Crypto quiz time! What do the following signifiers represent?

🔺

🦇 🔊

.near

(3,3)

If you answered: Avalanche, Ethereum as ultra sound money, the Near name service, and OlympusDAO, then congratulations, you know your crypto-memes! You might also spend too much time on crypto Twitter... (ok the Near one was easy)

However, these signifiers also represent something more fundamental: a sense of community. If you’ve been around the block in web3, you’ll realize that such signifiers of community, belonging, and tribe are everywhere. Twitter users liberally append their online handles with domain names like “.eth”, “bitcoiners” signal their allegiance by pasting laser eyes on top of their profile pictures, and community discords are peppered with bespoke emojis (in fact, one of the most asked questions in the Touchpoint discord is “wen custom emojis?”). In short, web3 is as much about community and ideology as it is about technology. In this article, we examine what makes a community and why it is important. Then, we give some blueprints for you to grow your own web3 community (and maybe coopt an emoji along the way).

Table of contents

1. What is community?

Pinning a definition to a conceptually broad term like “Community” is no easy task. One risks either being overly narrow or so all-encompassing that the definition loses any feeling of the word. Yet, most people know a genuine community when they see one: they are more collaborative than an audience, more bidirectional than a fandom, and more natural feeling (i.e. less transactional) than a business network.

A particularly endearing take from this excellent blog post defines a community as such:

[T]he ideal community structure was like an after-school game of tag in elementary school. Initially, children gather around the common interest of playing tag. Through repeated games of tag, the children gradually learn the names of their partners, develop bonds, and build a network of human relationships. And once they are connected by a strong human network, they will gather even without playing tag. It’s no longer a group that gathers because of tag, but a group that gathers naturally because they are friends. [...]

It is only when human networks are connected in this way that a community can be formed.

1.1 How are web3 communities different?

So are web3 communities just kids playing an odd version of tag, one where “good morning” gets shortened to “gm” and there is an occasional attempt to purchase a copy of the US constitution? We argue there is (fortunately) more to web3 than shorthand and emojis.

While memes are indeed important, web3 communities contain much under the surface. For instance:

• They are generally open-source, collaborative efforts
• Many utilize decentralized decision-making mechanisms via DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) to give community members influence on the direction of the project
• In turn, these users are incentivized to participate in the construction and governing of the project. Not only do the members get a say via DAO governance, but they are often rewarded for their efforts via airdrops, or granted access to exclusive digital/physical events (i.e. via a VIP list).

These properties can produce “high gravity” online communities where people feel a sense of purpose and belonging. This helps explain why some are so eager to signal their affiliation in the wider online space (e.g. Twitter). This is not without its drawbacks, and one characteristic of many web3 communities is the level of tribalism among their members.