Our Best Hits of 2022 | TradFi to DeFi Community Retrospective
When the going gets tough, the tough get building
2022 was a banner year for TradFi to DeFi!
In today’s article, we’ll do a quick retrospective of the last 12 months with some of TradFi to DeFi’s “best hits”, and then share a few thoughts from John and I about what we learned in 2022. We did a similar community retrospective in 2021, which you can read here. It holds up pretty well, and I would say we have greatly exceeded many of our previous goals.
Let’s take a look back at 2022 and remember some of the best moments from our most successful year yet!
-Tyler, Co-Founder & CEO of TradFi to DeFi
IRL TradFi to DeFi Meetup
We started the year off with a bang, meeting in person during the 2022 Permissionless Conference in Palm Beach. It was amazing to finally put names to faces and enjoy a delicious meal together.
We plan on meeting up again in person at Permissionless 2023, we hope to see you there!
Decent DAO Collaboration
Last spring, we had the exciting opportunity to partner with Decent DAO, a web3 venture studio. John and I joined a community call where we talked about the history of fintech and how crypto is inevitable. It was an exciting discussion to see ways that TradFi to DeFi can help educate and learn from fellow crypto communities:
We also had the opportunity to learn from our fellow community member and decent DAO contributor Taylor Webb, who joined us for an interview to discuss what it’s like becoming a solidity developer:
We identified a lot of overlaps between our two communities and laid a path toward future collaboration with both of these conversations! Decent DAO and TradFi to DeFi are pioneering the way toward a decentralized future.
Interview with David Seroy
One of our most popular podcast episodes featured community member David Seroy, who recently wrote an article for Bitcoin magazine about DeFi on Bitcoin. It was a fascinating discussion that generated some buzz on our Twitter account:
We can’t wait to have him back on the podcast to go into more details!
DAO Punks Partnership
A recent flurry of activity sparked within our community after our application to join the DAO Punks grant program. You can follow our journey on previous medium posts (starting here and ending here), but suffice it to say things kicked into high-gear when we applied and won first place!
Thanks to the efforts of our team, we’ve secured a 1 ETH grant and have picked up steam on our journey toward becoming a premiere think tank DAO and crypto community.
Protocol Testing Launch and Gamut Partnership
One of my personal highlights this year was launching our product testing and user feedback service for DAOs, protocols, and NFT projects.
Over the years we’ve attracted talent from across the crypto industry. From full-time DAO workers to CeFi executives, we have some excellent human capital in our diverse talent pool. With our newly launched protocol review service, we can leverage this talent to offer actionable feedback to any project trying to attract users.
Our very first launch partner is Gamut Exchange on the Kava ecosystem. As a trusted partner to a truly innovative DeFi protocol, we are serving our mission of bringing mass adoption to the crypto ecosystem.
Launch of TradFi to DeFi Short-Form and Social Media Strategy
We have massively upped our social media game with cohort-based targeting strategies. One of these strategies is to use YouTube as a quick and easy way to find our content, particularly short-form content. We’re betting big on YouTube as a growth strategy in 2023, and this year we’ve seen a lot of success by taking our long-form content and making shorter clips for mass distribution. Here’s one of our best performing shorts this year about getting involved in our community:
We’ve also launched a variety of interesting Twitter engagement strategies, and have seen some success with a few of our threads. Here’s one of our most recent tweetstorms:
Expect to see more social media engagement in 2023! Oh, and if you’re not yet following is on Twitter or YouTube, you’re missing out!
Consistent Community Calls and Collaboration
Something I’m especially proud of this year is the consistency of our group. Every Friday at 3 PM Eastern we have a dedicated following of community members who show up and give their thoughts, ideas and contributions for the crypto space. It’s a humbling experience to see something that started off of a chance meeting online between two strangers on the internet grow into what TradFi to DeFi is today. And the best is yet to come!
So, what are John and I both reflecting on as the year comes to a close?
Tyler — Bullish on Community
This year has been tough for the crypto markets. From the front seat of a fintech infrastructure provider that focuses on the crypto segment, I’ve seen the carnage that rippled through markets. I watched colleagues get burned out, industry friends get laid off, and entire companies go bust. I read headlines about founders and executives being laid off or declaring bankruptcy that I had personally met. It was surreal to watch.
And despite that backdrop of negativity, I’ve seen the TradFi to DeFi community pull together in new and exciting ways. A groundswell of renewed interest, a focus on building, and long-term thinking from several core contributors has led to a compounding effect in output over the last half of this year. I’m proud to lead such an inspiring group of friends and builders. Thanks for making 2022 special!
John — Reflecting on Tough Times
During the course of the year, we had some really important community calls to discuss rapid movements in the industry. Whether it was FTX, Terra Luna, 3AC and any of the other contagion events, we had a few calls that went longer than normal as people were trying to figure out what was going on. I remember one particular call when the market was getting pounded and everyone was down 40–60% and we asked “What did we miss? What have we learned?” These questions led to some good discussions, and some important answers.
Should your strategy change in the face of wild market swings? Those calls can be a great place to “sanity check” the way you’re thinking about the market. It’s been a great place to bounce ideas off the community. And it’s during tough times like that I am grateful for the reassurance that comes from having a community you can talk things through with.
Final Thoughts
Now is the time to build, not despite market conditions but because of market conditions. Crypto’s volatility remains both a blessing and a curse, bringing with it the attention and adoption that comes from renewed interest at sky-high valuations, but also the ghost-town of despair when prices bottom out. It’s this quieter time in the cycle where some of the best crypto projects are started. It also the time when only the true-believers remain, because those are the truly deserving of success.
We believe TradFi to DeFi is one such project. We’re building quietly and consistently, one tweet, post, episode, and relationship at a time. And when prices and attention come skyrocketing back to all-time highs, TradFi to DeFi will still be here.
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TradFi to DeFi exists to teach, encourage and inspire you on your decentralized finance journey. To spark synergies, foster long-lasting connections, and expand your horizons. A hub of activity, opportunity, excitement, and possibility. Come join the DeFi revolution!
Find us on discord, twitter and youtube!
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