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Case study / Hemi

The highest-value audience had no door to walk through.

Audit

Art Direction

Development

Web3 · DeFi · Bitcoin

In this case study

01About the project→ 02Challenge→ 03Methodology→ 04What was delivered→ 05What changed→ 06Result→ 07Strategic note→

The highest-value audience
had no door to walk through.

Bitcoin yield infrastructure for institutional capital. Rebuilt from the ground up.

Hemi is building Bitcoin yield infrastructure for institutions. $1.2B+ TVL, 90+ protocols, 100K+ users. Co-founded by Jeff Garzik, one of the original Bitcoin Core contributors and the person whose code now runs on every Android device and modern data center on Earth. Real traction. Genuine technical differentiation. A credible institutional opportunity.

The site was built for the team's own circle. Two competing homepage narratives lived on the same domain. The word "treasury-grade" appeared once, backed by nothing. An institutional CFO evaluating Hemi hit a dead end after eight steps. The highest-value audience was architecturally invisible.

Three months to fix it. Nine workstreams. A team of eight. I was the sole external lead — responsible for UX, copy direction, art direction, Framer build, and full team coordination, end-to-end from audit to deployed site.

About the client

Industry

Bitcoin L2 / Onchain Infrastructure

Stage

Pre-seed → Seed

Location

USA

Timeline

Oct – Dec 2025

Results

3 months

From kick-off to shipped website

0 critical

Issues remaining after redesign (down from 10)

-46%

Total issues reduced across the site

+40%

Documented strengths gained

The technology was institutional-grade. The site was not.

By the time the redesign started, Hemi had $1.2B+ TVL, 90+ protocols, and 100K+ users. The infrastructure was defensible. The technical moat was real. In any institutional conversation, Hemi could hold its own.

The site could not. Two competing hero narratives lived on the same domain: one for developers, one for yield-seekers, neither for institutions. No dedicated page, no audit reports, no compliance signals, no demo booking path. "Treasury-grade" was claimed once across the entire site, backed by nothing. The primary onboarding CTA? "Tunnel assets to Hemi" — infrastructure jargon for crypto-natives, invisible to the institutional evaluator sitting across the table. A CFO evaluating Hemi for treasury deployment would hit a dead end in eight steps and leave.

The challenge was not aesthetic. The architecture had to be rebuilt around who the site was actually trying to convert.

Old Hemi website

Nine workstreams. Three months. One governing principle: architecture first.

UX Audit

Full audit using a 4-block methodology. 69 issues identified, 10 critical. Every finding assigned severity level (Critical / High / Medium / Low), root cause, and specific recommendation. The audit became the project brief.

Block 1: Brand — positioning clarity, target audience definition, message hierarchy, tone of voice, brand story, competitive differentiation, brand promise consistency, emotional resonance (8 sub-sections)

Block 2: UX — website clarity (5-second test), user needs vs. site content, sitemap analysis, navigation vs. primary user paths, user flows across 3 audience segments, usability (6 sub-sections)

Block 3: UI — visual quality, composition, component consistency

Block 4: Conversion — copy quality, CTAs, SEO structure, blog positioning

User Flows

Mapped three primary journeys before touching the sitemap. Sequence matters: flows first, architecture second.

Institutional CFO evaluating Hemi for treasury deployment

EVM developer exploring Bitcoin L2 options

Crypto enthusiast looking to earn yield on BTC

Sitemap Redesign

Rebuilt the information architecture from page-based to audience-based.

Old nav: Resources / Developers / Ecosystem / About / Community / Store

New nav: Institutions / Developers / Ecosystem / About

Footer rebuilt as primary full-site navigation: Institutions / Developers / Users / Ecosystem / Company / Community — each section with dedicated sub-links and a conversion path

Wireframes + Functional Copy

Full wireframe set for all pages with real copy baked in from day one. No Lorem Ipsum. Every headline, subheadline, and CTA written at the wireframe stage — so the UI designer received frames ready to design, not frames waiting for content.

Homepage: "The unified DeFi layer for Bitcoin"

Institutions: "The institutional layer for Bitcoin capital deployment"

Developers: "Solidity on Bitcoin. No wrappers. No bridges."

Brand promise: "Architecture you can trust. Results you can verify."

Copy Coordination

Worked with Hemi's internal copywriter throughout. The tone shift from community-casual to institutional-competent required deliberate coordination at every level.

CTAs rewritten: "Tunnel assets to Hemi" → "Earn with Hemi" / "Book a demo"

Risk disclosures added site-wide: yields disclosed as variable, incentives time-stamped

Jeff Garzik bio rewritten for non-crypto audiences: "Code now embedded in every Android device and modern data center on Earth"

Blog repositioned: "Insights on Bitcoin Yield, Infrastructure & Institutional Adoption"

Art Direction

Directed three UI designers on all visual execution. The Hemi brand guide (V1.0 by Proof of Work Studio) was being created in parallel. My job was to ensure the site applied that system in a way that served the institutional claim — energy and infrastructure, calibrated for trust.

Framer Build

Led the Framer build working alongside a Framer designer and a Framer developer (who owned custom components). Responsible for layout, interactions, and responsive behavior across all pages. Coordinated with Hemi DevOps for deployment.

