KOLs are Losing Billions

But marketers with an eye towards low-ticket transaction feeds in the agentic web are set to make billions.

The lack of trust and transparency in the KOL industry blocks the entry of billions per year from mainstream brand names into web3. Web3 brands seeking marketing suffer as well. KOL groups in receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars per launch conduct quality assurance (QA) through archaic workflows and face few repercussions for underperformance.

Some groups are actually incentivized towards short-term extraction from the market, reducing builder capital efficiency and end user experience. As a result, the 2024 altcoin market has suffered significant contraction even as the overall crypto market has consolidated sideways.

KOLs are not solely to blame for web3's stagnation: Martech falls perilously behind product tech in the current web3 landscape. As gaming studios and defi labs consistently iterate more efficient and automated utility in record time, top KOL groups administrate QA through manual input and verification. Esoteric tools like SpyDefi do provide cursory performance analytics for those neck deep in the web3 rabbit hole; that's great for individual traders. In the meantime, the industry misses out on the multitrillion dollar potential of mainstream brand engagement.

No representative from Coca-Cola or Amazon is going into a Telegram group to purchase marketing services from BigMoneyTed3842 and his 50 faceless, unaccountable friends with no oversight.

Web3 enjoys its greatest profitability when martech iterates in parallel to product tech, prioritizing the same narrative of transparency and trustless verification. Continuing on its current path, the KOL industry invites PvP-style financial cannibalism that, at best, condemns the web3 space into a niche marketspace with an impenetrable glass ceiling.

The issue of trust in the KOL industry is one web3 must face before major name brands will help grow the space.

Brands aren't bridging funds into web3 because the bridge — the marketers — silo themselves into a secretive world of extraction instead of adding value to quality products and providing education to crypto-adjacent and non-crypto communities.