KASPA - Can we learn anything from them

Marketing
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KASPA (KAS) has seen a meteoric rise from $0 to $1B in MC from 2021 to now. I’m studying them so we can learn what they have done to achieve such impressive results.

Background

KAS was launched in 2021 with no premine and no VC backing. The lead dev is a post doc at Harvard and is referenced in the original Ethereum whitepaper. The community bills him as one of the smartest devs in the space. KAS is a PoW DAG. Settlement is almost immediate and they do have fees. Their wallets are a PoS (Piece of shit) and they do not have smart contracts yet. In 2 years they have emitted > 70% of their tokens.

They are working on an upgrade to their consensus protocol to DAG KNIGHT. The founding dev wrote the paper and published it in 2023. That will allow KAS to settle > 2000 tps. They are working on a ledger integration and have submitted for review (same as NoM).

KAS has many exchange listings. They don’t have an on-chain funding mechanism. They pass the hat and the community pitches in to fund stuff: dev work, listings, marketing. etc… They currently have about 90k in their treasury. Their community has an “org” structure. They have devs, marketing people, community moderators, etc… One person is responsible for listings and is working with several institutional OTC desks.

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All of this in 2 years. It’s impressive. I believe they have achieved such rapid growth because of the following:

  1. Unique consensus (DAG) that is fast with a cool visual explorer https://kgi.kaspad.net/. It’s easy to show people this to explain how KAS works. For example, BTC stacks one block on top of another and its slow. KAS processes blocks in parallel and it’s fast. Easy to say, remember and understand. Who know if it works…
  2. They are PoW with a fast emission schedule: 71% in 2 years. Who knows how they handle fees and if this is sustainable. But they’ve gotten to 1B and they are still growing. When ETH went offline degen miners were looking for something to do. Perfect timing for KAS to jump in.
  3. Their lead dev is smart and well published. People who don’t know anything about crypto are impressed by this. But I’m sure he is very smart.
  4. The community is out marketing the project all the time; on twitter, spaces, youtube, etc… The tech is simple enough for any established community member to explain the tech. And the people explaining it are not like Kaine. They are normal people who connect with normal crypto enthusiasts.
  5. Community does not ask for tokens to do stuff. There is no on-chain funding mechanism so no one expects anything. They do it on their own accord.
  6. They have a few simple selling points:
  • BTC is to gold as KAS is to silver
  • BTC processes blocks one on top of the other, KAS processes in parallel. They are the fastest PoW blockchain out there (not sure if that is true)
  • Our devs are brilliant and cited in the ethereum white paper
  • They are selling speed that does not exist yet. DAG KNIGHT (> 2000 tps) is not implemented, but they are selling the roadmap that it’s coming.
  • They sell fair launch. They sell it on every twitter spaces.

What can we learn from them?

  • We need a simple message or messages that resonates. It’s easy to say, remember, and explain.
  • We need more community members talking about NoM on twitter, spaces, and other venues.
  • We need a roadmap and sell it. We need to give community members the tools to explain the road map and refer technical questions to the experts (devs).
  • We should not be afraid to sell our road map. Ethereum was selling shading and now they are selling blobspace. Shit changes. We should not be afraid to change too.
  • Specifically, I think we should be targeting messaging around 100,000 TPS, feeless (maybe come up with a new word for it), P2P, and privacy at the base layer.
  • We should consider a simple sentence to explain NoM: “Bitcoin is the foundation, Zenon is the extension: Feeless, Fast, and Smart.” Something like this.
  • We need to develop a marketing plan, assign responsible parties, and execute the plan. This is like any other project. Need a plan and execute it.
  • There is no reason we cannot go from 0 to 1B with what we have delivered to date and our amazing roadmap.

Links

[INSERT LATER]

Notes

I do not own $KAS and I do not plan to buy any. I do not recommend it to anyone here.

5 Likes
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I believe we are already in the right track.

We already have a negative reputation of not delivering, devs missing etc. Even though these have changed recently it’s difficult to convince people without delivering.

We don’t even have many of the features we so proudly applaud as unique to Zenon

  1. Dual chain architecture - not yet live
  2. No BTC interoperability
    3… No unikernals
  3. No sentinels

IMO we have already been doing what kaspa is doing, it’s hard to keep community interested when price goes from 1.5$ to 0.64$ admist all the activity. work still goes on.

I belive we wont be taken seriously unless we deliver 1st.

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I could not disagree more. KASPA has far less than us and they have much less potential, yet their community has propelled them from 0 to 1B. All they have is a settlement layer that does PoW and they have a white paper that can get them to 2000 tps.

