ShapeShift at ETH Denver 2022 — The Final Recap
The ShapeShift DAO was at ETHDenver in force this year! ETHDenver is the largest and longest-running Ethereum based event. This last event marked ETHDenver’s 5th year of bringing together some of the most laudable minds in the crypto space for networking, hackathons, and this year, DAOing it together.
ETHDenver has come and gone. Now that we have had some time to take a breath and reflect on all the fantastic things our FOXes did, we want to share this incredible experience with the community and let you know what we learned.
Pre-event:
Before ETHDenver officially began, the founder of ShapeShift, Erik Voorhees hosted a fundraiser dinner for Coin Center — the leading non-profit group in Washington DC focused on the policy issues facing cryptocurrencies. Coin Center engages in research, educates policymakers, and advocates for sensible regulatory approaches to this technology. They have been working for the past eight years to protect the rights of all people in cryptocurrency.
Each attendant donated 1 ETH to Coin Center to support their continued efforts in the ever increasingly hot environment of political policy in the US — learn more about Coin Center here.
Erik opened his house to a larger party with over 200 guests following the dinner. This party was one of the most memorable nights of ShapeShift jubilation and celebration of Web3 and the community surrounding it.
This party was an excellent way for the community to meet and interact with some of the core ShapeShift contributors and builders within the Web3 space. Attendants included many of the pioneers of the cryptocurrency space, including Neeraj Agrawal, Jerry Brito, Michael Perklin, and others.
Attendees were able to experience great music mixed by DJs Kent Barton, Erik Voorhees, Michelle Voorhees, and Josh. Drinks, hor d’oeuvres, and music went late into the night. The beautiful home provided many areas for people to gather, reconnect, dance, and even hot tub in the snow!
Congratulations to the ShapeShift team for such an incredible night!
See the fantastic video about the night here.
The Conference
During the main conference, from 17–20 February, attendees were able to interact with many ShapeShift FOXes such as Engineering Workstream Leader 0xdef1cafe, Creative Lead Graymachine, Operations Workstream Leader Tyler, and even Erik Voorhees himself! As a legacy organization within the DeFi space, we encountered many people who had heard the ShapeShift name in passing but wanted to know what we were up to since leaping into DAO life.
It was invigorating to talk to everyone about all the exciting features ShapeShift offers, such as our Yearn integration and our v2 open-source code. We were most excited to talk about the features coming in the next couple of months — such as FOXy and FOXchain.
With so many developers, artists, and Web3 contributors in one space, there was a cornucopia of interest in opportunities to get more involved with the DAO and get rewarded. We informed people that the easiest way to get involved with the DAO was to join the ShapeShift official Discord and introduce themselves — it’s that easy! In addition, we hosted $15,000 of combined in-person and virtual bounties that ranged from HDWallet integration to building a project that incorporated the FOX token.
Speaking Galore!
For four days, we talked and listened non-stop. Some FOXes spent 12+ hours a day running the booth and answering all of the excellent questions you all had, while other FOXes spoke on important issues and topics within the space to packed audiences.
WillyFox (Head of Decentralization) presented Building a Future Without Fees: Positive Sum Economies — view here.
Erik Voorhees debated Individualism vs. Collectivism with Kevin Owocki — view here.
Our ShapeShift keynote speakers represented the DAO incredibly well and offered incredible insight into the inner machinations of DAO culture and growth. One of these speakers, Josh Forman — who presented on DAO Collaboration: A Case Study — was a must-see talk — see the full presentation here.
Kent Barton at ETHDenver!
ETHDenver was a hectic week for Fox Kent Barton, Tokenomics Lead at ShapeShift DAO. Still, he found time to sit down with Jason Nelson from Decrypt to discuss the exponential growth of ETHDenver and the choice ShapeShift made to transition to a DAO from a centralized corporation in mid-2021.
Kent was an original co-founder of the early ETHDenver monthly meetups and the early annual conferences. In Kent’s own words, the early days “were just some geeks in the basement of a brewery.” This year, what a remarkable revolution and transformation from those early days to the more than 13,000 people surrounding ETHDenver. While Kent defined the earlier meetings as all-inclusive of all people and ideas, this year’s growth and energy were “surreal and gratifying.”
Jason and Kent discussed ShapeShift’s transformation into a DAO from a previously centralized corporation; the initial ethos of no KYC or AML in the early days of Shapeshift became legally too treacherous in 2018. The subsequent risks required ShapeShift to request KYC from their customers. Finally, the user base declined by about 95%. ShapeShift ceased all internal trades to protect themselves and legally sought a way forward. This path revealed itself in the idea of a DAO. Transitioning the company into a DAO allowed for a return to the company’s original ethos, and Foxes have enjoyed extremely rapid innovation in many directions.
As Lead of the Tokenomics Workstream, Kent oversees the management of the FOX token and the financial health of the DAO’s treasury. Fostering partnerships and increasing avenues of income diversification make up much of this role.
In response to Jason’s question, “What is next for ShapeShift?”; Kent described the many areas where ShapeShift is experiencing exciting growth and cutting edge advances in technology and collaboration. Kent replied, “we have an entirely new paradigm in the way we accomplish our goals, with new contributors, our new platform, and the new DeFi space that is advancing so fast it is impossible to keep up with it all. The DAO’s super-power is its transparency. It is all right there for anyone to see.”
View the full interview here.
At the end of each day, ShapeShift FOXes spent time strengthening those connections we had made earlier in the day through working the booth, building, and talking with other notable projects like Cow Swap. It was a great experience to meet some of the long-term users and new users of ShapeShift alike!
What We Learned
ETHDenver 2022 reaffirmed that the transformation towards DAO infrastructure from previously centralized organizational solutions is altogether redefining the landscape of Web3. We believe that DAOs are here to stay. We are seeing more and more corporations and entities seeking to transform how they conduct business by mirroring certain aspects of the DAO structure. The space’s incredible positive velocity in the past year in conjunction with its growing adoption is a strong indicator of great things to come.
ETHDenver almost felt like a “coming of age” event. Since becoming a DAO, ETHDenver was our first ample opportunity to be face-to-face with our community and the greater web3 community — both existing and new. We were reminded of the value of in-person events and the importance of human connection in this fast-paced web3 world. It is so easy to be caught up in the “wen moon” and number-oriented culture. Events like ETHDenver allowed us to step back and appreciate the humanity of this wonderful ecosystem.
Learn More
https://medium.com/@ShapeShift.com
