Cryptocurrency
Why traditional marketers fail in Web3: Avoiding these failures
“You can fork code, but you can’t fork a community.” I wish I had come up with this gem of a saying. I use it extensively. I also wish I knew who to credit it to. Heard it on a podcast several years back, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
2023 marks my 10th anniversary working in the blockchain industry — primarily in community and marketing. The number one lesson I have learned is how valuable communities are: how powerful they are, and how unique each one is. And, they’re the only reason your projects can become a success or failure.
You can replicate marketing plans, you can fork Github repos and you can poach developers and other professionals from your competitors. However, if there is one thing you cannot do, it’s copying and pasting a community — no matter how hard you try.
The community is not your client base
Over the years I’ve witnessed the tragic demise of several accomplished and veteran traditional chief marketing officers. I’ve witnessed great projects slam into a go-to-market dead end. Projects treating the community as a nuisance they are forced to tolerate, simply copying what others are doing and forcing it to fit in tend to not do well. They pretend to care for the community publicly while ignoring their value internally.
In Web2, you have customers and clients. You have sales targets and KPIs to meet. Your goal as a marketer is to convince people your product is better than the next. You know your client’s identity. You own their data. You grow your customer base through advertisement dollars. The communication is generally one-sided. You offload interactions onto Customer Service to deal with any complaints.
How to market to a Web3 crowd
It really is quite simple. You’re not selling anything. You’re raising awareness, and letting people figure out why you matter all by themselves. Don’t even try to convince anyone about anything. Your only KPI is to keep people interested.
It’s all about the mindset, acknowledging the radically different ethos and user behaviour compared to Web2. Respect the original broad stroke principles of the anarchic-cypherpunk manifesto that permeates between the lines of Satoshi’s white paper. If you didn’t understand this previous sentence, that is your core issue.
In Web3 you have users, not customers and clients. Together, they form a community. A community is like having a big family with new members every day. It is all about nurturing relationships with — for the most part — anonymous individuals on the internet. It’s about making friends with avatars who have a common interest. Treat everyone like they’re your best friend.
The code for many projects is open-source. Anyone can audit it. The community owns the project through token holding and governance. Your project’s wallets are auditable too. There is zero tolerance for foul play. The beauty lies in the eyes of blockchain explorers. Treat everyone with the same level of respect as you would the Internal Revenue Service. Radical transparency is key. “Don’t trust, verify.”
Understand you have subsets within your community with different interests, and become obsessively interested in each and every one of them. Treat every individual as a VIP, and cater to their individual needs.
“We’ll just throw money at the problem”
The last thing you do is spend from the prototypical marketing budget. It simply doesn’t work until you reach a critical mass of users when your community is thriving. Spend your energy fostering a welcoming and fun place for folks to congregate in. Invest in quality community managers rather than marketing leads. Word of mouth will vastly outperform any PPC or PR campaign.
User acquisition is easy. Retaining people is hard. Ask yourself, “What is it that makes people come back every day?”
This is your entire marketing strategy boiled down to one sentence.
Your community is not a currency, it’s a store of value
In the ever-evolving landscape of Web3, true value isn’t just tokens or coins that change hands. It’s the collective heartbeat of a community, the shared passion and vision that drives projects forward. Traditional marketing metrics and strategies fall short in this realm, not because they’re inherently flawed, but because they were designed for a different era — a different mindset.
Web3 is more than just a technological evolution; it’s a cultural renaissance. It’s a space where centralized hierarchies are flattened, and every voice, no matter how soft, has the potential to echo with impact. In this brave new world, the community isn’t just an audience; they’re co-creators, stakeholders and always the lifeblood of a project. They don’t buy a product; they buy into a vision, a dream and a promise of a decentralized future.
As we journey deeper into the Web3 era, it becomes evident that while tokens may fluctuate in price, the true store of value is the trust, passion and commitment of a community. They don’t merely transact; they transform. They don’t just invest; they inspire.
In the world of Web3, where the tangible often blurs with the intangible, remember this: Your community’s value isn’t just in what they give, but in what they represent. Through bull markets and bear markets, cherish them, for they are the bedrock upon which lasting legacies are built.
Tiago Serôdio is an accomplished growth marketer and community professional who specializes in hyper-scaling projects.
This article was published through Cointelegraph Innovation Circle, a vetted organization of senior executives and experts in the blockchain technology industry who are building the future through the power of connections, collaboration and thought leadership. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Cointelegraph.
TL;DR
- Due to recent growth, Solana and its projects have gained popularity.
- Ecosystem meme coins like Dogewifhat (WIF) and Bonk Inu (BONK) have seen significant declines after a substantial surge earlier this year.
The Unsurprising Leader
Solana and numerous projects built on it have brimming in popularity in 2024. Some factors that could have contributed to this might be SOL’s bull run at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, the growing community, and innovations in the ecosystem.
The crypto analytics platform Santiment recently outlined the top 10 Solana-based projects in terms of development activity in the past 30 days.
