digital brand experience. With the unlock of these funds, we can ship a site that serves the DAO for the next 3–4 years—built to scale, convert, and reflect who we are today.