I realized that running a Web3 community isn’t about giving out more rewards

When I first started running a Web3 community, I wasn’t doing anything unusual.

Invite people into Discord.
Run Twitter tasks.
Give out points, XP, whitelist spots.
Push “engagement” as hard as possible.

The numbers looked good.
But most of it was just noise.

The moment rewards stopped, the server went quiet.
That’s when I realized something wasn’t right.

Early on, “activity” completely fooled me

Most of the early tasks were very mechanical:

• Join Discord → get points

• Follow Twitter → get points

• Retweet → get points

• Daily check-in → get points

People completed them quickly — and left just as quickly.

Almost no one:

• actually discussed the product

• asked real questions

• stayed after the tasks ended

It wasn’t a community.
It felt more like a task farm.

I didn’t remove rewards — I rebuilt the points system

I didn’t kill incentives. I changed the rules.

Instead of rewarding one-off actions, I built a points system that tracked long-term behavior.

Some changes that actually worked:

• Twitter tasks were no longer just “retweet once”

  • contextual comments mattered more

  • consistent participation over multiple weeks mattered more than a single action

• Discord points accumulated over time instead of resetting every event

• Some actions gave fewer points but unlocked roles or access to certain channels

• I added a simple points shop, where points could be exchanged for temporary roles

Once people realized:

“My history in this community actually matters”

Their behavior noticeably changed.

Twitter tasks only worked when they fed back into the community

Pure Twitter engagement didn’t do much on its own.

What worked was pulling it back into Discord:

• Post a tweet → come back and discuss it

• Join a Twitter thread → share your own takeaway

• Attend an X Space → ask or answer a question afterward

These tasks were harder to automate and harder to fake.
Most bots dropped off very quickly.

The community got quieter — but healthier

This part surprised me.

Message volume went down.
Leaderboard competition cooled off.
Some users left.

But the ones who stayed:

• showed up consistently

• remembered each other

• helped newcomers without being asked

At some point, the community kept running even when I wasn’t online.

The real shift wasn’t points — it was identity

Over time, points stopped being the main motivation.

People cared more about:

• their roles

• their reputation in the server

• being recognized as long-term participants

The points system just made that visible.

What I’ve learned from running this for a while

In Web3, incentives aren’t the problem.
Shallow incentives are.

If you only reward speed, you attract farmers.
If you reward consistency, you keep real users.

I stopped asking:

“How do I boost activity today?”

And started asking:

“Who’s still here a month later?”

That shift changed how I think about community building.