Hash Consulting

Hash Consulting divides its work for crypto companies into four separate service lines. The marketing strategy starts with market research, in which the team analyzes user needs and the positioning of competitors and interviews experts from its own network. The result is a positioning and a narrative that the agency then hands to branding and creative partners for execution.

The communication strategy service audits existing channels and budgets, sets up media partnerships and KOL campaigns and writes the social media content. Growth strategy covers awareness and acquisition campaigns, and the event strategy service organizes investor dinners, product launches and meetups, including the guest list, the speakers and the sponsors.

For Bitpanda, Hash Consulting ran a one-year campaign to win market share in France. The team screened more than 50 key opinion leaders and media partners, executed more than 100 activations and organized three events, one of them together with FC Bayern Munich. The campaign recorded more than 3 million views and impressions and 44,530 clicks over the year.

The dYdX Foundation worked with Hash Consulting for two years on its presence in Europe. Out of more than 100 KOLs and media outlets, the agency onboarded 45, and in the launch month of dYdX Unlimited it coordinated more than 225 activations. Over the whole engagement the partners published 886 pieces with 7.28 million views in several European languages.

For the Sui Foundation the agency designed the market entry of Sui in France and supported Sui Connect Paris, which drew more than 400 attendees. When iExec moved its privacy tools to Arbitrum, Hash Consulting rewrote the positioning around the message "Privacy Made Easy. Now on Arbitrum." and activated more than 30 KOLs and media partners. In two weeks that campaign reached more than one million impressions and moved iExec from sixth to second place in a ranking of privacy projects by mindshare.

The data platform Agnostic asked Hash Consulting to explain how onchain users behave and how competitors position themselves in the market for blockchain data indexing. The agency collected more than 30 interviews with developers, data providers, onchain analysts and the founding teams of large DeFi protocols. From these interviews and a benchmark of direct and indirect competitors it derived a positioning and a communication plan for Agnostic.

For Pyth Network the agency ran an awareness campaign aimed at the French crypto audience. French KOLs and media outlets explained the oracle network in 36 pieces of content, which reached about 110,000 views and 140,000 impressions.

Hash Consulting plans and runs marketing for crypto companies, from market research and positioning to KOL campaigns, social media, events and acquisition campaigns. Its documented clients include the exchange Bitpanda, the dYdX Foundation, the Sui Foundation, iExec, Pyth Network and the data platform Agnostic.

Key opinion leaders, or KOLs, are the analysts, traders and video creators whom crypto users follow before they try a product. Hash Consulting uses them for educational campaigns that build awareness and for acquisition campaigns that add an incentive and a clear call to action, aimed at sign-ups, wallet creations or deposits.

For acquisition the agency also manages web3 questing on platforms such as Layer3 and Zealy, where users complete onchain tasks in exchange for points or rewards. Further formats in the growth strategy are AMAs and podcasts, airdrop campaigns, paid advertising, personal branding and announcements of funding rounds or token listings.

Hash Consulting is based in Luxembourg, was founded in 2019 and employs a team of 11 to 50 people. Its case studies concentrate on France, which the agency calls the strongest crypto market in Europe, and on the European expansion of global protocols and exchanges.

Maxime Baron writes the articles of Hash Consulting on go-to-market strategy. In his article on awareness and acquisition he describes the two as successive stages of one funnel. Awareness campaigns create the impression that a project is everywhere, and acquisition campaigns turn that attention into users, downloads and onchain activity.

In a second article Maxime Baron argues that visibility alone does not make a project part of a market. A lasting go-to-market strategy adapts the narrative to the local culture, grows a community inside the market and forms local partnerships that give the newcomer access and credibility.

When an offeror pays a KOL to promote its crypto-asset in the EU, the post counts as a marketing communication under MiCA. It must be clearly identifiable as marketing and must not contradict the white paper of the token. A creator who buys a token and then recommends it without disclosing the position can commit market manipulation under Article 91, which the rules on crypto market abuse describe in detail.

National advertising law adds a labeling duty for every paid post on social media. The German Federal Court of Justice confirmed in September 2021 that influencers must mark a post as advertising when they receive money or goods for it.