(In the picture, 5th from the left)
When crypto first went mainstream, marketing seemed simple: build hype, drop tokens, call it community. For a while, that formula worked. But hype has a half-life. The industry eventually realized that noise does not equal growth. What crypto marketing needs now is not louder amplification but sharper articulation. The next chapter of Web3 belongs to teams that treat marketing as narrative design, not just distribution.
For years, growth in this space was defined by quick experiments—airdrops, influencer pushes, viral mints. As capital tightened and trust eroded, “growth” stopped being enough. The real challenge became legibility. And the TGEs and token performance whether it was Starket, Kaia, Optimism, or any big L1 or L2 reflected that.
Most protocols don’t fail because their tech is weak; they fail because no one outside their Telegram can explain why they matter. The job of a marketer in crypto has shifted from being an amplifier to being an interpreter. The question isn’t “How do we get attention?” but “How do we make what we’re building make sense?”
That distinction became even clearer to me earlier this year when I was invited to an intimate gathering of crypto marketers hosted by Amanda Cassatt, the author of Web3 Marketing and one of the industry’s earliest storytellers. The room was small, thoughtful, and full of people who have shaped how this industry communicates. At one point during the discussion, someone turned to me and asked a simple but pointed question: “Where do you think crypto marketing is actually headed?”
It was the kind of question that forces you to confront the gap between where the industry is and where it wants to go. At that moment, surrounded by people who have seen every hype cycle and narrative shift, I realized that the answer wasn’t about new tactics or channels. It was about the structural change we’re living through — a shift from narrative as a byproduct of growth to narrative as the foundation of growth.
We’re entering an era where story itself becomes infrastructure. Every strong project now documents its narrative with the same rigor it brings to code—structured, repeatable, and scalable. Marketing has evolved into translation architecture, transforming technical complexity into human clarity. It’s what I often call the Bridge: moving from insular hype cycles to outward-facing communication systems that connect deep-tech builders with real-world users and investors.
Alongside this shift, a new kind of operator is emerging. Marketing teams are being replaced—or redefined—by GTM strategists who understand that go-to-market is a system, not a campaign. Instead of chasing reach, they engineer repeatable motion from awareness to adoption. This is the philosophy behind gatherings like GTM Con and networks like Safary Club, which are building a more mature discipline around growth. Marketing in crypto is growing up, one framework at a time.
The future of crypto marketing won’t belong to whoever shouts loudest on X. It will belong to those who can explain why a product matters and keep doing so consistently across audiences and geographies. The next wave will be defined by translation, not hype—by people who understand that clarity is the most scalable form of growth.
That question at Amanda’s gathering has stayed with me. It reminded me that the future of Web3 won’t be driven by louder voices but by clearer ones. And those who can build that clarity — consistently and credibly — will define the next decade of crypto adoption.
Mia P the Author: Mia P is the founder and CEO of Unhashed, a Web3 growth and GTM studio helping Web3 protocols communicate clearly. She speaks globally on storytelling, inclusion, and the future of crypto marketing. Her work focuses on turning complex technology into narratives people can trust and adopt. And her work has spoken for Moonpay, Ledger, Thirdweb, Quicknode, and many other big names in the industry.
