The Crypto Industry Needs to Integrate 'Belief Builders' and 'Speculative Traffic'

Odaily Planet Daily reports that founder Nick Tomaino discusses the marketing challenges faced by long-termists in the Crypto industry, arguing that true builders need to understand and attract Degen users while maintaining authenticity, rather than standing in a high position to criticize speculative culture. He has been trying to solve this problem for the past 15 years and has failed multiple times. He admits that if users hold different asset positions, they may perceive him as "looking down from above," but he himself participated heavily in speculation and experienced losses when he was younger, so he does not underestimate the Degen community.

Nick Tomaino believes that many truly predatory participants in the crypto industry are precisely those who look down on Degen, making it easier for them to exploit them for arbitrage. Current participants in the crypto market can be divided into two main camps:

First Camp: True Believers: Represented by the leadership of Ethereum and Coinbase. This group has gone through multiple market cycles, continuously building new products and infrastructure, not pursuing short-term traffic and funds, but focusing more on long-term value.

However, the problem with this camp is that sometimes they are too idealistic, failing to fully engage in high-heat scenarios like Memecoin trading and perpetual contracts, resulting in relatively insufficient marketing and user attraction.

Second Camp: Hype Men: Including some altcoin project teams, executives, and KOLs. This group excels at generating attention, attracting Degen users, and capturing market trends.

Tomaino believes that some of these participants focus more on short-term funds and traffic, lacking true innovation, merely using industry narratives to package themselves without actually practicing long-term value. Hype men are better at gaining attention and trading demand, while belief builders possess stronger authenticity and long-term credibility, but both have their shortcomings. In the future, these two cultures will ultimately merge, and the key lies in whether long-term builders can better understand and attract Degen users, and whether traffic drivers can shift from short-term speculation to creating real long-term value. The future direction of the crypto industry will depend on which side can influence the other—whether long-termists can drive more speculative users towards building, or whether traffic players gradually shift towards a healthier, more positive ecosystem.