It Takes a Village: How Communities Define the Crypto Space for Better and for Worse

Crypto is all about the community and has been ever since Satoshi Nakamoto described Bitcoin as a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash”. Be it the programmers and engineers developing the protocols, the people running the nodes, or the investors helping the project grow, a coin is only as strong as its community. However, just like a community can help a project succeed, it can also make everything go south.

Over the past years, cryptocurrency has become one of the most popular means of investment, reaching a market capitalization as high as $3 trillion back in 2021. Unfortunately, the technical nature of the technology means that most investors are in it for the money, which can make some supporters feel isolated. This results in 2 issues: Poor understanding of how crypto works and confirmation bias among those who do.

Both of these issues not only result in poor financial decisions when investing but also have the potential to result in disasters like that of Terra or the ICO boom of 2017. These 2 events have something else in common: they attract negative press for the entirety of the crypto space. Now, while communities can certainly have a negative impact on a project or the entire ecosystem, the opposite is almost always the case.

Most cryptocurrency and blockchain projects are built over the principle of equality, which means anyone can participate and benefit from them. Unlike centralized platforms and financial institutions, community members actively play a role in the development and governance of decentralized systems. Think of projects like Ethereum and Bitcoin: Not only have they survived the passing of time but they have grown exponentially since their launch. 

When asked about his view on Bitcoin, Jack Dorsey replied: “What inspires me the most is the community driving it. It reminds me of the early internet”. Communities effectively act as a force multiplier, allowing individuals to change the status quo. This effectively makes crypto what individuals want them to be by finding or creating a community of like-minded people.

One such example of a community is CryptoMondays, an organization with chapters in Shanghai, Los Angeles, Medellin, Tel Aviv, Paris, London, Miami, Singapore, Malta, Tokyo, Las Vegas, and Medellin. By organizing meetups all around the globe, CryptoMondays has gathered more than 22k members and 800 speakers with one single objective: Increasing engagement with blockchain technology.

Lou Kerner, CryptoMonday’s Founder and Co-Founder of CryptoOracle, sat down with eToro’s US CEO Lule Demmissie to discuss how “Crypto Is What You Make of It”. The conversation was part of Grit Daily x CryptoMondays, which took place in Austin during the Consensus 2022 festival. If you were unable to attend and want to hear what these pillars of the community have to say, we got you covered. You can also find other panels and talks on Grit Daily’s Official Youtube Channel.