Crypto communities can often implode, despite the best intentions of everyone involved.
Genuine communities with plausible but convoluted project ideas can fail just as easily as projects like DeFi Wonderland, which imploded because of its CFO’s connection to the controversial, defunct Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX.
Plausible projects face scaling challenges like Zilliqa or project management problems like Bitcoin Diamond… or simply run out of money like any startup. So, they need a strong and well-coordinated community to ensure they can survive if and when things go wrong.
So, what can be done to help create a healthy community that pulls together to achieve its objectives? Here are some reflections from founders and community managers.
But for starters what even is a crypto “community?”
What even is a crypto community?
“There’s a lot of moving parts to a community. There’s no one way to define a community in crypto,” says Jett Nathan, community organizer for the Perion gaming DAO.
“The types of community have a lot to do with a project. Different crypto initiatives also behave differently whether it be DeFi or NFTs.” As a pro-gaming team, what gels Perion’s DAO together is clear: “members trying to become pro gamers or learning to be programmers.”
Being part of a community is more than transactional. Owning a coin does not make you a community member. Investor communities want their horse to win, so Twitter feedback loops can make project builds opaque and unrealistic. A project needs to create a digestible story for a community to hold dear. However, the needs of a project and the needs of the community may differ.
Within the community, traders and true believers are different, too. Traders are obviously incentivized to be passionate about their holdings, as attracting further investors helps their hip pockets. But true believers genuinely have faith in the story, the mission. So, a…
