The Dilemma of Web3 Marketing

First, let’s revisit the differences between investment-focused users and product users:

• Product Users: These are consumer users who focus on a product’s user experience and functionality, seeking satisfaction or convenience from its use.

• Investment-Focused Users: These users aim to gain investment returns through a product. Their attention extends beyond user experience to the product’s economic value and long-term growth potential.

Due to the vastly different needs of these two user groups, Web3 marketing now faces a critical dilemma: the separation of products and assets. Growth in product users is disconnected from asset price fluctuations, and user growth fails to effectively translate into asset appreciation.

The root cause lies in project teams still relying on Web2 marketing logic—leading strategies with a "product user mindset" that cannot meet the core demands of investment-focused users.

Core Demands of Investment-Focused Users

Unlike product users, investment-focused users are not satisfied with the status quo; they crave hope for the future. Their core demands include:

1. Expectations for Future Development: They want the project to drive industry innovation and create greater value.

2. Expectations for Investment Returns: They seek substantial profits from investing in the project.

Every investment-focused user forms an "expectation" of a project, which becomes their criterion for deciding whether to invest. The more an expectation aligns with their investment goals, the stronger their willingness to invest.

A New Web3 Marketing Framework

To address the above dilemma, project teams urgently need to establish a new Web3 marketing framework centered on investment-focused users. This framework consists of three core steps:

1. Deeply Insight into Investment-Focused Users’ Psychology: Accurately identify and analyze the psychological needs of investment-focused users.

2. Build Foundational Consensus Through Narrative Dissemination: Widely spread the project’s narrative to capture the attention of potential users.

3. Empower Asset Value with Consensus: Strengthen asset consensus through a "narrative constellation" and perpetuate it as a set of shared values.

Step 1: Insight into User Psychology (Not Just Needs)

You may wonder: Why prioritize "user psychology" over "user needs" as the first step? Because a "product" is not always necessary. A "product" is merely a vehicle for the narrative—it can be any carrier that sparks users’ imagination and hope.

Consider these examples:

• Fictional Stories: Even a made-up story can attract user attention and shape expectations for a project.

• Urban Air: Packaging a city’s air as a scarce resource and endowing it with unique value can attract investment.

• Unredeemable Checks: Even a check that will never be cashed can serve as a promise to win users’ trust and investment.

More commonly, as the narrative evolves, project teams may launch unrelated products to align with user expectations. For companies that already have a defined product or service, I recommend caution when issuing assets. Here’s why: When a project issues an asset, the number of investment-focused users will far exceed product users. While this may create an illusion of "false prosperity," if investment-focused users realize the project cannot meet their expectations, they will spread negative consensus in the community—ultimately harming product users who genuinely use the product.

Step 2: Build Foundational Consensus Through Narrative Dissemination

Before building consensus, we must clarify three core concepts:

• Expectation: An estimate of future outcomes.

• Narrative: A description of a story (e.g., the project’s vision, growth path).

• Consensus: A shared belief spontaneously formed by people from different backgrounds and interests.

In marketing practice, the logic works like this:

1. The project team creates a narrative and disseminates it unilaterally to users.

2. Users exchange expectations with each other and form a consensus.

3. As this consensus is accepted by more people, it influences the project’s development.

This is the fundamental difference between Web3 and Web2 marketing: Web3 marketing drives project growth by managing expectations (creating and spreading them) to form consensus that benefits the project.

Let’s take an example: A close friend tells you a project has secured a listing on Binance. Later, you verify this by seeing Binance’s investment in the project and frequent official interactions between the two. You then form the same expectation and spread this idea. Over time, the community develops a "Binance listing consensus," which attracts a flood of investment-focused users.

While this case is extreme, it reveals a key truth: If a narrative meets users’ psychological needs, Web3 projects do not need to spend heavily on user acquisition (like Web2 products). Instead, they only need to "open a door" for users to enter voluntarily.

Critical Note: Since narratives are disseminated unilaterally by the project team, there is no guarantee users will absorb the message entirely. Thus, you must always monitor the expectations users form after receiving information—this is the key to building consensus.

• If a small but positive consensus emerges (e.g., "this project’s roadmap is credible"), protect it. Consensus is like a torch; it will gradually illuminate more users.

• If a negative consensus arises (e.g., "the team is not delivering on promises"), address it immediately. The more people who accept a negative consensus, the harder it becomes to reverse.

Additionally, consider the existing consensus in users’ minds. Do not challenge established consensus—instead, offer a new hope. As Positioning emphasizes, being "the first" to meet users’ hopes is the shortcut to entering their minds. When your project is the first to fulfill a specific hope, it gains an enormous competitive advantage.

Step 3: Empower Asset Value with Consensus

The power of consensus lies in its ability to endow objects or actions with value. For example, works of art and fiat currencies derive their value from shared human perception. However, consensus can do more: It can artificially create causal relationships and assign value to actions.

Examples of "Action Value" Driven by Consensus

• Consumer Marketing: Slogans like "the first cup of milk tea in autumn" or "a diamond is forever" create consensus, convincing consumers that certain products or actions bring satisfaction or identity.

• Launchpad Platforms: These platforms empower their native tokens, boosting the tokens’ value and liquidity.

Endowing objects (e.g., assets) with value is often more challenging, as it requires binding the asset to users’ values. Values are what people perceive as "important." When people collectively agree on the importance of something, they no longer question the rationality of its value. At this point, the asset undergoes a remarkable transformation: It transcends financial valuation and becomes part of a cultural gene.

Case Study: How Consensus Empowers Bitcoin (BTC) Value

Let’s use BTC to illustrate how consensus empowers asset value:

1. Foundational Narrative: BTC’s narrative as "the first technology-driven anarchic asset" laid its value foundation.

2. Narrative Constellation: Around this foundational narrative, new narratives continuously emerged, forming a "narrative constellation." This constellation met users’ psychological needs in different eras and resonated with their values:

• 2011 (Economic Recession): BTC became a symbol of individual financial sovereignty. After the "Occupy Wall Street" protests ("We are the 99%"), BTC experienced its first price surge.

• 2016 (Decline of Traditional Internet): BTC’s association with Web3 positioned it as the "future successor to the internet," triggering a bull market.

• 2022 (AI Boom): BTC was framed as a tool to "control AI," becoming a symbol of "machine governance hope."

3. Value Binding: As BTC’s narrative and price growth became inseparable (new narratives drove higher prices, and higher prices fueled new narratives), BTC gradually bound to users’ values. It evolved into a "digital gold" symbol, representing values like "store of value" and "inflation resistance."

MEME Tokens: A New Path to Rapid Consensus

Beyond BTC, MEME tokens have emerged as assets that can quickly complete this "value transformation." Historically, building consensus to empower value required decades of effort from project teams. However, MEME tokens simplify and accelerate this process:

• They attract users quickly through asset issuance.

• Their inherent viral spread and sense of identity make it easier to build consensus and gain universal value recognition.

In the future, when MEME tokens move beyond "empty hype" and become value symbols for specific communities, they will reveal their true potential.