Web3 continues to evolve. Institutional capital is entering the space, narratives are shifting, and the stakes have never been higher. But beneath the hype, a quieter issue is surfacing: a growing disconnect between projects and the people who built them up.
The communities that once fueled adoption are now becoming skeptical. Many teams are reeling from community backlash, often triggered by poor communication, neglect, or token-driven promises that never matured into shared purpose. And in a space that thrives on participation, this disconnect isn’t just a PR problem; it’s an existential one.
Sentiment Moves Markets
Web3 markets are built on community consensus — it’s the mechanism that gives value meaning beyond code and capital. Communities can lift projects overnight or bury them just as fast. The collapse of once-hyped ecosystems wasn’t just a failure of tokenomics, it was a failure of trust. When sentiment shifts, liquidity follows.
We’ve seen how fast collective belief can move mountains, and how quickly it can disappear. Whether it’s a DeFi protocol facing governance drama (Sushi drama) or an NFT brand mismanaging its holders (CryptoZoo drama), ignoring your community means losing your strongest asset. The people who meme your story, defend your reputation, and amplify your wins are your greatest multipliers. Lose them, and your chart becomes just another line in the bear market graveyard.
Maturity Requires Community
As the space matures and more institutional players enter the space, Web3 is entering its next chapter. Regulation, compliance, and structure are coming, and that’s not a bad thing. But evolution shouldn’t mean erasing what made this space powerful in the first place.
We’re already seeing this shift in motion: more Web3 companies are exploring IPOs, seeking public listings, or operating as regulated entities. This means they’re no longer shielded by anonymity or early-stage culture, they’re directly exposed to sentiment and market perception. Once you’re a public-facing company, every misstep, every tone-deaf announcement, every ignored community concern translates into real financial and reputational risk. If you haven’t built a foundation of trust with your users, you can’t evolve, the market will turn on you faster than any regulator ever could.
The projects that will define this new phase won’t just be the most compliant or best-capitalized; they’ll be the ones that keep the original DNA of participation and openness alive while scaling responsibly. The degens of yesterday are the shareholders of tomorrow. If you lose their belief, no audit or partnership can buy it back.
A Great Product Isn’t Enough
Of course, some will argue that community belief can be dangerous when it outpaces reality. History has shown that hype without substance can be catastrophic, Theranos is the classic example of a company fueled by conviction in a product that never existed.
But Web3 operates differently. Community isn’t about blind faith, but alignment. It doesn’t replace a product, it reinforces it. You can have a loyal following, but without a strong offering, conviction eventually fades. And the reverse is just as true: even the best product can fail if no one believes in it.
That’s why culture becomes the multiplier. Doge wasn’t built on utility, but on humor, identity, and belonging. Pudgy Penguins turned a bear-market meme into a global lifestyle brand because they gave people something to identify with. Both prove the same point, belief scales faster than marketing.
Start Small, Stay Consistent
The strongest communities aren’t measured by size but by alignment. Fifty real believers who understand your mission are worth more than five hundred airdrop hunters.
Building that belief doesn’t come from giveaways or Discord bots. It comes from clarity, participation, and consistency, the discipline to keep showing up, communicate openly, and give your users ownership of the story. Culture isn’t built from control, it’s built from co-creation. When the hype fades, charts crash, and narratives rotate, the only thing that keeps people building is conviction, something no budget, bull market, or algorithm can replicate.
In Web3, everything can be rebuilt except belief. Belief can’t be bought, coded, or forked. It’s the compound interest of shared identity, storytelling, and trust. The projects that last will be those that build belonging, not just broadcasts.
By: Vilen Gulian, Head of Social Media
