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.
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