Web3 Marketing

13Defining Web2.5

When we started Serotonin, our goal was to use the best practices from our experience at ConsenSys as the first Web3 marketing team—bringing Ethereum to market, along with products such as MetaMask, Infura, and Truffle, as well as developing company brands such as ConsenSys itself—to the next generation of projects building on Web3. That meant DAOs, DeFi protocols, Web3 utilities and infrastructure, Layer‐1 and Layer‐2 blockchains, as well as NFT projects. Most of our clients were innovative new Web3‐native projects referred to us by a small group of dedicated Web3 venture capital firms that knew us by reputation. By 2021, however, NFTs were gaining mainstream adoption, and the [e-mail] inbox was full of outreach from top companies who heard through word‐of‐mouth that we were the experts on Web3 and reaching the Web3 community. Through the simple contact form on our website, we received emails from the likes of Sony Music, Yum! Brands, and someone pretending to be Kanye West.

With our long memories from years working in the space, we suspected Web3 would feature a heterogeneous mix of Web3‐native projects alongside traditional and Web2 brands that were able to adapt their businesses to play in the new environment. Many long‐standing contributors to the Web3 movement reflexively reject large brands and corporations entering the space. Remember, this is a community that originally formed in opposition to the institutions that brought about financial ...