HOW COMMUNITIES BEAT VC'S AND WHY

Community; agency, tokens & culture.

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about my goal as Pyth community lead:

"My goal as Pyth community lead is to create a community so strong that it functions as a self-sustaining culture, not just a marketing funnel."

I got questions about it. So here's my attempt at explaining the 'WHY'.

The Cultural Exchange

Every great community provides value to participants. The best communities are fun, values-driven, and culturally diverse. In short: they vibe. This 'vibe' consists of a unique blend of ritual participation, information flow, and shared experiences. This cultural atmosphere shapes both individual identity and collective belonging.

You might not be able to describe it, but you know what a good or bad 'vibe' within a community feels like. This intangible drives engagement or disengagement.

The Attention Economy

Creating a 'vibe' like this requires peoples' attention. Without attention driving cultural exchange, collaboration and organic discussion a community is unable to develop an authentic, thriving culture.

This matters because attention is a HIGHLY valuable, scarce commodity. Multi-billion dollar industries exist to mine every precious second of your eyeballs' attention. Web3 exists with one critical difference: it has the tools to capture, commodify and reward the culture this attention creates. Memecoins are perhaps the purest expression of this dynamic.

Web2 vs Web3: The Engagement Divide

Web2 farms your attention via dopamine hits and emotional stimuli. Outrage, excitement, disgust, fear, shame... These emotions feed the web2 engagement machine and enrich corporations.

Web3 engagement transforms emotions into networked belonging and identity which benefits participants directly. These networks (which are social and financial infrastructure) promise something new. It's not mindless content consumption; it's world building.

Tokens as Cultural Infrastructure

Tokens are a lot more than digital assets. Tokens reward, remunerate, and establish ownership in digital communities. They are badges of cultural participation that create a crucial advantage over web2 platforms: true communal empowerment through value-added engagement. Status and ownership within the community binds an individual's identity to the network.

The Community Flywheel

1. Contributors are recognized and rewarded with reputation and tokens.
2. The community becomes more attractive to newcomers.
3. New members develop identity tied to the network.
4. They receive ownership stakes through tokens.
5. They feel responsible for the network's health and contribute.
6. The cycle strengthens and repeats.

The VC Problem

VC coins with high FDV's limit retails' opportunities for network ownership with massively inflated market caps. VC's tend to limit value creation and rarely move the cultural flywheel. This pattern is why community driven alternatives like memecoins are now the main drivers of this cycle's narrative.

Building Cultural Capital

Getting this cultural flywheel moving requires substantial work. A well managed network has reputation and currency to spend on contributors, but requires dedication, focus and perhaps most importantly, time investment.

There's an obvious lesson here. Recognise contributors and give them agency. Failure to do so will kill your ability to create culture. Conversely, rewarding efforts in culture creation is empowering; it creates value for all network participants. A valued and appreciated community is your best marketing tool. They will naturally provide education, memes, events, games and culture for all willing participants.

The Stakes

Web3 communities represent either a new social and financial paradigm, or they don't. This cultural world building isn't an option - it's essential. Builders ignoring these world building network dynamics and fading 'community' face an uphill battle.

The Pyth community offering

Well done. You made it to the end. Now you're wondering how the Pyth community works. You want in.

Here's what's on the menu:

This list is not exhaustive. If you have ideas on how to grow the Pyth community, make it known. Maybe you'll get it funded. The team and community leaders are ALWAYS available in the Discord.

Impact Awards and Pyth grants exist for those who are willing to take risks & be creative. Is that you?

Thanks for reading,

Chop