THORChain has had it tough in recent years after experiencing three exploits in the space of four weeks. This was a summer hit for the protocol. The native token (RUNE) had a hit and dropped to $3.50 in July from an all-time high price above $20.00 in May.
Due to the exploits happening on the network, the decentralized exchange (DEX) pulled back its fore feature that allows users to transfer their crypto assets across blockchain networks with supervision. As such, developers worked back end to tighten the network security and protect THORChain from exploits or hacks.
Last month, THORChain reactivated the Ethereum pools, which caused an increase in the price of the token. We saw RUNE’s price dashing towards the $20.00 price again. This indicates the complete virtual recovery of THORChain. Right after that, the THORSwap went for a public sale.
Community Development vs. Technical Implementation
THORSwap is a decentralized exchange back by THORChain. On its initial capped sale, it had a successful run, and there was an oversubscription of 198%. THORSwap’s community members catch up with a $300 maximum call.
Its next uncapped sale went south due to bots manipulation and ran the Initial Dex Offering (IDO). As a result, the network’s treasury withheld tokens before participants were able to gain access to the app.
However, RUNE appeared to mount the upward trend while reversing its dip price. Then, participants who previously irked at the project sang praises of THOR’s team committed to ensuring that the project is back. Now, the critical question revolves around how THORChain was able to stand back amongst other DeFi projects that went dead due to exploits or hacks on the main network.
With close observations, you may want to question how a crypto project could receive Ether donations from wallet holders to cover the losses. Likewise, you might be curious about individuals’ interactions on THORSwap’s social media channels. The answers to those questions are not far-fetched.
THORChain’s team is adept at community development and treatment.
Based on some responses from community members, they made it known that this was possible for the blockchain project not only because of the rooted commitment existing amongst the participants. Instead, it is the diligent efforts of the THOR developers and managers towards developing the community as much as they invest energy in technical implementation.
Establishing this kind of blockchain ecosystem centralizing their project around community wellbeing created a virtuous circle. This circle created bonds of aligned incentives between the community, developers, managers, and moderators. As a result, the system created an anti-fragile economic space.
Due to the IDO, THORChain and THORSwap answered every question to pacify outraged supporters to participate in the sale. The community understood how the team was working to rectify mistakes that prevented them from the sale.
In THORSwap’s debrief, the team acknowledged how the token launch on THORChain turned out to be a bad experience for everyone. They admit that the trust built for some years can break in a split of seconds due to strange events. Yet, they established lessons derived and their willingness to regain the community’s trust.
Beyond their apology, the team promised to allocate 10% of the tokens as donations to the liquidity pool. Likewise, the group pledged to redistribute its over $11,000,000 THOR position to liquidity providers that couldn’t get their tokens.
Community Moderation to Build Loyalty and Freebies for Retention
In one of the revelations of the THORSwap admin—who remained anonymous, he mentioned how the community birthed the entire project. As a result, the team took it upon themselves to personally investigate the event and create a solution to meet the community’s expectations. They want many people to have access to the project as much as they want.
To further express their commitment to creating a sustainable crypto community, the THORSwap team announced the possibility of another airdrop. However, there is a limit to how much apologies and freebies can sustain the community. This led them to create a passionate community of over 18,000 members on the Discord platform.
This Discord moderation helps accelerate the rate at which trust was built over a year. There was one-to-one support running across 24 hours when there was a question from a member. And the average response rate is 30 minutes. This gives THORSwap an edge over other DeFi projects. Not many DeFi projects had done that for its supporters in the past.
Discord community moderation is a big challenge for many crypto projects. Often, those channels become a spam place and where some illicit individuals phish members’ information. But THORSwap’s team invested massively in the community moderation.
This brought positivity to the community. The transparency with which the team was always the first to announce hack events and communicate the mitigation process makes it easy for the community to trust them more. As such, any community member can converse with the team for clarifications.
One significant advantage for THORSwap in achieving this was the efforts to employ experienced community managers instead of leveraging volunteers’ help for community moderations.
NFT Incentives for Positive Contributors and Charity Donation
You may think that’s the peak for the THORSwap team in creating a loyal community. There is more than that. One of the team’s expensive strategies to ultimately win its community is launching different product lines that reward energetic contributors to the project. This is explicitly launching the rewards as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to establish loyalty.
Another significant leverage that breeds community inclusion is the power given to the community to decide where THORSwap’s 5% revenue allocation should be channeled to. Not a lot of crypto projects are doing such. Thus, they are trying to create a path where crypto gains will extend beyond the crypto space into the real world. However, about 75% of their total revenues should go back to the community.
Community Makes THORChain Triumph
Taking a critical look at the outcomes THORSwap enjoys from the community, you would agree that it is a worthwhile investment. The aligned incentives brought massive impact from public sales having more than 5,000 participants to community satisfaction on the preferred solution to mitigate mistakes made during the wrong IDO execution process.
Meanwhile, THORSwap is only a fragment of the community support the THORChain blockchain network enjoys from its members. This appears as a giant leap ahead of others in the DeFi ecosystem. With the promises and possibilities of this innovative blockchain technology, THORChain is bridging the gaps for crypto users to interact across chains and connect across networks.
THORChain is establishing its stance in the technology world that the best technology doesn’t always win. As much as you are not willing to put your community first, you are just an event away from being another failed project. Technology can be duplicated, but communities and survival methodologies cannot be photocopied.
This establishes why THORChain still stands tall despite experiencing exploits and hacks that had killed some DeFi projects.
