how to market crypto blockchain startup

How to Market a Crypto or Blockchain Startup?

If you are a crypto startup aiming to build disruptive blockchain technology, chances are you might not have clear ideas as to how to market your business.

Crypto marketing is a tad different from regular marketing, although it does share elements of omnichannel digital marketing that we implement in other verticals and industries.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain startups share marketing challenges such as generating brand awareness, educating consumers, and most importantly, generating leads.

In this post, I will cover some unique, creative strategies for cryptocurrency and blockchain marketing for startups.

Let’s begin.

Hackathons

Hackathons witness computer programmers, developers, and other SMEs (subject matter experts) collaborate on blockchain/crypto projects.

These events provide an amazing opportunity for crypto and blockchain startups to further develop their projects.

Hackathons help crypto/blockchain startups in building loyal communities and branding.

If you are a startup, think of a hackathon as your company’s external network. Hackathons attract creative programmers and subject matter experts. Therefore, you can use these events to solve the existing technical issues.

cryptocurrency blockchain hackathons

Here is an example.

Let’s say your startup wants to launch a new product in the crypto/blockchain domain.

And you find that the code is not optimized, thus costing you much time and money.

You can use this as a project (challenge) at a hackathon and tap into the intelligence and creativity of participants.

This way you would achieve two things at once- solve the code-related issue, and save money.

Crypto startups also use these events to find talent (for recruiting).

Solana has become a popular name in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) apps domain.

Last year (November), Solana launched their hackathon in collaboration with Serum, a decentralized Nasdaq. More than 3000 people registered for this event.

This year, in June, Solana SZN attracted over 10,000 builders and $1,000,000 in prizes across 6 continents. 

Because of these initiatives, the Solana ecosystem has become a rapidly growing network of Rust developers building DeFi protocols, blockchain tools, infrastructure projects, dashboards, and so much more.  

For the number-driven, Solana has grown 13,300% since the start of the year.

Yes, at the start of 2021, 1 SOL cost $1.51 and Solana’s market cap was around $86 million. Today, 1 SOL is now worth $202.42, and its market cap is $62 billion. Many are already seeing it as a potential alternative to Ethereum. You can find a number of upcoming hackathons here.

Yield Farming

Yield farming involves using crypto assets to generate the most returns. It is an investing strategy that involves staking or lending crypto assets to generate returns

Token-based crypto startups, in particular, use this marketing strategy on decentralized exchanges (DEX)

Given the availability of easy-to-use yield farming tools and high-profit potential, yield farming is a hot topic in the crypto/blockchain space.

Let’s discuss more using Raydium (a decentralized exchange) as an example.

Raydium uses the Solana blockchain to offer diverse pools, swaps, and yield farming opportunities.

With their AcceleRAYtor incubation program, Raydium attracted startups building on Solana to raise capital through Initial DEX Offerings (IDOs).

Media Foundation ($MEDIA) and Mercurial Finance ($MER) were overbought by 10,000% and 9,000% respectively during their first two launches on Raydium’s incubation program.

Due to high demand and low supply, it created a lot of FOMO and buzz in the crypto space.

The lesson learned here is that if you are a startup, you can benefit from a yield farming pool on a popular platform like Raydium.

Go GitHub

A well-organized Github repository can help you market your crypto/blockchain startup.

The crypto/blockchain industry is highly community-driven.

That is why you want to ensure that you have the most up-to-date documentation for your developer community.

Both investors and developers (as well as users) scan your Discord, Redditt, and, yes, your GitHub profile to assess your project.

You can use a GitHub tracking platform like Crypto Miso to evaluate your progress.

In their own words, CryptoMiso is a web service ranking cryptocurrencies based on the commit history of their most popular Github repository.

Here is how Solana ranks on their platform:

solana github rank

Here is another example: 

twt github rank

Limited Edition Dynamically Priced Merchandise

Did you know that Unisocks sold for over $50,000?

As of today, Unisocks stands at $112,115. 

This limited edition (500 pairs), dynamically priced socks are represented on the Ethereum blockchain as redeemable ERC20 tokens.

It is worth mentioning that when they started, the first few pairs cost between $12 and $21.

And when there were just 21 pairs left, the price rose sharply to over $50,000.

There was a tremendous buzz on Twitter due to this marketing tactic.

Others like Mango Market soon started following this trend, selling dynamically priced Caps. 

solana merch store

Solana opened a merch store to sell physical goods like sweatshirts, shirts, and socks.

This is an innovative strategy to earn publicity and engage your community.

Limited Edition NFTs

Non-fungible tokens are in great demand today.

Their volume of sales jumped to $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021.

The most expensive NFT “The First 5,000 Days” sold for $69.3 million.

how to market crypto blockchain startup

Gunky’s Uprising commanded a whopping $1.33 million, making it the most expensive NFT song ever.

How to Market NFTs

As a crypto startup, you can use NFTs to engage with your fans.

If you can mint NFTs, it could be a good idea to create a limited range of NFTs related to your crypto/blockchain project.

Remember, people love collectibles!

Invite-Only dApps

Scarcity fuels demand.

You can boost the demand for your dApp by creating teaser videos.

For instance, when Phantom Wallet (operating on Solana) was launched they created beta access sign-up form.

They also gave early access to crypto influencers on Twitter.

Finally, they sent “invite-only” codes to ecosystem projects.

All these efforts resulted in creating a massive buzz and awareness for Phantom Wallet.

Crypto startup marketing has to be innovative to promote decentralized alternatives to established institutions and products. Community-driven crypto startups would have an edge over others that follow traditional marketing strategies.

Now that you know how to market crypto blockchain startup, it is time to get started!

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