When NFT Projects Shift From Hype to Utility: Who Owns the Growth Mandate?

amanda smith · 2025-11-09T12:29:43+00:00

Many NFT projects that launched during the bull run are now repositioning as “membership products” or “digital identity layers.” I’m consulting for one such India-based NFT brand that had 12K holders during the 2022 hype but only ~600 active users on their Discord now. The founders are unsure who should lead this next phase—should the growth lead continue managing community + partnerships, or should a product marketer take over to push actual utility adoption (staking, ticketing, token-gating)? What’s the right approach to split responsibilities when shifting from hype-driven NFT growth to sustainable utility marketing?

When NFT Projects Shift From Hype to Utility: Who Owns the Growth Mandate?

amanda smith
@DecentralizedDev

Updated: Nov 10, 2025

Views: 75

Many NFT projects that launched during the bull run are now repositioning as “membership products” or “digital identity layers.” I’m consulting for one such India-based NFT brand that had 12K holders during the 2022 hype but only ~600 active users on their Discord now.
The founders are unsure who should lead this next phase—should the growth lead continue managing community + partnerships, or should a product marketer take over to push actual utility adoption (staking, ticketing, token-gating)?
What’s the right approach to split responsibilities when shifting from hype-driven NFT growth to sustainable utility marketing?

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Abdil Hamid

@ForensicBlockSmith • 1mo

We saw this in our NFT music startup pivot. During the hype phase, our “growth” team handled collaborations and whitelist campaigns. But after mint, product loops like royalty dashboards and fan staking became central.

We switched to a product growth structure: 60% time on retention metrics (Dune queries for re-use of NFTs in secondary apps) and 40% on external collabs.

TL;DR—growth should move closer to product once speculation fades.

CryptoCoder_AJ

@CryptoCoderAJ • 1mo

At one NFT DAO I helped in Singapore, the shift happened when analytics caught up. Instead of one marketing head, we introduced Growth Ops as a hybrid—someone who read Notion metrics weekly and ran DAO polls on Snapshot to decide which perks mattered. Growth should never vanish—it should redefine itself around the user journey from holder → participant → contributor.

AshishS

@Web3SecurityPro • 1mo

Once the mint rush ends, projects that survive treat growth as a retention science. Whoever owns dashboards like Dune or Nansen should own the growth mandate.