Their wallet is terrible
Their web wallet is terrible
They don’t have P2P swaps like NoM
They have no smart contracts
They don’t has a mobile wallet in the works
They don’t have SDKs like us

Yet their market cap is 1B. They are selling what they have and a road map just like every other project in crypto. We cannot let our price action dictate our desire to grow the project.

Do you think KAS was thinking to themselves at 5M… we can’t sell or grow this project until we deliver? They would be waiting years.

Sitting around and doing nothing waiting for devs to deliver is a recipe for complete failure.

Have you done the work to understand what they are doing? Have you listened to their spaces? Have you watched their videos? Have you looked at their discord with 30K members. What research have you done to conclude this?

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I have my doubts that their growth was purely organic - but their trajectory is enviable.

some good thoughts re smart contracts here also: https://kaspa.org/the-kaspa-community-and-the-exploration-of-smart-contracts/

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But the pricing policy determines the interest in the project, new people, new developers etc. We can build, but if no one knows about it, no one will care. people in this community are inactive because they don’t see any real progress, everything takes a looong time and the work of about 5 developers will take years (I appreciate it very much and their faith is admirable). This ties into the price attractiveness, where we can’t get new developers

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Have you seen the August Community Update? Do you honestly think we have no “real progress”. We have over 10 devs working on this project, more than KAS.

Did you see the July update?

Our network is better designed, we have delivered more code, we have a much better wallet, we have p2p swaps, we have an extension chain (EVM compatible) in testnet, we are light years ahead of KAS. And our road map is much more impressive. All they have is a DAG on PoW with a fast emission schedule.

Personally, I think our project is difficult for the community to explain and the only person who feels comfortable doing it is George. If we continue to do the same thing, we will fail. We need to learn from our peers and make a change.

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Topic moved to Marketing

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We’ve always attempted to evade centralization, and that as a result limited visibility and access.

Zenon has a culture issue. The community in majority prefers to sit on the sidelines in TG channels than to learn how to do such simple activities properly. If they did try, it came with strings attached i.e. trying to milk the treasury with BS proposals, we saw them. When they didn’t try to milk, they just had no clue what they were doing. It helps when a community is somewhat versed with basic marketing strategies, and I’m sorry to say that in majority the community here has limited knowledge i.e. optimizing for rankings (seo), listing zenon.network in the right channels (other than CMC and CoinGecko – only recently did people like @aliencoder make good suggestions, before that people had 0 interest in the importance of inbound placements), identifying Twitter threads / channels to engage-with – and more.

How many community members engaged on this? https://forum2.zenon.org/t/compile-list-of-telegram-discord-twitter-communities/1621?u=mehowbrainz – less than a handful? See what I mean, most dgaf.

The open-source culture is great and all, but it can also be a burden on execution. Look at how long it took for zenon_network to hand over control to the community. Look at how we have to wait for them to fix the twitter-together issue.

It is the right path in the long run, but it’s also the slowest one when many believe that the zenon network brand name is the only valid one.

Zenon.Org has an execution plan in place, and it’ll start with building the tools which prove conversion. If we can validate that the journeys created convert, then we can quantify the cost to create value. From there we can pick and chose the channels to target and propose AZ to hire new talent with actual marketing experience to fill those roles properly. I’d rather spend my time working people who want to commit to roles, than trying to lead community to do something they simply don’t wanna invest-in (aka learning marketing skills). Anyone willing to seriously contribute to a performance approach can DM me and I’ll gladly bring them into the Zenon.Org team. There are a lot of roles to fill for a variety of channels:

  • biz dev
  • email channels
  • graphic design
  • influencer channels
  • organic social
  • paid media
  • paid social
  • pr
  • recruitment
  • seo
  • support
  • video
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Marketing doesn’t begin with Zenon btw. Marketing begins with everything else except Zenon: engaging with target audiences to develop an affinity. That can be done directly via social media, or indirectly via the production of content not branded as Zenon on topics which can eventually lead audiences to Zenon. In first priority we need people to be out there and creating affinity, retaining those relationships/leads/cookies (whichever the method), to then create journeys that drive into Zenon.

People try to close the sale way too soon. It doesn’t work that way.

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Example: our audiences are let’s say Bitcoiners. Why aren’t we producing content/conversations/engaging-with those audiences with non-Zenon branded threads/publications? Why aren’t we establishing an opportunity for our audiences to connect with us? Our audiences need to know us as handles, threads, publications that add value to them: whether it’s a shared ethos, or producing thought-leadership which amplifies their beliefs. Who cares about Zenon at this stage, we need to genuinely care for our audience’s interests before we can even considering saying “hey we’ve got this magical tech which we think can really help Bitcoin for XYZ reason”.

