Author:jamesrichardfry, Head of Marketing at Across Protocol
Compiled by: Jiahuan, ChainCatcher
I've been struggling with how to start writing this. Part of me wants to paint everything in a sunny light. Dress it up with marketing talk, make it sound grand, and move on.
But that wouldn't be entirely honest. If you know me, you know I wear my heart on my sleeve and can't hold things in. So, I'll just say it straight.
Community is dead. Of course, it wasn't always like this. That goes without saying, but I'm going to say it out loud anyway.
I still miss the good old days on Clubhouse and Discord channels. When we spent hours 'vibing' with strangers online, talking about magic internet money, the latest NFT drop, the best staking opportunities, commiserating over our fails and losses, dreaming together about the next great project, and actually 'building'.
To this day, many of those online strangers are still great friends. Some even became close friends in real life. When community is good, it's truly good. I miss those days.
Zooming out a bit, what exactly is community? In our last all-hands meeting, I rambled on about this for so long I could almost hear my colleagues' eyes rolling.
To share a bit of that with you, here's what I think community is:
Community is a group of people gathered around a common interest. We all have communities in many aspects of our daily lives.
From the school you attended, the sport you played, the religion you follow, the gym you go to, even the grocery store you shop at, communities exist.
Some communities are more shallow. The group of old men I see at the gym Monday to Friday is a community, but it's obviously very different from the friend circle we deliberately spend time with.
Web3 or crypto communities are no different.
We all gather around shared interests. DeFi Summer. NFT Mania. NFT Winter. Every kind of cross-chain interoperability, every ZK proof.
Whatever flavor you're into, there's a group of people going down that rabbit hole with you.
Some are here for financial speculation. Some are here from a deep conviction and commitment to the early cypherpunk movement. Some crypto communities are more superficial or performative.
Others are deep. I mean, really deep. Like religious groups, cultish followings, conviction that sits deep in your gut, put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is deep.
We wear the same 'uniform' (PFP), speak our own language (WAGMI), look absolutely insane to outsiders, and we don't care at all because we believe in what we've gathered around.
Early crypto community was inseparable from conviction.
Not just belief, but deep conviction burning in your gut that gives you the courage to get on stage and talk for hours in front of hundreds of listeners about why you believe in the founder, the project, the roadmap, and why you are the diamond-handed hodler of that project.
Conviction. That's what drove parabolic growth in the early days. Without community, crypto wouldn't be what it is today.
By the way, Across is no exception. Across' early community was a golden era. Vibes were high. Deep conviction existed (yes, I used that word a lot). Excitement and energy, people caring about the project for its innovation, not token price.
We hired many people from the community who still work with us today. There are also those from the early days who are still die-hard community members, sticking with us through thick and thin.
When community is good, it's truly good.
But then, it changed.
Fast forward to today. I'm going to make some broad generalizations now. Please know, I don't mean 'all' community members, 'every' community group, and I'm not painting with a broad brush. But if I'm continuing my blunt style, I do mean most. The overwhelming majority.
The word 'community' has been ruined by the extractors of crypto. In many ways, if you want to know why 'the love of money is the root of all evil', look no further than the endless Discord 'communities'.
Thousands of unread messages per day, staggering daily active users, endless social support, until the Token Generation Event (TGE) arrives. We all know how the script goes.
The pre-TGE vibes mimic the sentiment of early crypto communities. Deep conviction. Fire in the gut. Courage to get on stage. Project profile pictures and tags in bios. Ride or die, diamond-handed, conviction-filled hodlers.
Then, everyone changes.
One night you go to bed, barely able to keep up with Discord notifications.
You wake up the next morning, and it's a ghost town.
Or worse.
You find your loyal 'community' coming at you with pitchforks and torches.
Because of the airdrop.
You see, 'community' is no longer community.
It has devolved into endless AI-generated spam for points, for hope of an airdrop, to immediately dump, then complain about token price, and call the project a scam or rug (to be fair, often also true).
I don't need to finish that long-winded sentence, you know what I mean, right?
'Community' is not community. You all know it, you feel it. The timeline feels off. Discord servers feel off. Podcasts feel off. Twitter Spaces feel off.
It's all wrong, like 'Kangshuaifu' will never be Master Kang. Everyone reading this today knows it in their heart, even if you've never articulated it this clearly before.
Today's 'communities' are just cheap imitations of the early communities that built crypto into what it is today. The common interest of these 'community' members boils down to one thing. Extraction. Quick. Decisive. Extraction. That's the poison that killed what crypto could have and should have been.
Most (again, not all) Discord 'communities' today are made up of a mixed bag of remnants.
Some are truly loyal followers and believers. (To those who still support Across, we wouldn't be here without you. Thank you. You know where to find us, and there will always be a place for you.)
Some, often the majority, are here to extract from the project. I won't belabor the point.
And finally, some only appear to complain. Because in every bear market, these specific types of 'community' members come out to kick you while you're down, as if the bear market has zero impact on each team member, as if we caused it.
Unfortunately, the Across Discord has recently fallen into that 'majority' category. Our 'community' has become unrecognizable.
Those who recognize our incredible achievements, the progress Across has pioneered for the entire industry, and still support us, are also tired of being part of this extractive 'community' and have left Discord.
The few who remain would happily follow us to Twitter and other channels. What's left are the so-called 'communities' I defined above. Yes, I say this with fire in my gut and deep conviction.
Therefore, today, the Across Discord will go read-only.
This is the first step in our plan to shut down the server entirely.
To the community of believers who remain, let's keep building. We have so much more work to do.
To Discord, thank you for hosting some of the good old days of crypto. I'll always cherish it.
Community is dead.
Long live community.