Blog Migration

Migrated 200+ existing articles to the new site structure. Updated blog positioning from community-casual to institutional-grade.

Team Coordination

Coordinated the full team of eight across parallel workstreams — maintaining alignment, tracking timeline, and keeping handoffs clean.

Three UI designers + Framer designer + Framer developer

Illustrators and motion designers

Hemi copywriter + Hemi DevOps + POW developer (brand guide)

From architecture to execution. Everything shipped.

Seven deliverables shipped over three months. Each one mapped to a gap identified in the audit: a missing audience path, an ambiguous narrative, or a page that could not support institutional evaluation.

Streamlined navigation

Old nav buried institutions under Resources. Rebuilt to four audience-first sections: Institutions, Developers, Ecosystem, About. Each with its own conversion path. Footer rebuilt as a full-site navigation system with six audience segments and sub-links.

New homepage

Replaced two competing hero narratives with one: The unified DeFi layer for Bitcoin. Architecture-first layout leads with product proof ($1.2B+ TVL, 90+ protocols, 100K+ users) before any marketing claim.

Dedicated institutions page

Built from scratch. Full evaluation path for institutional CFOs: yield mechanics, security infrastructure, compliance signals, risk disclosures, and a demo booking path. None of which existed before.

Rebuilt developers page

Solidity on Bitcoin. No wrappers. No bridges. Developer-specific onboarding with docs entry points, testnet access, protocol compatibility overview, and a clear answer to why Hemi before any technical detail.

Redesigned tokenomics page

hemiBTC narrative reframed as the foundational step toward productive Bitcoin. Not wrapped Bitcoin. Full yield mechanics explained for both institutional evaluators and retail participants.

Detailed About page

Jeff Garzik's credentials front and center. Team structure, technical lineage, advisory composition, and the founding story. Rebuilt for trust, not just familiarity.

Post-MVP sitemap

Full architecture plan for the next 6 months: additional institutional sub-pages, blog repositioning from community-casual to institutional thought leadership, and expanded conversion infrastructure.

The same product. Rebuilt for the audience that mattered most.

Three categories of change identified in the audit: messaging, copy, and user navigation. Every row maps to a specific finding. Every change has a documented reason.

Positioning

Before

After

Primary message

Two competing heroes

"The unified DeFi layer for Bitcoin"

Site-wide tagline

None

"The unified Bitcoin economy layer"

Audience messaging

None

Dedicated pages per segment

5-second test

Ambiguous

Clear

Copy

Before

After

Brand promise

"What they call the future, we call Hemi"

"Architecture you can trust. Results you can verify."

Product identity

"The Yield Machine"

"The institutional layer for Bitcoin capital deployment"

Primary CTA

"Tunnel assets to Hemi"

"Earn with Hemi" / "Book a demo"

Developer headline

Implied in tech sections

"Solidity on Bitcoin. No wrappers. No bridges."

Risk communication

Absent

Site-wide, time-stamped, yield-qualified

User paths

Before

After

Institutional evaluation

∞ steps, dead end

3–4 steps to demo booking

Developer exploration

5 steps, no "why Hemi"

3–4 steps with value prop answered

Retail yield onboarding

4+ steps, jargon barriers

2–3 steps, cleaner language

Every critical issue. Resolved.

69 issues identified in the audit. 10 critical, 25 high. After the redesign: 0 critical, high issues down 64%, total issues down 46%, documented strengths up 40%. The institutional audience finally had a full evaluation path. The brand made the same claim as the product.

Key achievements

Critical issues resolved. Down from 10 to 0 across the entire site.

Institutional evaluation flow rebuilt. From dead end in 8 steps to demo booking in 3.

Documented strengths grew from 47 to 66. A 40% increase across the site.

/institutions page, institutional deck, and L2 comparison table built from scratch. The highest-value audience had a full evaluation path for the first time.

Unified market presence established across web, partner marketing, and campaigns for the first time in Hemi's history.

Scalable brand system and content engine delivered. Built for continued institutional growth over the next 12 months.

100%

Critical issues fixed

46%

Total issues fixed in the MVP

+40%

Documented strengths

3 mo

Full scope delivery

Hemi rebuilt its digital presence to function as conversion infrastructure for institutional decision-makers. The new website was architected around how institutions actually evaluate Bitcoin infrastructure: audience-specific entry points, evidence-driven content hierarchy, and clear conversion paths from understanding to deployment. The site now functions as active business development infrastructure, supporting capital conversations, partnership evaluations, and institutional onboarding at the scale Hemi's growth demands.

Hemi

2025 Year in Review, Hemi

Strategic note

This project sits at the intersection of two problems I see repeatedly in Web3.

The first: a technically excellent product with a site built for the team, not for the target audience. The team understood wallets, PoP mining, and EVM compatibility intuitively — so the site reflected that. The highest-value audience (institutional capital deployers) had no door to walk through.

The second: a brand promise that isn't backed by evidence on the site. "Treasury-grade" means nothing without audit reports. "Transparent" means nothing without yield dashboards. The old site made claims the content didn't support. The new site inverts this: every claim has a corresponding evidence page.

The redesign didn't change what Hemi is. It rebuilt the site so the people who most need to understand it can find, evaluate, and act on what they need.