In July 2021, ShapeShift AG announced it would be shutting down operations, laying off all employees, and transitioning the management of the ShapeShift platform to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization — a DAO.

With this transition, all source code would be made open-source for anyone around the world to work on it, a treasury would be established to fund the development, and a transitional Fox Foundation would be established to oversee any centralized pieces of ShapeShift, and steward their decentralization efforts.

The ShapeShift Platform

While ShapeShift AG operated the ShapeShit Platform, they hosted it using centralized AWS. These servers housed all of the blockchain daemons (bitcoind, litecoind, geth, and dozens of other blockchain daemons), databases, and server-side application code necessary to make the ShapeShift Mobile app and https://app.shapeshift.com web applications work.

Today, the ShapeShift platform is still hosted on centralized servers run by a member of the ShapeShift DAO, and they are compensated for their efforts each month.

The Path to Decentralization

It’s clear that trusting one community member to host the DAO’s servers does not embrace the ethos of decentralization.

This is why we need something like FOXChain.

Use Cases

Anyone who needs blockchain data has a use for FOXChain:

• The ShapeShift DAO
  • In its effort to decentralize, ShapeShift needs to stop using centralized AWS or Infura, and find a new decentralized source for blockchain data.
  • The ShapeShift app will query many FOXChain nodes to display info to its users, including crypto balances, historical prices, and any other blockchain data it needs
• Students
  • If you don’t have money to pay for Infura or AWS yourself, and you don’t have room in your tiny dorm room for a second dedicated computer to index the blockchain you need, you can use FOXChain to find servers you can use for development
  • Easily develop and test your smart contracts without the overhead of running your own node
• Small Businesses
  • If it’s too early to pay staff to curate your own blockchain nodes, and too early to pay centralized services like AWS or Infura, you can arrange payment with FOXChain nodes to rent access to theirs part-time
• DAOs
  • Many DAOs compromise on decentralization by paying community members to host centralized services. With FOXChain, your DAO can tap into this decentralized network for blockchain information without relying on any centralized company

While it’s true that FOXChain was originally conceived to help ShapeShift solve its decentralization mission, once FOXChain exists it can be used by anybody anywhere, making it a decentralized gift 🎁 to the world.