To be honest, that moment was truly magical.
Author: Lawyer Liu Honglin, Mankun Blockchain Legal Services
Cover: Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash
"I'm a social anxiety sufferer who doesn't like to talk and is afraid of strangers. I avoid socializing whenever possible." - This is the opening self-introduction of many crypto KOLs. After saying this, the next moment you'll see them passionately explaining BTC trends in an X live stream, shilling while presenting slides, with fans flooding the comments. To be honest, that moment was truly magical.
Yes, in the crypto world, even a socially anxious person can become a top influencer. This is not magic, but traffic logic.
Building a Persona, from "Socially Anxious Bagholder" to "Expert Harvester"
You might think becoming a KOL requires logic, data analysis, and reading project whitepapers? No, no, no. In the crypto world, "persona" is the primary productivity.
The traffic code of crypto KOLs has never been about "being right," but "being engaging." You need a story, a stance, a painful history of being harvested, and an inspiring comeback trajectory.
You can position yourself as a "10-year bagholder who has stepped on various traps," or claim to be a "senior primary market hunter," or even a "overseas fund researcher" - anyway, no one checks, just sound mysterious. You can add some buffs: just left VC, previously did hedge fund research, was an advisor in a Silicon Valley Web3 team... In short, multiple countries, currencies, and positions, making it sound incredible.
What kind of persona is most likely to go viral?
Answer: A bit tragic, a bit stubborn, and best of all, a bit mysterious. For example:
- "Scared off by the 2017 harvest, turned around in 2020."
- "Reject capital games, focus on small-cap potential projects."
- "Never trade coins, only do research, only speak logically."
If you can occasionally say in groups that you "never took ads," "make a living from whitelists," "never speak at project peaks," then you're basically set. Users will trust you more than exchanges.
Once you establish your persona, the next steps become simple. Crypto users like "emotion + mysticism," you output, the market cooperates with rises and falls. You don't need to be a trend prediction master; in fact, the more "zen" you are, the more people will see you as an expert.
Three-Piece Set: X, TG Community, Weekly Space
A crypto KOL's basic infrastructure is a three-piece set: an emotional tweet + an "internal" TG group + a weekly AMA. Commonly known as the "content-community-persona" closed loop.
Tweets can't be too serious, or no one will read; can't be too nonsensical, or you'll risk backfiring. The best approach is to "set the tone". For example:
- "Tonight in Space, I'll talk about a project I've been following recently. DYOR."
- "Saw a project blacklisted me. Did I hit a sore spot?"
- "A project didn't give me a whitelist? Do they think they're a Layer1?"
Setting the tone isn't random, it's "emotional micro-manipulation". You don't need to explicitly say a project is great, just post: "I've been looking at this for a week, it's crazy. Don't blame me for not warning you." This sentence is more effective than a 3,000-word technical analysis.
TG groups are even simpler. Get a logo, invite some people, name it "XX Research Institute" or "XX Laboratory" or "XX DAO Beta Community" - instantly giving a "research" vibe. Then occasionally post project links, screenshots, voting results to interact and maintain presence. If someone asks if the project is reliable? Don't say too much: "Project team won't let me speak" or "Still under NDA" or "Feel free to DM me if really interested" - playing hard to get.
Don't be afraid of Space livestreams. You don't need to turn on the camera or show your face. Just have a steady tone and occasionally cough, and netizens will screenshot and share: "Brothers, did you hear that? Is he hinting at xx?" - and you've said nothing, just mentioned you're optimistic about a certain field.
And just like that, you become famous, even without anyone knowing who you are.
Three-Step Takeover: Discuss Projects, Get Whitelists, Share Links
Once you have some "volume," project teams will naturally approach you. At this point, the advantage of being socially anxious comes into play: you don't like socializing, so project teams don't need to make small talk, just pay you directly.
The collaboration model is simple, in three steps:
1. Help host an AMA, no preparation needed, just read the project whitepaper;
2. Tweet with a link, content doesn't matter, just add any image, no one looks at images;
3. Have followers get whitelists, you just need to say: "I personally didn't participate, just for reference."
Even if you don't directly help them raise funds, just posting "I will" is the most effective marketing.
More advanced KOLs are too lazy to do livestreams, relying entirely on Space recordings and fan interactions, which actually generates more traffic. Some even use AI tools, adding a face and voice, posting tweets as usual, without a "person" appearing. Emotional when needed, interactive with data, the key is, no one knows who it is.
Social anxiety? Doesn't exist. There's not even a "person" to begin with.
So, Can This Actually Be Done?
Ultimately, this can be done - some people even make millions annually from it. With a hot industry, many projects, and few promoters, KOLs are essentially information traders, traffic intermediaries, and emotion catalysts. You don't need to be the most knowledgeable in the industry, but you need to be the loudest.
Moreover, this is one of the few crypto side hustles with an extremely low barrier to entry and decent returns. You don't need technical skills, don't need to invest money, don't need to register a company, and can even avoid showing up in person. As long as you have a solid persona, can control the rhythm, and have an audience, you'll have bargaining power.
But the problem is: doing it for a long time, doing it steadily, and avoiding trouble are different matters. Because once this industry encounters a bull market with hot money, the hype becomes too intense, and many people will turn information sharing into disguised stock recommendations, shill, and even claim to be "proxy investments".
Are you doing communication, or participating in project manipulation? Are you recommending a project, or creating FOMO? Are you expressing an opinion, or covertly harvesting?
Many people have never seriously considered these boundary lines.
Mankun Lawyer's Friendly Reminder
Finally, Lawyer Red Lin offers some practical advice to everyone, just to help big shots ride the wind and clouds, make money safely and travel far and wide.
First, disclose if the project has given you money, tokens, or rebates.
Many KOLs comfort themselves with "no contract signed", thinking it's not a business collaboration. But the reality is: as long as there are transfer records on the chain, or chat records mentioning "arranging something small", it constitutes a factual collaboration in legal terms. Whether you receive USDT or tokens airdropped by the project, as long as it can be traced on the chain and proves your benefit, you can be claimed as part of an "interest community" with the project party.
If you don't disclose, once the project goes wrong, you're likely to become a "co-responsible party", making it difficult to clear yourself of misleading promotion and assisting illegal fundraising.
Second, sharing white lists and links is clearly a "marketing channel" behavior.
You're not a fund manager, but the link you share might be the project's fundraising entry; you're not the issuing entity, but the sentence "I'll participate" might be more effective than the project's official website. In many crypto rights protection cases, KOLs are the first to be approached because you are a "locatable responsible person" who can be found on the chain, social platforms, and groups.
In real-life cases, KOLs have been defined as "participating in illegal virtual currency fundraising" in subsequent criminal cases just for sharing a project address and saying "don't miss it". You might think you're just shouting, but law enforcement sees it as helping criminal groups "attract traffic".
Third, don't underestimate the legal consequences of information dissemination, even if you claim to "represent only personal views".
After a project runs away, the KOLs sued are usually not the "most professional in technical analysis", but those who were most enthusiastic in reposting, repeatedly shilling, and sharing profit screenshots. They may not have touched users' money, but "strengthened users' trust expectations" in the project.
This "trust inducement" has practical space in the Chinese legal system. If the scale of crowd funds is large, KOLs can easily be classified as "major influential participants" or even "accomplices".
You can use AI for avatars and speak about projects from overseas spaces, but don't forget that chain-based items, private accounts, live stream recordings, and fan trust are always distributed and immutable - this is the proof of work for your KOL journey.
This industry never lacks people who crash and burn; the key is not to become the next negative example discussed by crypto spectators.
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