Big Crypto Poll Part 5: Qualitative🗳️✅
"The Soul of Crypto" -- the crypto experience in users' own words
Fifth and final post in our series dissecting the results of our Big Crypto Poll
Finally, if you took part in the crypto poll, you have until May 1 to claim your rewards, otherwise we’ll redirect the remainder to veCRV holders. You’ve been warned!
Big Crypto Poll: Claim Instructions 🗳️✅
As we’ve begun releasing the results of our Big Crypto Poll, we’re thrilled to also thank everybody who participated with some tokens!
Conclusion: “The Soul of Crypto”
After exploring the demographics, wealth, values, and usage patterns of our survey respondents, we realized while the quantitative results were interesting, this approach downplayed the deeply personal stories of crypto participants. The deeply held beliefs attracting cryptocurrency advocates to stick out these brutal bear markets are stories that can only be told in their own words.
For the conclusion to our series, we’ll center the lived experiences of our respondents. Learn why the most passionate crypto participants are still here despite the putrid market sentiment, and where they feel these trends are heading.
What Are We?
After exploring the values and motivations of crypto users, we turned to a more concrete question: which protocols do users actually find valuable, and which have disappointed them?
When asked to list their favorite protocols in crypto without any prompting, no surprise that our audience, heavily readers of a Curve-focused blog, picked Curve.
Cryptocurrencies that received four or more mentions when asked “What crypto protocols do you find are best, and why?”
Roughly 25% of respondents (approaching 50% among the True Believers cluster) cited Curve here. Given the selection bias, the numbers underpinning this results are certainly less interesting than the stories about why users liked Curve.
"Curve is a technical masterpiece and Stake Dao is also brilliant."
Unemployed American millionaire, web2 startup junkie turned crypto in ‘21
The praise for Curve often extended to its broader ecosystem, as evidenced by the four mentions of Convex. Particular praise came for the shared revenue streams (“predictable revenue”) and LP returns. One user who is less wealthy than average had an aspirational goal: “I'm hoping to use them as a revenue stream once my portfolio is large enough.”
Curve’s oft-cited UI was a non-factor in this survey. One respondent gave Curve plaudits for being “easy to use.” Curve lending markets, however much users appreciated the “super innovated liquidations model,” were still singled out for being “not that intuitive.” Another user who generally felt DeFi protocols writ large were “complex or challenging to understand” cited that he “enjoyed the brain workout” he receives from Curve.
Curve’s technology received appreciation (“a masterpiece”). One power user appreciated Curve’s routers and bridges. The team and community also received generally positive marks, although one disillusioned user called out the community for its surprising lack of “loyalty.”
“Curve-ecosystem, Aave, Aladdin eco and Llamas. This is due to the proven track record, the solid teams and the community around them. This combination helps in keeping the long term vision intact and stick to your conviction through bear markets.”
43 year old European master in applied economics
Various projects within the Curve ecosystem received positive mentions. Aladdin DAO projects received many positive mentions, with little elaboration beyond positive mentions for their innovation, team, and community.
Some did volunteer brief comments on Convex: “sticky TVL and good rewards.” Another wrote “I shouldn’t be such a maxi but I believe in the fundamentals.” The only user who critiqued Convex cited its choice of subsidiary projects (note that this poll was taken before Resupply replaced Prisma).
“I bought into the idea of the ‘Berkshire Hathaway of crypto’ -- but the projects they ‘own’ aren't actually sound businesses.
Thai Global Access Advocate and daily Ethereum user
Aave received the second most mentions, garnering praise for its reliability, longevity, and in one case for its functional DAO. One dubbed it the “DeFi Bank.” Another simply cited it as being “useful, reliable, safe.” Aave was listed by one respondent among “trusted DeFi players” who further appreciated “safety and opportunity to make yield on my cash.”
Safety and confidence was a key factor me among many DeFi protocols generally. Several users cited appreciation for protocols that “just work” or some variation on this theme.
Uniswap also received a lot of positive mentions, witih one user citing it’s “where I can get my long-tail of s—-coins. “
When it comes to disappointing protocols, a clear pattern emerged: respondents were particularly critical of what they viewed as copycat L1s and protocols without genuine innovation.
One respondent summed up a common sentiment:
"It's basically launch new L1 or L2, copy paste protocols. Farm & dump tokens."
EU whale, over 1K tx / month
The criticism was particularly sharp for previously hyped Layer 1 networks:
"Cardano, Avalanche, Tezos, Polkadot, Algorand, Zilliqa, Neo, Stellar, IOTA: much-hyped L1s of yesteryear that just never lived up to the promise & have essentially been replaced by shinier new tech"
50 year old digital nomad, crypto class of ‘11
Although several users were bullish on Real World Assets (RWAs), the concept also came under its fair share of fire.
"RWA, because nothing reduces the IRL friction for any of those products, they're just a wrapper abstracting the complexity of the IRL funds management which can end up as users not really understanding the risk."
European engineer and daily crypto user
One fascinating trend emerged: protocols that maintained focus on core competencies generally received more praise than those attempting to expand into multiple verticals. One user complained about Frax “trying to dip into every sector and not executing on any of them very well.” Another complained “I like their AMOs in theory — but value accrual to $FXS is painful.”
Griping about crypto is eternal, and certainly heightened by the pains of the bear market, but most of the people who are still here are in fact quite satisfied. However, this sentiment depends strongly on how long you’ve been around the block.
We also saw very divergent results depending on the users’ values. Everybody was extremely satisfied with crypto, except for anybody who joined for financial gains…
So now, before we look to the future, let’s look to the past…
Where do We Come From?
How did our various users get into crypto? Let’s consider this question from the point of view of our four clusters.
Sovereign Individuals
Our privacy-focused veterans, who showed the highest wallet counts and strong preference for self-custody, often entered via Bitcoin. This subset of respondents are of course active now on Ethereum and L2s:
"Exposed to it via work, fell down Bitcoin rabbit hole."
European high school graduate, joined crypto in 2017
The crowd often cited lofty philosophical motivations like “decentralization,” “passion for agorism,” or “freedom and inclusivity.”