Crypto Thought Leadership Isn’t Dead — It’s Just Boring

There was a time when calling yourself a thought leader in crypto actually meant something. You’d post a long-form tweet thread, maybe a spicy, opinionated blog on Medium, and people would actually pay attention because you were saying something interesting. You might even get an AMA invite or two. Fast forward to 2025 and 'thought leadership' in the crypto space has become as interesting as watching a YouTube reaction short. It's packed with terrible analogies, overused buzzwords, and a pervading sense that someone, somewhere, just let ChatGPT take the wheel like digital Jesus.

Let’s be honest: crypto thought leadership nowadays is really, really boring. And in a lightning fast space where something new arrives every day, boredom is the final boss of innovation. The problem isn’t that founders and builders aren’t writing – it’s that their quality control has gone out the window in favour of speed, and the result is blogs and articles that even a bibliophile would leave on the shelf. Worse, they've spent so long in an echo chamber of their own gassy nonsense that they genuinely believe that what they are writing is profound because they assign it the same value they place on the underlying idea, although the two things are not the same.

In fact, if I had a dollar for every founder who has written how their product / service is 'revolutionising the space' and that 'there isn't anything out there like this,' I would be able to shut up shop and retire...after I rewrote their terrible thought leadership piece, of course. The fact is that there are hundreds of new projects launching every week with similar or even identical ideas. Some are better funded, some are worse, but nearly ALL of them (that aren't outright scams) think they’re changing the world. It’s a collective hallucination, where everyone’s convinced they’re special, and nobody’s doing the due diligence to check who’s already in the room.

The Crisis of Crypto Writing

The hard – and slightly mean – truth is that most of what gets pushed out as 'thought leadership' is self-indulgent fluff written by project executives who have spent too long in a space that inflates egos. As such, founders are so enamoured with their own creations and the language they’ve created inside their own heads – egged on by the crypto Yes Men they have often surrounded themselves with – that many truly believe all they have to do is climb onto their Medium soapbox to wax lyrical about their project, and then funding will pour in like the Great Flood, while everyone starts praying at their whitepaper like it’s newly discovered scripture. This ain't vision people, it's delusion, dressed up in LARP posts.

So let’s call this issue what it really is: a crisis of narrative. Founders build something mildly innovative, slap a generative AI explainer on top or – even worse – verbally vomit a stream of their own consciousness down without a modicum of editing, and then hit publish, scratching their heads when no one cares about what they wrote. Here is the issue:

It's not the product that’s the problem. It’s the story they’re telling.

Web3 Content Strategy Starts Where Ego Stops

I've worked with countless crypto, DeFi, and GameFi projects, and I can tell you: one of the biggest reasons for failure isn’t tech, it’s effective communication. Founders often sit on genuinely promising or exciting innovations, but trying to decipher their thought leadership pieces is like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube blindfolded while being punched in the head by Tyson Fury. This is because not only are most founders not writers, they're also often too close to the idea, too obsessed with being 'first,' and too in love with their own thoughts to realise they're not the right person to tell their story. Add to this the fact that are operating within a space seemingly allergic to speaking in plain English these days, instead preferring 'mysterious' and 'cryptic' content that those spouting it believe is more edgy than a dodecahedron. (Clue, it's not).

In their efforts to be profound, founder blogs and leadership articles often read like they're trying to personally impress Vitalik, not connect with real users. Their whitepapers have the average penetration levels of Kevlar, and their LinkedIn posts sounds like every other LinkedIn post – because it's all written by the same chatbots.

This is where the role of narrative becomes critical. Founders aren't selling code, they're selling belief. People don’t rally behind smart contracts, they rally behind stories that make them feel like they’re part of something bigger – like they've been invited to sit around the campfire and take part in the unfolding journey. If founders gave the same level of attention to their messaging as they do their technicals, they would have a much stronger chance of success. But most will spend months obsessing over tokenomics, DApps and APIs but will hand off the whitepaper to a budget writer from Fiverr with zero context, write it themselves after a few whiskeys, or feed ChatGPT some bulletpoints and call it a day. They don’t pressure test their crypto content with the uninitiated. They just throw it out there, dressed in jargon and ego, and wonder why it flops harder than an obese diver on the top board.

Why Every Web3 Project Needs a Real Crypto Content Writer

So how does a founder fix things and inject some actual leadership into thought leadership?

Start by killing darlings. The ideas in a founder's head are not holy, or automatically good just because they kept them up at 3AM. If the idea can't be explained to someones nan in under a minute then it's not ready to launch. This goes for the writing side – every buzzword that survives an editing session needs to be there for a reason, not because it sounds good.

If it's fat, trim it.

Next, posts need to earn audience attention. People are not sitting around waiting for a founder's next Medium post, because they are not Vitalik (not yet anyway). Thought leadership articles have to give readers a reason to care — a hook, a perspective, a story that cuts through the muck. And if a founder is reading this, do NOT try and be mysterious or cryptic, that meta is way too played out. The crypto space is too murky, sketchy and shadowy as it is, be clear, transparent and upfront – you'll get much more traction that way. But the very best thing you can do? Hire a crypto content writer.

Thought leadership in Web3 is where a real crypto content writer shines. Someone who knows the space, understands the culture, and can still communicate like a human being – specifically humans who also happen to be the founder. They can create the kind of writing that doesn't just rearrange some words around in a whitepaper or Forbes Council article like chairs on the Titanic, but turns it into a proper narrative that's informative, educational and compelling. Because if founders want funding, they have to be legible. If they want users, they have to be compelling. If they want traction, they have to be unforgettable...not just functional. And the easiest way to do this is to hire an expert in the field. The founders who get this are the ones building actual momentum. They’re not waiting to go viral, but building trust, engagement, and clarity from day one – brick by brick.

And they have top tier writers helping with construction.

So no, crypto thought leadership certainly isn’t dead. But it is evolving, and the teams who embrace real storytelling are the ones shaping that future. For everyone else who still thinks they can build a following by prompting ChatGPT or verbally vomiting at 2AM after too many night caps...dust off your hiking boots, because you've got a tough road ahead.

If you’re reading this part, you probably know your project has something worth saying. It just needs the right words. That’s where I come in. Reach out and let's create some thought leadership that makes people perk up and listen.