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Building trust and solid communities should be the focus of Web3 companies during the ongoing bear market, said experts, during a panel discussion at TechSparks 2023, YourStory’s tech-startup event.

Over the last year, cryptocurrency markets have been rocked by a tough bear market following the meltdown of a key cryptocurrency exchange—FTX—in November last year.

Given the prevailing conditions, it is important for users to ask themselves why they are investing in cryptocurrencies at all and why they are picking a particular exchange, said Simran Alphonso, Public Relations and Communications Lead, Bitget.

“Building trust over time via your products and giving users more is how exchanges come ahead,” she added.

Bitget is a Seychelles-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange.

During the prevailing bull run in cryptocurrency exchanges, there were a number of Web2 companies that were looking to get into the Web3 space from a marketing perspective, according to Tanay Jain, Startups and Venture Lead at BuidlersTribe, an online community for startups with a global presence.

However, it is now important to have a well-defined “why” in order to have an effective strategy, he added.

Building trust and communities

To build trust, one must collaborate with firms and people who have a good presence in the industry, said Aditya Mohanty, Co-founder of The Product Folks, a volunteer-driven community for product managers.

Mohanty said the emphasis should be on building a community where one feels a sense of belonging.

“There is a popular analogy in this space which says are you building a hotel or a home … Hotels can sometimes feel very transactional … So when it comes to communities, you should always look at building spaces that feel like home.”

A significant part of community building also involves being cognisant of building inclusive spaces.

While the bull run in cryptocurrency encouraged a lot of women participants to enter the space, it is important to shape the dialogue further from here on out, said Aditi Chopra, Founder, Superwomen DAO and Community Consultant, Okto, a decentralised finance wallet (CoinDCX).

“Yes, we definitely need more women, but we also need to show them that this space is innately more inclusive than whatever we have seen before,” she added.

“While the role models in Web2 were already set up, in Web3 the community is much smaller; so we can actually leverage this … We must make it commonplace to see more women in Web3 leadership.”

Chopra also pointed out that engagement among Web3 communities continues to be a struggle, despite the presence of almost 120 dedicated spaces for Web3 communities in the country.