Control your narrative, control your market
In crypto, narratives move billions. The only question is: are you owning the narrative, or is the narrative owning you?
Most founders don’t. They borrow hype like AI, DePIN, or memecoins and let it carry them for a season. But when the hype dies, so do they. Another ticker pumped, dumped, forgotten.
Stories have always been the engine. Before money, before code, before memes, people told stories around firelight. Our brains are not wired for spreadsheets and feature lists. They are wired for arcs, tension, and heroes. Features fade. Stories stick.
That is why your narrative is not optional. It is your growth engine. It drives capital, users, partnerships, and talent. It is the difference between becoming a category-defining product or being coin number 14,873 on page 74 of CoinMarketCap.
What is a narrative and why does it matter?
A narrative is the story people tell about you when you are not in the room. It is the reason you are worth attention in the first place.
There are two levels:
- Market narrative: the big storylines pulling attention, such as AI, stablecoins, or restaking.
- Brand narrative: your story. Why you exist, what you are solving, and why it matters.
Think of it like this: the market narrative sets the stage. Your brand narrative is the performance. If you do not own your script, you are just another extra in someone else’s play.
We dive deeper into this difference in the article
Market the Narrative or Let the Narrative Market You
. Worth a read if you want to really understand how these two layers interact.
And every narrative you put out has to pass a simple test:
- Prove you are the best solution for your users right now.
- Show you are worth investing in, whether that means time, money, or energy.
That is it. If it does not do both, it is not working.
But here is the nuance: narratives are not static. The core story stays the same, but the way you tell it changes depending on who you are speaking to. Investors need one framing. Your first 50 users need another. Region A hears a different angle than Region B.
Is narrative an art or a science?
Narrative work lives in tension.
- The art: understanding culture, psychology, and emotion. Spotting the vibes of the moment. Framing stories so people feel like the hero.
- The science: testing, iterating, and tracking what actually sticks. Running experiments, swapping taglines, measuring engagement, cutting what falls flat.
Most projects lean too far one way. They either over-index on “creative genius” with no validation, or they obsess over data with zero emotional pull.
Balancing both looks like this:
- Draft multiple framings of your core story.
- Push them out across channels such as social posts, landing pages, or sales decks.
- Ask users to retell the story back to you and see what they remember and what they don’t.
- Double down on what resonates, cut what doesn’t.
It is iterative creativity. Experiment like a scientist, storytell like an artist.
Fatal traps to not fall into
Two traps kill more projects than bad tech ever will.
The ego story
This is when founders or projects make themselves the hero of the narrative. The story becomes about how smart they are, how groundbreaking their product is, or how they are going to “conquer an industry.”
The problem? Users do not see themselves in that story. They cannot connect with it. Markets do not rally around your ego. They rally around missions. If the user cannot picture themselves as the main character, they will not buy in.
The truth is simple: you are never the hero. You are the guide. Your users are the ones fighting the battle. They are the ones who need the win. Your role is to show them that your product is the tool that makes their victory possible.
The everyone story
The opposite problem: trying to appeal to everyone at once. Founders tell broad, fluffy stories that sound grand but land with nobody.
“Changing the world”. “Reinventing finance”. “Onboarding the next billion users”. Nice words, but nobody sees themselves in that story. Specificity is what sticks.
If you want your first 50 users, your story has to be sharp enough that they instantly recognize themselves in it. Get that right, then scale.
Great narratives are specific. They define a hero. They define the problem. They name the stakes. And because they are sharp, they resonate deeply with the right people. If you are trying to resonate with everyone, you are actually resonating with no one. And if you cannot land the first 50, you will never land the first 50,000.
The 5-step narrative sprint
If you want to sharpen your narrative, don’t overcomplicate it. Run this sprint.
1. Identify your hero
Get brutally specific about who your product serves right now. Not “the next billion users.” Not “everyone who cares about finance.” Your early adopters are a tight group. Name them clearly.
2. Map their pains and desires
Write down exactly what they are struggling with and what they want to achieve. Connect those pains and desires directly to your product. A narrative sticks when people see themselves in the story.
3. Build the hero’s journey
This is the backbone of your story. It has five parts:
- Hero: your user, the main character.
- Problem: the pain, fear, or obstacle they are facing.
- Setting: the wider context, such as market conditions, hype cycles, and competitors.
- Guide: your product. You are not the hero. You are the one who helps the hero win.
- Transformation: the outcome, what life looks like once they have solved the problem with your help.
This is where you turn abstract messaging into a story people actually want to follow.
4. Layer in proof
A good story pulls emotion, but it also needs credibility. Show the receipts: traction, partnerships, team background, anything that signals “this is not just a good story, it is real”.
5. Test, adapt, iterate
Push your narrative live in campaigns, on your website, in community calls, even in your pitch deck. Then stress-test it. Ask users to retell it. Watch what they remember and what they forget. Double down on what sticks. Cut what doesn’t.
And don’t forget the twist. Every unforgettable story has a unique, defensible angle that only you can own. If someone else can copy your narrative tomorrow, you do not have one.
This sprint forces clarity. It anchors the story in your users, sharpens it through the hero’s journey, and then hardens it through proof and iteration until it becomes unforgettable.
But none of this matters without consistency
Even the best narrative dies if you are not consistent.
Founders often jump from one story to the next, chasing whatever is hot. One month they are an AI play, the next month they are DePIN, the month after they are DeFi. Users do not stick around for shifting identities.
Consistency does not mean rigidity. You can repackage your core story in different ways, for investors, for users, for new regions. But the underlying arc has to stay the same.
Think of it like a band. You can remix the track, drop acoustic versions, or play live sets. But the song itself does not change. That is how people recognize it. That is how they trust it.
And trust is what compounds. The longer you run with a clear, consistent narrative, the more credibility it builds, the more it sticks in the minds of your users, and the more it becomes part of your moat.
Because at the end of the day, your story is either building a movement or it is just more noise in the feed.