Hype vs Reality - The Daily Gwei #209
Learning to manage expectations one hyped up product launch at a time.
The crypto ecosystem is ruled by hype and narratives with the projects that have the best stories usually riding to the top in both awareness and prestige. Uniswap is the most well-known project on Ethereum and has incredible brand awareness that most projects could only ever dream of. On top of this, they also have one of the most hyped up product launches in crypto history - I am, of course, talking about Uniswap v3.
Outside of the v3 hype, Uniswap’s growth and ascent within Ethereum has been absolutely phenomenal. Not only is it the most used DEX on Ethereum (commanding 60%+ of all DEX volumes) but the native UNI token also has the largest market cap of any DeFi token (on both a circulating and fully diluted basis). In addition to this, Uniswap also has an amazing “rags to riches” story in its founder that works to propel its brand even further (more on that here). All of this culminates into obscene amounts of hype and expectations for Uniswap’s next big release - the coveted v3.
Now, Uniswap isn’t the only project in the crypto ecosystem that has insane amounts of hype behind it - after all, there is really no shortage of projects that have a rabid fan-base vying to hype up literally everything about it. There’s nothing wrong with a project having a strong narrative and some hype behind it but managing expectations can be a difficult task most of the time. For example, if the core team of a project tries to temper expectations publicly, it could lead to negative price action or negative sentiment towards the project. If they try really hard to deliver on all of the hype, they will inevitably fall short because pretty much nothing can live up to hype set by 1000’s of people for months on end. Rock and a hard place!
Of course, the real dark side to all of this is that there are plenty of scammy projects in the crypto ecosystem that will happily use dirty marketing tactics to hype up their vaporware or “promise-chains” in order to pump up a tokens price. I won’t name names here but I’m sure you all have a decent idea of which projects I’m talking about. This is something that frustrates me to no end as an educator because it’s very hard to reason with people who have been sold a narrative by those that they trust - especially when they have an investment on the line that they obviously don’t want to lose money on.
I think that most Ethereum-based projects do a decent job of managing expectations but at the end of the day there’s only so much the core team can realistically do. If a community is excited about a project and have a vested interest in seeing it succeed (via owning some tokens), then of course they are going to hype it up as much as they can. I suppose the best thing we can do collectively as a community is continue to educate people on how to spot the difference between what’s just pure hype and what’s actually real.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.