Crypto is at a crossroads. While public attention remains focused on high-profile legal activity against symbolic leaders like Sam Bankman-Fried, other—more compliant—actors remain focused on recovering the sector’s status and helping it grow sustainably and transparently.

While this involves high-touch interfacing with the regulators who control the sector’s future, it also requires innovative and thoughtful marketing strategies: ones that continue emphasizing growth, while meeting consumer sentiment where it’s at.

Highlighting compliance

In the wake of major regulatory activity against crypto platforms like FTX and Binance, surviving players in the space have been forced to confront waning consumer confidence in the sector writ large. What’s more, spiraling market activity can lead to pessimistic investors, further creating a negative feedback loop, wherein the sector’s current dip can dry up venture funding.

To confront these challenges, crypto platforms should emphasize how they operate within legal boundaries and interface with regulators. Doing so can help assuage consumers’ concerns and bring compliance-conscious investors to these platforms.

Avoiding consumer crazes

It’s tempting to turn consumer interest into runaway growth. Episodes like the r/wallstreetbets meme stock craze show the power of a trend, in which temporary optimism can lead to serious spikes in user activity.

But it’s a nearly impossible task to maintain user interest in the wake of these crazes, and they may lead to regulatory scrutiny as well. Rather, solving for sustainable growth by wooing users who understand the long-term benefits of crypto—as a diversified asset in a larger portfolio, for example—may help establish and maintain market share in the long run.

Partnering with traditional incumbents

A growing wave of institutions are interested in working with crypto companies—with certain restrictions in place. Especially after Jerome Powell declared bitcoin to have “staying power,” and since BlackRock’s application for a bitcoin spot ETF, institutional investors and firms see some parts of the crypto sector as viable channels for growth.

Partnering with these institutions may require shifting the language that crypto platforms use to describe themselves. For instance, shifting away from retail investor-focused language, and moving toward B2B and UHNWI-friendly lingo, emphasizing the use of crypto for institutions and individuals with deeper pockets.