Establish a presence to your audience which adds them value and doesn’t make them feel like you have an intention to sell them anything now or later. Do your thing and if they like your thing they’ll follow you. The goal is to eventually attempt create affinity with them to be like “we give a fuck about Bitcoin and all, and that’s why we’re trying to build X”. Nurture that connection with your audiences.

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The worst thing we’re doing atm: branding everything as Zenon Zerg Planet Alien Challenge. It’s the number one reason for our audiences to ignore us. In the end yes the plan is for them to visit properties like zenon.network, zenon.org, zenon.xyz etc – but that’s bottom of funnel stuff when the person read and noticed Zenon being mentioned enough and he decides to be like “hey what is this Zenon stuff?”

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Zenon.Org strategies may not even use the Zenon.Org brand. It may develop new brands which create relationships and value to its audiences. For example: if we decide to start with inbound strategies, like seo or ppc search ads. We could try to rank zenon.org landing pages for keywords like “bitcoin scaling”, or we can develop a publication dedicated to covering such topics, and within that publication include Zenon’s take on it.

Some don’t want to create publications, instead they go the PR route and pay for press releases or pay publications to post articles, and as a result using a native content strategy to embed themselves within the trust of that publication’s readers. Others might simply place ads on paid native ad networks and embed their content right within the site, and make it feel like it’s officially posted by the publication (when it’s really just a paid placement). There’s many many ways to play the game. Channels, methods are limitless.

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Every time you come up with a strategy, imagine it as your Tinder profile and your audience is Bitcoiners (or whichever audience you’re reaching).

They’re all deciding to swipe yes or no to you.

They read “I believe in Bitcoin and am contributing to efforts scale it. I’m looking to connect with likeminded people” + something that gives you a small edge that’ll be like “hey I wanna know this person”.

or they read “Zenon Aliens from Planet Zerg IYKYK BitcoinInterop *alien.gif”

Which one would you wanna match with? If it’s not you (your strategy), rework your idea.

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I know all these Updates. From my point of view, yes, we keep stepping on the same spot. The work is done in the background and most of the time people in the community don’t even know about it. What about people outside the community? They have no idea about this project and have no way to find out about it… As Meho wrote, 0 listing activity, speed of decision and delivery (twitter) etc tec

We may be better than KASPA, but nobody cares because nobody knows about us

Check out Chadasse’s post on the BTC machines Twitter space. Someone from the developers who sees in depth could have spoken there. Without response…

4 Likes
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I think a lot of it comes down to confidence in understanding and being able to create content which adds value to audiences. I had fed GPT the Zenon white paper to better learn about the network, but it’s not accurate as that paper seems outdated with ideas. So we have to rely on technical community which may see 10 years into the future, but they don’t have time to contribute to marketing/communication efforts. IMO great marketing comes with a strong relationship between communication / technical teams. But here we’re all disconnected. @0x3639’s initiative with dev calls helps for me to lurk and see what they’re up-to, but generally we get limited attention on a 1-1 basis. Though it could be circumvented because with GPT we can feed it enough correct knowledge about the network, and rely on technical talent to give us their visions / tasks / roadmaps (fairly explained) to feed it to GPT to contextualize it in a way where we can use it in content. From there it’s quite a bit of work to create content with enough substance in it which doesn’t scream “this person doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about” by more technical readers. There’s a right balance to hit, and yes it’s a lot of work. That’s why communications people exist. Engineers are often not the right people for the job, and neither are comms people on their own. There has to be a willingness to collaborate between both. Without it, we’ll keep spreading surface level taglines and never gain serious attention, loyalty and engagement from audiences.

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lol!

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Good feedback @mehowbrainz.

I do think a major factor in the community not wanting to discuss or market the project is we don’t have a roadmap and we don’t have an easy way to explain the tech / project. To date we are a bunch of devs coding in the dark.

I’m going to focus on getting consensus around a roadmap with the devs. Once that is done I think it would be helpful to create a “cheat sheet” that explains the project very high level in a way that normal people can understand it. Our community can use that cheat sheet to discuss on twitter, in spaces, on youtube, etc…

Finally, I like your idea of moving away from “alien” tech. Maybe that is something in the background. Once we have a road map I think we can say something like “I believe in Bitcoin and am contributing to efforts scale it.” with confidence.

