Building Web3 Communities Under the Wave of Crypto-Right Wing
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Building Web3 Communities Under the Wave of Crypto-Right Wing
From early technological idealism to today's financialization and capital concentration, the Web3 community is undergoing a profound shift from "left" to "right".
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsProduced by: Web3Future
Author: CryptoBrave (X: cryptobraveHQ)
In the world of Web3, what is a community? This question may seem simple, but it contains profound transformations within the crypto industry. From early technological idealism to today's financialization and capital centralization, Web3 communities are undergoing a deep shift from "left" to "right." Having immersed myself in and contributed to crypto communities for over four years, like many others, I have clearly felt this cycle’s pronounced “rightward turn.” Therefore, I aim to explore through a three-part series the current development stage of Web3 communities, how to respond to this transformation, and the future direction of community building.
The Multiple Identities of Community
Under different perspectives, the definition of community varies:
To founders of technology-driven projects, developers are the community, as they form the core of ecosystem expansion and application innovation. To narrative-driven VC coin teams, whoever provides liquidity exits constitutes the community—examples include Binance, whose vast user base offers liquidity for projects. To price-driven meme teams, KOLs and traffic distributors are the community, as they attract attention. To project teams that have already undergone TGE, Builders and Holders are the community—they are the core force accompanying the project across market cycles.
These differing definitions actually reflect the core driving forces behind Web3 communities at various stages of development.
The Evolution of Web3 Communities
Early crypto communities emerged from the geek culture of technological idealism, emphasizing privacy, anti-authority, and decentralization—close to left-wing liberalism. Mid-stage crypto communities gradually evolved into financial speculation communities composed of developers, exchanges, retail investors, and early institutions, becoming more pragmatic. Today’s crypto communities are increasingly financialized, with concentrated capital and power, as institutional and government investors accelerate their entry—moving closer to right-wing conservatism.
Of course, this shift correlates with the global trend toward right-wing politics—for instance, Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. President representing new populist right-wing movements, or the rise of Argentina’s far-right president Milei—though we won’t delve deeper into this here.
Community Fragmentation: Beyond Right-Wing Lies Only the "Far-Right"
In the previous cycle, technology was the core of projects. Development teams focused on long-term building, and community members were willing to support technological idealism. However, in the current cycle, narrative has surpassed technology itself. Project success no longer depends on technical innovation but rather revolves around narrative, price, and capital operations. The rise of memecoins further proves this point—technology may no longer be the mainstream focus. Take Ethereum and Solana as examples: their community disputes are particularly evident. The Ethereum community places greater emphasis on technological idealism and decentralization, while the Solana community prioritizes efficiency and capital operations. This divergence reflects the fragmentation of Web3 communities under the wave of right-wing trends.
Now consider Ethereum versus BNB Chain. It's not hard to see that today’s BNB Chain is “more right” than Solana. To compete with Solana via ecosystem strategies such as memes and AI Agents, BNB Chain must become more centralized, inject stronger capital and operational resources (coordinated investments, listings, market-making, etc.), and unify its community even more tightly.
Exchange Compliance
This same trend is reflected in the centralized exchange sector. In the previous cycle, most exchanges operated under a logic of regulatory arbitrage across different global jurisdictions, adopting a “get on board first, buy tickets later” approach to compliance. Today, however, most exchanges place greater emphasis on compliance, striving to operate within regulatory frameworks.
Similar left-right dichotomies can also be applied when comparing different DEXs and bots (e.g., Uniswap, Jupiter, GMGN…), market makers (Wintermute, GSR, DWF, shadow market makers…), and other market participants—though we won’t expand on these here; readers can apply the framework themselves. Overall, in earlier days of crypto, people paid for technological narratives, pursued decentralization and fairness, and founders emphasized long-term development without focusing on price—creating an atmosphere close to idealistic left-wing values. But now, the market leans right: people care about price and short-term returns, emphasize corporate-style management and strong operations, projects collaborate closely with regulators, centralized interest alliances support each other, and making money becomes paramount.
In my view, whether shifting left or right, these are objective outcomes of market choices driven by industry evolution—a reflexivity emerging after any trend reaches its peak: after idealism comes realism.
In my next article, I will continue discussing how to build effective crypto communities in this right-wing wave—such as developing developer communities, liquidity communities, KOL marketing, and growing social media metrics. We welcome your thoughts and discussions with us.
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