Blockchain is the power of your project. The brand is its glory.
Having robust and innovative technology is crucial but not enough to guarantee success. To see your product thrive in such fast-growing industry as Web3, you must pay attention to your brand and its growth.
My name is Daria Volkova. I'm a Blockchain Product Marketing and Branding Expert. I build awareness and trust in blockchain products among users, developers and VC funds.
I’m interested in the Ethereum ecosystem and research it deeply because now it’s the most promising blockchain for building products that can bring the mass blockchain adoption.
For the past two years, there have been many talks of L2 and its capabilities among blockchain enthusiasts.
But there is almost no mention of marketing and branding, although these are crucial points in the strategy of a successful project.
This article is devoted to overall analyzing the marketing and branding of Layer 2 blockchains, which help solve the main problems of Ethereum and have already created a highly competitive market.
While writing the article, I realized that I can write a whole book on this topic because there is a lot of information! So, for now, with the help of this article, you can familiarize yourself with what L2 blockchain projects do in marketing, and I can reveal the details in future articles.
Suppose you plan to build your blockchain for Ethereum scaling, you work at one of the projects mentioned in this article, or you are a Web3 marketer or community manager. In that case, this article will come in handy.
How did I choose L2 networks for analysis?
According to Starkware, a Layer 2 is a separate blockchain that extends Ethereum and inherits the security guarantees of Ethereum. L2 blockchains can solve the problems of scalability, and it give the new opportunities for builders and users. For example, the concept of Account Abstraction that makes blockchain accounts more flexible and programmable.
The best resource to follow Ethereum L2 networks and projects is L2BEAT. It is a public goods company dedicated to providing on-chain transparency on L2. This screenshot and description of the networks it took from the L2BEAT platform.
So, I there are 7 infrastructure projects/code bases for analysis: Arbitrum One by Arbitrum, OP Mainnet by Optimism, Base by Coinbase, zkSync Era by Matter Labs, Starknet by Starkware, Polygon zkEVM by Polygon Technologies, and Scroll.
According to L2BEAT, all these Ethereum L2 projects are Universal so they can be used as faster and cheeper versions of Ethereum for building DeFi and GameFi projects, decentralized wallets, crypto exchanges and NFT marketplaces. Also, these L2 blockchains can be used by traditional businesses and enterprises who want to integrate blockchain technology into their business processes seamlessly.
The main criteria to evaluate brand marketing of L2 networks:
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Clearance of the main message / positioning
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Attractiveness / Memorability of Visual Identity
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Content Marketing
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Community Engagement & Growth
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Event Marketing
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Confusing points
I recommend you to read the whole analysis to learn about how L2 blockchain networks build their brands to attract developers, users and partners.
At the beginning, I want to give you a short analysis of the Ethereum brand because all the L2 projects on my list use the brand of Ethereum to strengthen their brands. It’s very important point, and we must understand that all projects created to scale Ethereum are doing everything to be associated with Ethereum as much as possible.
Ethereum
Ethereum as a technology has a solid and unique brand in the Web3 world and beyond. This brand attracts developers, founders, users of DeFi products, and the mass audience.
People may not even know what Ethereum is in the broad sense, but many know that it's the second most popular blockchain. And even your mom may know who Vitalik Buterin is.
In the screen below you can see the total traffic and device distribution of the Ethereum.org website from July to September 2023. Almost 7 million visits during the bear market! Not bad.
Let’s see how many people follow Ethereum on social media. Here are screenshots from X.
And here are only a few examples of the projects relevant to Ethereum - events, news and communities. Also, in this picture you can see how many search results are on the Internet connected with word “Ethereum“.
You could not fail to notice the brand purple/violet color of the Ethereum brand, shades of which are used by Ethereum-related projects.
Ethereum brand style is a celebration of futuristic humanism, decentralization and collaboration. In some places, the visual style evokes associations of a utopia, where everyone contributes to a common cause and profits from it.
From the point of view of positioning, this is a successful approach because it attracts many people to work on open-source projects based on Ethereum and stimulates volunteer activities to promote the brand and increase awareness among the masses.
A separate long article can be written about Ethereum marketing, so I will move on to rollups and L2 networks that make this blockchain scalable and more attractive for building decentralized projects.
ZK Rollups
A zero-knowledge proof is a way of proving the validity of a statement without revealing the statement itself. The ‘prover’ is the party trying to prove a claim, while the ‘verifier’ is responsible for validating the claim.
Zero-knowledge proofs first appeared in a 1985 paper, “The knowledge complexity of interactive proof systems(opens in a new tab)” which provides a definition of zero-knowledge proofs used today:
A zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that something is true, without revealing any information apart from the fact that this specific statement is true.
Comparative statistics of activity on the zk-rollups websites according to SimilarWeb
To wrap up this part, I want to share with you a few website metrics that can help you learn more about the current state of interest in zk-rollups projects.
