What is Web3 marketing?

Marketing for companies whose product involves blockchains — protocols, exchanges, wallets, marketplaces, infrastructure, and the businesses building on top of them. In practice the disciplines are the same as anywhere else: positioning, search, content, community and paid acquisition. What changes is the audience, the regulatory constraint on paid channels, the fact that a large part of the buying conversation happens in Discord and on X rather than on your website, and that attribution is unusually hard because much of the journey is off-site and some of it is on-chain.

How is crypto marketing actually different from normal marketing?

Four ways that matter. Audiences are more technically literate and considerably more sceptical, so claims need evidence rather than adjectives. Paid channels are restricted and the policies change without notice. Communities are a genuine acquisition channel rather than a nice-to-have, which is a different operational discipline. And the purchase journey is long and fragmented — on the KnownOrigin marketplace, 47% of purchases happened 12 to 30 days after the first site visit, which breaks most attribution setups and leads teams to defund the channels that were actually working.

How should I judge a Web3 marketing proposal?

Ask what the work will be accountable for. Most crypto marketing proposals are priced by deliverable — posts, articles, placements — which means they are paid whether or not any of it moves a number. Ask what metric is expected to move, by roughly how much, over what period, and what would count as failure. If the answer is a volume of outputs rather than a change in an outcome, you are buying activity.

Do you only work with crypto companies?

No, and I would be wary of anyone who does. I work across crypto, fintech and B2B technology, which is useful in both directions: the discipline that regulated finance demands of its marketing is exactly what most crypto companies are missing, and the speed crypto teams operate at is what most financial institutions cannot manage.

Can you actually run paid ads for a crypto product?

Yes, within restrictions that change frequently. Google and Meta both permit certain crypto categories with certification and geographic limits, and getting it wrong means a disapproval at best and a flagged account at worst. This is one of the areas where experience is worth more than enthusiasm.

What about NFTs — is that still worth doing?

Rarely as an end in itself. The two NFT engagements written up on this site both worked because the digital asset did a job for an existing business — introducing eBay’s sneaker collectors to digital ownership, and giving KnownOrigin’s artists a reason to bring their own audiences. Neither worked because it was an NFT. If a token or collectible is the strategy rather than a mechanism inside one, that is usually the problem.

How much does this cost?

An audit with a roadmap is a fixed fee, typically three to four weeks. Ongoing work is a monthly retainer with no lock-in. I will give you a number once I understand the scope, and if I do not think I would earn it I will tell you that instead.

Web3 and crypto marketing

Web3 marketing, from someone who was here before the hype.

I founded a crypto publication in 2014 and an NFT company in 2018. Most of the people now selling Web3 marketing arrived in 2021 and will leave when the next thing does. That difference shows up in the work.

I help crypto, Web3 and blockchain companies with the same things I help anyone with — positioning, search, content, community and paid acquisition — with the difference that I have been operating in this market long enough to know which parts of it are real.

Discuss a marketing problem See the track record

In crypto since. Founded CoinJournal that year and ran it for six: 2014In crypto since. Founded CoinJournal that year and ran it for six
Crypto and Web3 engagements written up on this site, with the numbers attached: 5Crypto and Web3 engagements written up on this site, with the numbers attached
Sold through CryptoKaiju, the NFT business I built and ran myself: $250k+Sold through CryptoKaiju, the NFT business I built and ran myself

What crypto marketing looks like now

The market changed. Most of the marketing did not.

Search demand for “Web3 marketing” has fallen by roughly half over the past year. Demand for “crypto marketing” is holding up better. That is not a terminology quirk — it is the market deciding that the interesting part was never the label.

What is left is a set of companies with real products, real regulatory obligations and real revenue targets, being marketed to by an industry still optimised for token launches. The playbook that worked in 2021 — influencers, hype, a Discord, a countdown — does not work on a buyer evaluating custody infrastructure.

The work that does hold up is unglamorous: knowing who you are for, being findable when they look, saying something worth reading, and measuring it in a way that survives a long, fragmented purchase journey.

Sceptical, technical audiences: This market has been marketed at badly for a decade and can smell it. Claims need evidence attached, which is a constraint most content operations are not built for.
Restricted paid channels: Google and Meta permit some crypto categories with certification and geographic limits, and change the rules without warning. Getting it wrong costs you the account, not just the campaign.
The conversation is off-site: A large part of the buying decision happens in Discord, Telegram and on X. Treating community as a channel to broadcast into rather than a place to be useful is the single most common mistake.
Attribution that lies to you: Long journeys, off-site touchpoints and on-chain actions. Last-click will confidently credit the wrong channel and you will defund the one that was working.

Twelve years in this market

Founder, operator and in-house lead — in this market since 2014.

2014

Founded CoinJournal

Started a cryptocurrency news publication and ran it for six years — building the writing team, setting editorial direction, interviewing the people building the industry, and handling advertiser relationships. This is the year most of the people now selling Web3 marketing were doing something else.

2016–2021

Freelance crypto marketing, including Bitmain

Paid media, content, PR and social for the world’s largest manufacturer of mining hardware, and for a Manchester blockchain consultancy and its clients.

Read the case study

2018–

Founded CryptoKaiju

The first project to link NFTs with physical collectibles, taken from proof of concept to a profitable business with over $250,000 in sales. Covered by Forbes, and partnered with the NBA, The Sandbox and Dapper Labs. I sourced the manufacturers, ran the production, built the front end and did the marketing.

2022–2024

2025–

Regulated digital assets

Currently running marketing for a MiCA-authorised digital-asset firm — institutional lending and regulated crypto vaults, with Legal and Compliance in the approval path. Named in the CV rather than here.

The Forbes feature and the NBA partnership are linked from the About page, and the full record is in the CV.

What it produced

Five engagements, all in crypto, all written up with the measurement basis stated against each figure.

2024–2025

Restarting a marketing function that had stopped

MSquared · Strategy · SEO · Social

Social channels registering zero engagement for days at a time, and a site that ranked only for its own name. Rebuilt the marketing function from the ground up.

Read the case study

9,200+

Peak daily impressions on X, from under 100

2025

Proving a blockchain’s performance claim by breaking it in public

Somnia Network · Strategy · Community · Content

Rather than publish another performance whitepaper, we built a fully on-chain voxel MMO and invited the world to stress-test the network with it.

Read the case study

70,000+

Players onboarded during the testnet phase

2022–2024

Reversing a decline in a collapsing NFT market

KnownOrigin · Strategy · SEO · Content · Analytics

Traffic, creator mints and sales were all falling with the market. Attribution analysis showed the channel we thought was converting was not the one doing the work.

Read the case study

+30%

Site traffic over six months, against a falling market

2016–2021

Making the world’s largest miner manufacturer visible in English

Bitmain · SEO · Paid · Localisation

Dominant in Asia and effectively invisible in English search. Technical repair, localisation of twelve thousand words, and a rebuilt paid search account.

Read the case study

+124%

Organic traffic from the US and EU over six months

2022–2023

Introducing sneaker collectors to digital ownership

eBay · Activation · Research · Community

Two physical activations — OG Drops Manchester and Sneaker Con London — designed to find out whether traditional collectors would take up digital collectibles at all.

Read the case study

56%

Of event attendees claimed a digital collectible

What the work involves

The same five disciplines as anywhere else, applied to a market with its own constraints.

Most engagements use two or three of these together. If you are not sure which, start a conversation — working that out is the first thing I would do anyway.