Somewhat expected, the first spot belongs to Solana itself, which collected a score of 186.33. It is worth noting that the protocol’s native token – SOL – has been experiencing a downfall since the end of July, plunging by approximately 30% and currently trading at around $127 (per Coingecko’s data).
Wormhole holds the second position with a ratio of 90.5. It acts as a bridge connecting various blockchain networks, such as Solana, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and others. It enables users to transfer digital assets and data across these blockchains without a centralized intermediary.
Pyth Network is third, with a score of 68. It operates as a decentralized oracle network where multiple providers contribute to a collective data feed.
JITO and Neon round up the top 5 list. The other Solana-based projects down the line include Drift, Orca, Helium IOT, Helium Mobile, and Metaplex.
The Missing Ones
It is interesting to note that meme coins, which are part of Solana’s ecosystem, did not make the list. Such tokens, including dogwifhat (WIF), Bonk Inu (BONK), and many more, were among the top-trending topics in the crypto space at the start of the year due to their skyrocketing prices.
However, their progress has stalled as of late. WIF – the biggest Solana-based meme coin in terms of market capitalization – currently trades at around $1.52, representing more than a 70% decline from the ATH registered in April.
BONK (the second-largest) is worth approximately $0.00001666 as of the moment, or 60% less than the peak in May.
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Bitcoin’s nosedives continued in the past 24 hours as the asset slumped from an intraday high of $57,000 to under $53,000 within hours.
The altcoins are also in the red, and the total crypto market cap has dumped to $2 trillion for the first time in over a month.
BTC’s Troubles Keep Coming
The primary cryptocurrency lost the coveted $60,000 level last week, and the true downfall followed suit. Aside from a brief attempt to overcome that line on September 3, the bears have been predominantly in control, which culminated yesterday.
Before that, it was rejected a couple of times and marked lower daily highs. A relief rally came on Friday when the US released the job report for August, which showed that there was a slight decline in the unemployment rates.
BTC reacted quickly with a price increase from $55,500 to $57,000. However, that turned out to be a false breakout, and the cryptocurrency headed south immediately after. In a matter of minutes, it plummeted to $54,000 before the bears initiated another leg down that pushed it to a monthly low of $52,700 (on Bitstamp).
Despite recovering to just over $54,000 now, it is still 4% down on the day and more than 8% in the past seven days. Its market cap has plunged to $1.070 trillion, while its dominance over the alts is down to 53.5%.
Alts in Red Yet Again
The bearish scenario repeated once again, and the altcoins are back in red. Ethereum is among the leaders in this adverse trend, having lost over 4% of value. As a result, it now struggles at $2,250. BNB is down by 3%, XRP by 3%, and SOL by 2.5%.
DOGE has dumped the most from the larger-cap alts. The OG meme coin has seen 5% of its value evaporate over the past day and is below $0.1.
Further losses come from the likes of TON, BCH, SHIB, LTC, OKB, XMR, and many others.
The total crypto market cap has declined by another $50 billion and is down to $2 trillion on CG.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pledged to donate all Layer 2 (L2) tokens he holds to support public goods within the Ethereum ecosystem or broader charitable causes.
This announcement comes a few days after accusations that he had sold millions in Ether (ETH) for personal gain.
Vitalik Buterin Denies Profit Motive
Buterin was quick to respond to the allegations, emphasizing that he has not sold any ETH for personal profit since 2018. Instead, he clarified that any proceeds from his ETH sales have been directed toward projects that contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem or other charitable initiatives.
In a September 5 update, he expanded on his stance, pledging to donate all L2 tokens he holds, including not-yet-liquid assets, to support similar causes.
He wrote, “All proceeds will be donated, again either to support public goods within the Ethereum ecosystem or broader charity (e.g., biomedical R&D). I also do not intend to invest into L2s or other token projects in the foreseeable future.”
He explained that his aim in funding projects is to support initiatives he believes are important, particularly in situations where other parts of the ecosystem may not fully recognize their value.
The Allegations
On August 30, an X user accused him of selling over $2 million worth of ETH shortly after posting a positive update about Ethereum’s future.
Later on, Lookonchain also revealed that Vitalik had transferred 800 ETH, worth around $2 million, to a multi-signature wallet. Shortly after, the wallet swapped 190 ETH for 477,000 USDC.
Further analysis from Lookonchain indicated that on August 9, he had moved an additional 3,000 ETH, valued at over $8 million, to the same multi-sig wallet.
These transfers fueled speculation that the Ethereum co-founder was liquidating his Ether holdings to realize profits.
Buterin had previously disclosed that his entire Ether holdings came from the Ethereum pre-mining period, which allocated 11.9 million ETH (about 10% of the total supply) to early contributors. As one of them, he received 700,000 ETH for his role in the network’s creation.
According to blockchain tracker Arkham Intelligence, his current holdings amount to approximately 240,000 ETH. This is a reduction of around 460,000 ETH from his initial stash.
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