Investing in the Trend Marketing Era (Web3 Edition)

It’s Hard

Traditional investing is hard.

Too many variables. Too many human biases. Too many blind spots you don’t even see until they’ve already cost you money. The data doesn’t lie. Most investors don’t beat the S&P. Most retail traders quit within a year. Most people are playing a game they don’t even understand — and losing badly.

That’s before emotion enters the chat. Greed. Ego. The obsession with being early. The desire to prove that you’re smarter than the crowd.

In Web3, It’s Worse

Now take all of that and throw it into a blender running on memes, narratives and market makers.

In Web3, the chaos is louder. More polished. More seductive. You’ve got dozens of “legit” projects launching every month. Every one of them claiming to be the next frontier. Every one of them with a sleek landing page, a Discord full of bots, and a roadmap built on vibes.

Half of them disappear. The other half pivot every three months. And somehow, we still believe.

The Trend Marketing Era: Where Attention is Currency

This is what we’ve entered. The trend marketing era.

Where marketing isn’t about value anymore. It’s about survival.

Projects, companies, even entire chains jump from one narrative to the next just to stay relevant. From NFTs to DAOs to DeFi to RWA to AI to zero-token protocols and whatever the next buzzword will be. Most of them aren’t building anything new. They’re just updating the costume.

It’s no different in Web2. Brands once obsessed with influencers moved to DEI. Then to sustainability. Then to AI. Not because of conviction, but because they knew the “algorithm” changed, and they had to change with it.

This is the age of short-term storytelling.

Win the narrative. Milk it. Dump it. Repeat.

And so here we are, trying to invest in this world. But the truth is this:

• You’re not investing in fundamentals. You’re not investing in products.
• You’re investing in stories.
• Stories, especially in Web3 shift faster than most people can think.

The RWA Narrative – A Case Study

Take one of the hottest narratives over the past few years: RWA (Real World Assets).

The concept is simple. Buy a token. Own a fraction of a real-world thing. A house. A car. A painting. Get passive income or fractional appreciation. It’s ownership without needing to be rich. On paper, it’s brilliant.

In practice? It’s a jungle.

Dozens of platforms are claiming they’ll be the one to bring this vision to life. Every one of them has “real partnerships.” Every one of them “complies with local regulations.” Every one of them sounds like they know what they’re doing.

So which one do you choose? How do you decide whether RIO is better than PROPC or is better than LEOX or vice versa?

You don’t. Because you don’t know. Because you can’t.

Whitepapers Aren’t Truth. They’re Strategy

You can dig into whitepapers, scroll through tokenomics, track unlock schedules, look at the FDV, compare the team, check if they’re doxxed.

It doesn’t matter.

We are in an unregulated space where a tweet from an anime profile can pump a token 50% because they “solved a clue.” Where made up clues and made up hype can outperform six months of real work. Where influencers decide what’s hot. Not developers.

This is not investing. This is performance art with liquidity.

If you’re still reading whitepapers thinking they were written to educate you, you’re already down bad. They’re not educational. They’re marketing documents with citations.

So What Is There To Do?

There is no playbook. No secret indicator. No perfect checklist.

You’re operating in an environment where the rules change monthly. This isn’t about being smart. It’s about staying alive.

Here’s what you’re really up against:

1. You can be rugpulled at any moment. Translation: GAME OVER. Think back to those games from the 90s. You’re out and have to start again from zero.
2. You might be early, but to the wrong cycle. You could back a solid project. But if the narrative isn’t hot right now, nobody will touch it.
3. Low caps are bait. “I found a 100x potential project, get in now”. These are the kind of tweets across your timeline. They feed the fantasy that you’re early on something big. But the truth? You’re not early. You’re alone. Pumping someone else’s bag.
4. Zoom out or tap out. If you actually believe in crypto, build a portfolio that can survive the chaos. The top three still matter. Follow the work, not the noise.

My Rules (After Getting Slapped Too Many Times)

You don’t have to follow these. But this is what I’m doing after fumbling multiple 20x which either rugpulled or fell out of favor.

1. Only invest in projects you can explain without using the word “potential.” If you need to convince yourself, it’s already a no. For me RWA is still my best bet and I’m invested in the three I mentioned earlier (RIO, LEOX and PROPC).
2. Take your initials out at 2x. Not at 10x. Not at 50x. At 2x. Get your capital back. Let the rest ride. Anything else is greed dressed up as conviction.
3. Set your exits before you enter. If you’re deciding while the candle’s green, it’s already too late. Set pre determined exit points before you enter and follow through without a second thought.

Final Thoughts

We are not in a market of fundamentals. Yet.

There are of course certain projects building year after year but overall, we are still in a market of fast-moving narratives. Of loud voices. Of shiny decks. Of recycled dreams. And of people who still believe this is about logic.

Since the last bull run, most altcoins have gone quiet. Bitcoin keeps climbing, mostly because institutions finally gave it their blessing. And everything else? Hype cycles, TikTok charts, and Discord threads arguing about utility tokens with no users.

This is the game now.

You’re not here to win every time. You’re here to stay in the game long enough to make it count. That means protecting your capital. That means ignoring the noise. That means unlearning the illusion that good marketing = good investment.

Because it doesn’t. It never did.