Odaily reported that 1confirmation founder Nick Tomaino discussed the marketing challenge facing long-term participants in crypto, arguing that real builders need to understand and attract Degen users while staying authentic, rather than criticizing speculative culture from above.
Tomaino said he has been trying to solve that problem for the past 15 years and has failed many times. He also said that if users hold different asset positions, they may see his comments as "condescending," but added that he spent much of his younger years speculating heavily and taking losses, so he does not look down on the Degen crowd.
In his view, many of the truly predatory actors in crypto are often those who look down on Degens, which makes it easier for them to exploit those users for arbitrage.
Two camps in the market
Tomaino said current crypto participants can be broadly divided into two groups.
The first group is made up of "true believers," which he said is represented by Ethereum and Coinbase leadership. These teams have lived through multiple market cycles and kept building new products and infrastructure. They are less focused on short-term traffic and capital and place more weight on long-term value.
He said the weakness of that camp is that it can become too idealistic at times, with too little involvement in high-heat areas such as Memecoin trading and perpetual contracts, leaving it relatively weaker in marketing and user acquisition.
The second group is the "hype men," including some altcoin project teams, executives and KOLs. Tomaino said this camp is better at generating attention, attracting Degen users and capturing hot market trends.
According to him, some people in that group care more about short-term capital and traffic, lack real innovation, and mainly wrap themselves in industry narratives without actually practicing long-term value creation.
Crypto’s path depends on how the two sides affect each other
Tomaino said hype-driven participants are better at winning attention and trading demand, while believers have stronger authenticity and longer-term credibility, but neither side is complete on its own.
He said the two cultures will eventually merge. The key question, in his view, is whether long-term builders can do a better job of understanding and attracting Degen users, and whether traffic-driven players can shift away from short-term speculation and toward creating real long-term value.
He added that the future direction of the crypto industry will depend on which side changes the other more: whether long-term thinkers can move more speculative users toward building, or whether attention-driven players gradually turn toward a healthier, positive-sum ecosystem.