Love and Greed in Crypto

Note: While this framework applies to any community, from startups to religious movements to open source projects, I’m using crypto community as a reference point here because I have been working actively in this industry for the past 5 years and been here since 2014.

Crypto promised to change everything with decentralized communities, shared ownership, power to the people, but if you spend time in most crypto communities, you will notice something else. People are always asking “wen moon?”, “wen airdrop?” and mostly talking about the token price. The moment the price drops, half the community disappears overnight. This is clearly not real community, but a collective group driven by price action.

But I find there is something deeper happening here. The way people relate to crypto projects follows the same pattern as we do for human relationships. There are three stages of love, and most crypto communities never move beyond the first one.

I know it sounds weird to talk about love in an industry built on speculation and pump-and-dump schemes, but after watching the same patterns repeat for over a decade, this framework helps me understand why some projects build lasting communities while others collapse the moment the hype dies.

Receiving Love

Children love their parents because parents provide food, shelter, and safety. In crypto, this is when projects airdrop tokens to early users, give away NFTs, or promise future rewards. The community loves the project because they receive something of value.

This is quite natural and not wrong, and every community generally starts from here. When Ethereum gave away free tokens to early adopters, when Uniswap airdropped UNI tokens, when OpenSea shared profits with NFT creators, people genuinely felt grateful and joined these communities because they benefited from it directly.

I’m not saying receiving airdrops is evil but there is a problem with this stage. The perceived love depends entirely on what you receive, and the moment the benefits stop, the love completely disappears and you move on. Look at any project that stopped giving rewards.. the community goes silent overnight.

Transactional Love

At some point, the relationship matures where both the project and the community contribute to each other: the project provides support & value and the community provides feedback, adoption, promotion, sometimes even development work.

Many successful crypto projects operate at this level. Ethereum developers create new features, while the community builds applications and provides security through staking. DeFi protocols share governance tokens with users who provide liquidity. NFT projects create art while collectors provide market demand. This is what keeps most functioning communities together where both sides benefit, and both sides contribute. It works, but only as long as both sides keep getting something out of it.

But even this has limits especially when market conditions change, or when better opportunities appear elsewhere, people move on. The relationship is still based on what each side can extract from the other. I’ve watched entire communities migrate from one protocol to another chasing better yields, leaving behind projects they claimed to believe in.

Unconditional Love

This is quite rare in crypto and only a handful of projects can claim this. This is when you become so aligned with a project’s vision that you contribute regardless of personal benefit. You believe in the mission itself, and genuinely want to see it succeed even if you gain nothing.

This happens most clearly with Bitcoin. Some people dedicate their lives to Bitcoin, not because they expect to get rich, but because they believe in creating a monetary system that can’t be controlled by governments or central banks. They see it as protection from hyperinflation, and financial censorship, especially in countries where governments regularly seize assets or devalue currency. They run nodes, educate others, build infrastructure, or defend the network against attacks. They do this because they have become part of Bitcoin itself.

The same thing happens with some open source projects as well. Developers contributing to core protocols without payment, educators creating content to spread knowledge, community members helping newcomers without expecting tips or recognition.

When you reach this stage, you stop asking “what can this project do for me?” and start asking “what can I do for this project?”. The project’s success becomes your success, not because you own tokens, but because you have become part of the vision.

Why Most Crypto Communities Fail

Most projects never move their communities beyond stage one or two, focusing on token airdrops and rewards systems that create mercenary communities which disappear when incentives dry up.

I’ve seen this play out dozens of times since 2014. From ICOs to NFTs to infra projects to RWAs to memetokens to AI coins, it’s the same cycle repeating over and over. Bull posting like crazy, communities full of hype-men, but the dance never lasts long enough.

Real community takes time to develop and needs genuine vision, consistent giving, and patience to let relationships grow naturally. Most crypto projects want instant community, but you cannot buy real belonging with airdrops or create it with marketing campaigns.

This is rare, but when it happens, these communities become unstoppable because they continue building as they have become the vision itself. They survive bear markets, technical setbacks, controversies, and all the chaos that comes with crypto.

I know it’s weird to talk about greed in a system that’s literally built on financial incentives. Crypto rewards mercenary behavior by design, but I still keep hoping to find something more genuine underneath all the speculation.

Maybe it’s naive to expect love in a system built on money and speculation. But some projects do transcend pure financial relationships, even if it’s very difficult, and sometimes I wonder if I’m being too idealistic here, but I have seen it happen. Not often, but it does happen.