Centralized growth traps
Most blockchain projects still rely on top-down growth. A small team makes the plan, hires a few marketers, and tries to push the project forward with paid exposure. Everything depends on a budget and a centralized decision-making process.
This model has two problems:
It doesn’t scale with the community
It creates weak incentives for real contribution
The result is predictable. The people doing the most visible work are usually outsiders (influencers, agencies, or short-term promoters). Meanwhile, supporters from the actual community are left out of the loop, without recognition or ownership.
The protocol ends up depending on a few people to grow it, instead of letting the ecosystem grow itself.
Centralized vs Open Contributor Growth
Growth engine
Paid campaigns and internal plans
Verified community contributions
Incentive alignment
Team gets rewards, contributors don’t
Contributors earn reputation and rewards
Ownership distribution
Controlled by insiders
Gradually earned by ecosystem participants
Resilience
Fragile, depends on a few actors
Durable, driven by many
Projects that fail to decentralize growth remain fragile. Not in terms of code or infrastructure, but in terms of people.
Without real contributors, there is no long-term protocol.
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