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So what I meant to say is that Zenon and alien stuff is bottom of funnel, meaning that the audience should only discover that after they’re interacted with marketing content (i.e. tuned to Bitcoiners).

I asked GPT to explain this for this thread. It’s very basic but I just wanted to show that Zenon and aliens are fine, but later down the funnel (and we’re not leading with alien shit, rather just Zenon as a tech). The alien stuff is a meme at most. It’s a lot more complex than what GPT writes below (and many of the strats suck), but you get the idea that the issue is the timing of presenting Zenon. We shouldn’t be talking about Zenon as a first priority, we should be creating affinity with our audiences.

When marketing a brand or product, it’s crucial to consider the customer journey through the marketing funnel, which typically consists of the Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, Loyalty, and Advocacy stages. For a brand like zenon.org, which is targeting Bitcoin enthusiasts and is developing Layer 1 (L1) technology to scale Bitcoin, the approach should be strategic and well-thought-out.

Awareness Stage:
In the awareness stage, the goal is to create affinity with the target audience—Bitcoiners, in this case—without directly mentioning Zenon. The focus should be on generating interest and attracting the audience by addressing their needs, interests, and pain points related to Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Strategies:

  • Content Marketing: Create and share valuable content related to Bitcoin, such as blog posts, articles, and infographics, addressing current trends, challenges, and opportunities in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
  • Social Media Engagement: Engage with the Bitcoin community on platforms like Twitter and Reddit, participating in discussions and sharing insights and knowledge about Bitcoin.
  • SEO: Optimize the content for search engines to attract organic traffic looking for information on Bitcoin and related topics.

Consideration Stage:
Once the audience is aware and has developed an interest, the consideration stage involves providing more specific information about how Zenon’s technology can address the needs and challenges of Bitcoiners.

Strategies:

  • Educational Content: Develop in-depth content, such as webinars, whitepapers, and e-books, explaining the technical aspects and benefits of Zenon’s L1 technology.
  • Community Building: Create a community platform or forum where Bitcoin enthusiasts can discuss, ask questions, and share knowledge about blockchain technology and Zenon’s solutions.
  • Email Marketing: Send targeted emails to the audience providing more information about Zenon’s technology and its relevance to Bitcoin.

Conversion Stage:
In the conversion stage, the focus shifts to encouraging the audience to take specific actions, such as signing up, purchasing, or adopting Zenon’s technology.

Strategies:

  • Targeted Campaigns: Run targeted advertising campaigns highlighting the unique selling points of Zenon’s technology.
  • Product Demos: Offer live demonstrations or trials of Zenon’s technology to showcase its capabilities and benefits for Bitcoin.
  • Customer Testimonials: Share testimonials and case studies from customers who have benefited from using Zenon’s technology.

Loyalty and Advocacy Stages:
After conversion, the goal is to retain customers, encourage repeat business, and turn customers into advocates for Zenon.

Strategies:

  • Customer Support: Provide exceptional customer service and support to address any issues or concerns users may have.
  • Loyalty Programs: Implement loyalty programs or incentives to encourage repeat business and referrals.
  • User-Generated Content: Encourage satisfied customers to share their experiences and create content promoting Zenon’s technology.

Conclusion:
By initially focusing on creating affinity with Bitcoiners and addressing their interests and needs, Zenon can effectively attract and engage its target audience. As the audience moves down the funnel, Zenon can then introduce its brand and technology, demonstrating its value proposition and encouraging adoption. Balancing brand visibility and value delivery at each stage of the funnel is crucial for building trust and fostering long-term relationships with the target audience.

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19

Firstly, I’d like to extend my gratitude to 0x for once again rallying the community around the vital subject of marketing. I’ve read through the entire thread and would like to offer some insights:

I’m impressed by 0x’s approach of analyzing the success of other projects and integrating some of their strategies into our own marketing efforts. We already have the edge in terms of branding, technology, and various other aspects. Creating a well-defined short-to-medium-term roadmap with specific milestones, alongside leveraging Zenon’s long-term vision (scalability, dual-ledger capabilities, decentralization, TPS, etc.), will serve as a robust foundation for our content and narrative.

Mehowz has raised several excellent points. Addressing the “elephant in the room,” there’s a noticeable lack of engagement in achievable marketing activities—despite the availability of AI tools. For instance, the call for targeting Telegram/Discord groups has received limited response. Speaking personally, I’ve hesitated to share because I didn’t feel equipped to approach a completely new audience to advocate for Zenon. I suspect others might feel the same. It’s crucial to bridge this communication gap, especially when considering developer-to-developer interactions, which Mehowz aptly pointed out.

