GETTING NEW USERS IN CRYPTO IS HARDER THAN EVER (WHAT TO DO)

Crypto marketing is dazzling: from choosing the right channels, to messaging, to team coordination.

Crypto marketing is dazzling: from choosing the right channels, to messaging, to team coordination. Should you invest in hosting an event? Do you need to launch an ambassador program? How should the incentives for hackathons be designed? There’s always something to do.

Great marketers simplify processes, create plans, execute tasks, and help you save budget.

However, crypto marketing has become increasingly challenging at this stage.

What exactly is happening?

As founders, builders, and marketers, what can we do?

Why? Here are three reasons: No new users!!!

Reason 1: Increased Competition

The entire crypto ecosystem's chains, infrastructure, and dApps (decentralized applications) are saturated, with every project vying for attention with its own token.

According to On-chain data provided by @defillama, dApps and token data provided by @alvaapp

For example, my friend @mumufengg has never used on-chain products (no hot wallet, no exposure to dApps), yet his initial experience reflects the confusion of new users.

Currently, there are 356 blockchains according to @DefiLlama. After a talk, I spoke with @cattybk (from @thirdweb), who mentioned they have worked with over 2,000 EVM chains alone.

I then checked the data from @coingecko:

There are also:

44 narratives tracked by @KaitoAI

Are new users flooding in to support these new chains, infrastructure, dApps, and tokens?

From the perspective of Total Value Locked (TVL), the performance of this cycle is comparable to the previous one, and aligns with the performance of the term "crypto" in Google search trends—search volume is cyclically declining, indicating waning interest from mainstream users.

Even if new users come in, they face hundreds of chains to choose from, not to mention hundreds of wallets. This is more confusing than ever.

Reason 2: Fragmented Target Audience

The audience in the crypto space is diverse, with different motivations for each group, further exacerbating market fragmentation.

• Developers and Builders:

If you are a developer of a blockchain/network/ecosystem, you need to attract developers to build applications that can attract new users.

This requires developer marketing and onboarding guidance. Developers' motivations may include: wanting to realize unique ideas using your tech stack, obtaining development funding, or seeing higher chances of success based on network effects and distribution capabilities.

• Customers and Users:

If you are a protocol, dApp, middleware, or service provider, you need to attract users to generate revenue.

For the ecosystem, dApp teams can be seen as customers.

It's important to note that users do not always align with token holders; sometimes token holders may just be speculators who do not actually use your product.

• Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, and Other Investors:

These groups provide you with funding, and their motivation is to achieve a return on investment (ROI), usually through tokens, which do not always correlate directly with technology, user numbers, or developer counts.

• Retail and Token Speculators:

These individuals may or may not be your users. Their goal is also high ROI through token trading profits.

• Technical Partners:

These are usually other infrastructure or middleware projects. The demand for blockchain expansion in speed, security, and cost has spawned an entire middleware infrastructure sector, including chain/wallet abstraction, cross-chain bridges, interoperability, modularity, etc.

Additionally, there are service providers, not limited to agencies, but also including blockchain explorers, ad tech, unlocking software, etc.

These partners typically represent a broad audience that needs to be targeted, which is why business development (BD) is so popular in the industry.

• Listing Partners:

Including trading platforms, launch platforms, market makers, intermediaries, and KOL trading, etc. The performance of these groups directly impacts the success of your token, and their motivations are often related to ROI.

• Regulatory Bodies and Institutional Investors:

These audiences can bring significant liquidity but may also lead to your company's failure.

Beyond all these audience types, the globalization of the crypto industry further exacerbates market fragmentation. This means understanding cultural differences, coordinating messaging across different time zones, and managing localized marketing efforts.

All of this makes marketing in the crypto industry more challenging, whereas Web2 marketing is more simpler, with clearer messaging and more consistent motivations. For example:

Reason 3: Technology is Not Mature and User Trust is Damaged

According to statistics, since the birth of Bitcoin, the media has declared its "death" 415 times. Additionally, the crypto industry is notorious for scams, money laundering, and crime.

Some news headlines about crypto might worry your mother about your choice to be in this industry.

In 2021, the boom of NFTs and the metaverse brought