Building on Mehowz’s observations, our primary challenge lies at the top of the sales funnel. We have abundant resources for the lower funnel—great technology, strong branding, etc. If we segment our target audiences (e.g., general crypto enthusiasts, speculators, Bitcoin maximalists, proponents of decentralization) and brainstorm content tailored to resonate with them, we stand a better chance at moving them down the funnel.

In summary, we don’t need to overcomplicate things; marketing isn’t rocket science. With Mehowz’s expertise, we can achieve significant progress. The key is to start engaging, create content, and adapt based on the outcomes.

I think it will be beneficial to show more practical steps, I see the process unfolding as follows:

  1. Generate valuable content that engages a broad audience (e.g., ‘The Best Nostr Application You Didn’t Know Existed’). A high-value proposition will either spark conversation or encourage actions like profile visits.
  2. Engage in conversations aimed at moving potential users to the mid-funnel stage, highlighting Zenon features they might find appealing.
  3. Build a dedicated audience or following to which you can directly promote Zenon over time.

Given that we don’t have many native or savvy social media influencers, a step-by-step guide could be incredibly helpful. After all, teaching these skills is undoubtedly easier than trying to decipher the complexities of Sentinel’s PoW Links from Kaine’s quotes. However, given our limited resources, I think mehowz should use his time to slightly tweak our efforts and teach us advanced tactics. We can learn the basics of marketing/growing an audience anywhere online. Ideally, aliens can come together and self-critic their own efforts to all grow together.

I’ve seen Aliens organize and rally around marketing initiatives before, I’m hopeful we’ll do it again but with a much better outcome this time.

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When transitioning non-marketing individuals into marketing roles, it’s crucial to help them identify their strengths, interests, and preferences to find the best fit. Here are some introspective questions for each channel that can help individuals discover their aptitude and inclination:

First and most important: Can I tell the difference between each below?

Biz Dev:*

  • Do I enjoy networking and building relationships with other businesses and professionals?
  • Am I comfortable with negotiating and closing deals?
  • Do I have a strategic mindset to identify and pursue business opportunities?
  • Can I leverage AI to find the best tools to attain my goals?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?

Influencer Channels:

  • Do I enjoy interacting with influencers and content creators?
  • Can I identify and build relationships with influencers who align with our brand values?
  • Am I able to negotiate and manage influencer partnerships effectively?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?
  • How can I find such influencers? Are there tools I can discover?

Organic Social:

  • Do I enjoy creating and curating content for social media platforms?
  • Can I effectively engage with and grow an online community?
  • Do I have a good understanding of social media trends and algorithms?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?
  • How can I leverage trends and algos? Are there tools I can discover?

Paid Media:

  • Am I comfortable with allocating budgets and managing ad spend?
  • Can I analyze and optimize ad performance based on data and insights?
  • Do I have a good understanding of various advertising platforms and formats?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?

Paid Social:

  • Can I create engaging and targeted social media ads?
  • Am I able to analyze and optimize social ad campaigns for better ROI?
  • Do I have a good understanding of paid advertising on social media platforms?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?

PR:

  • Do I have strong communication and writing skills to create press releases and media pitches?
  • Can I build and maintain relationships with media representatives and journalists?
  • Am I able to handle media inquiries and manage the brand’s public image effectively?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?

Recruitment:

  • Do I enjoy connecting with and assessing potential candidates?
  • Can I effectively communicate the organization’s values and opportunities to prospective hires?
  • Am I organized and able to manage multiple recruitment processes simultaneously?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?

SEO:

  • Do I have an interest in optimizing website content for search engines?
  • Can I analyze and use SEO data to improve organic search rankings?
  • Do I have a good understanding of SEO best practices and keyword research?
  • Do I understand how I can prove my contributed value via Attribute links?

Support Docs / Support Agent:

  • Do I have strong empathy and communication skills to assist users with their issues?
  • Can I create clear and helpful support documentation?
  • Am I patient and able to handle user inquiries and complaints effectively?

Video:

  • Do I have a passion for creating engaging video content?
  • Can I storyboard, shoot, and edit videos effectively?
  • Do I have a good understanding of video production techniques and software?

Also read about crypto marketing, there’s agencies out there (which we can hire) or we can organize as a community to achieve these ourselves. It’s really not rocket science: Crypto Marketing Ultimate Guide: 14 Best Marketing Strategies in 2024

3 Likes