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The picture above shows that zkSync had more total website visits than Polygon, Scroll and Starknet during July-September 2023. It can mean that interest in zkSync’s brand is higher than in competitor’s brands.
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Regarding the device distribution, I can say that Scroll is a strong leader in mobile format.
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Starknet and zkSync have more desktop visits which can indicate that users visit these two websites while working with documentation; it is easier to work with it in the desktop format. In this case, such a high rate of desktop views can be a good sign because users enter these websites with specific purposes.
As you can see, zkSync is the leader in quantity of the monthly visits, unique visitors and has the lower bounce rate. It means that many people are interested in this network, they want to know more and they find what they look for.
Scroll has the best results on metrics of the visit duration, page views and the quantity pages per visit. It means that users (mostly developers) find this website interesting and relevant - documentation and the overall information.
Polygon is the leader in monthly unique visitors, but it’s hard to divide the traffic between Polygon Technology and the page about zkEVM.
Starknet has lower website engagement rates, but in most cases not dramatically.
The most active social network for all four projects is X (Twitter). It accounts for about 75% of all site traffic, and this is not surprising, because X has the most active blockchain community now.
YouTube is also a good source of traffic to websites. These are video reviews of projects by influencers, as well as YouTube channels of these L2 networks, which their teams run for informational and educational purposes.
There are so few transitions to websites from Discord. Most of all, this is due to the fact that in Discord, active users are already familiar with the projects, and they do not need to search for additional information.
zkSync
zkSync Era is a general-purpose zk-rollup platform from Matter Labs aiming at implementing nearly full EVM compatibility in its zk-friendly custom virtual machine. It implements standard Web3 API and it preserves key EVM features such as smart contract composability while introducing some new concept such as native account abstraction.
zkSync is MatterLabs flagship project, and they’ve been working on it since the summer of 2020. The project is completely open-source, making their contributions transparent and freely available to the blockchain community.
Main Message:
Freedom drives Progress and Prosperity. zkSync Era is the future-proof zkEVM on the mission to scale freedom for all.
Mission:
To accelerate the mass adoption of crypto for personal sovereignty. That means that we need to scale Ethereum while preserving its valuable properties, by building a technology thousands of developers and millions of people want to use.
To support the mission, four month ago, zkSync published their Credo. The text describes the main ZK Principles and the meaning of ZK Revolution which work for Freedom → Progress → Prosperity.
You can read the full ZK Credo by zkSync on GitHub:
zkSync has 1.2M followers on X and 700k+ members in Discord
The numbers are amazing! This number of subscribers is due to the fact that there are rumors in the blockchain and crypto community that the company may do a retrodrop. Whether it will be or not is currently unknown. But the number of followers and their level of engagement (reactions under posts, messages, creative materials) is impressive.
The latest update from the zkSync team is zkZorro. He looks like Pepe has taken over Zeek the Cat.
zkZorro is an entertaining character who posts funny and sometimes quirky posts about zk-rollups and team life. I suspect that zkZorro was created to strengthen DevRel's direction and employer brand.
By the way, he reminds me of a character that Arbitrum created. There the character of Pepe is used, which tells about the life of the company. In the part dedicated to Arbitrum, you can see that character and compare it with zkZorro.
In the picture below, you can see how the zkSync team uses community-building platforms. I checked Zealy and here is what I found:
Confusing points about zkSync brand and marketing:
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From a branding point of view, I am concerned about the use of Era in the name of the network because everyone calls the project zkSync. In social networks and at events, everyone usually calls zkSync, and no one names it zkSync Era.
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On LinkedIn, there is no zkSync page, and you can find only Matter Labs. When people post something about a project, they can't tag the project, only the Matter Labs company. In my opinion, this is somewhat confusing and does not give additional bonuses to the employer brand because many do not know that Matter Labs company is a creator of zkSync.
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There is no clear corporate style. The company has branded materials that look different and non consistent. I think they're trying to find their own style, but right now it's getting in the way of seeing the brand clearly and holistically across all channels.
Starknet
Starknet is a general purpose ZK-Rollup built using STARK cryptographic proof system. Starknet uses the Cairo programming language both for its infrastructure and for writing Starknet contracts. L2 <–> L1 messaging infrastructure is available and contracts are fully composable. It is currently launched with a single Sequencer.
The website is easy-to-read and has clear design. It’s easy to catch the idea that the project wants to be in line with Ethereum’s futuristic visual style but do not copy it.
Main Message:
Starknet is the secure scaling technology bringing Ethereum's benefits to the world.
Description:
A Permissionless Decentralized Validity-Rollup (often referred to as ZK-Rollup). Any developer can deploy any dApp, using smart contracts, and achieve unlimited scale.
The total number of the followers on X and Discord is more 500 thousand people. I did not take into account the pages of Starkware, because I'm talking only about the Starknet project.
I can't ignore the logo. It is easily remembered due to the similarity with the graphic image of toothpaste. I don't know if you can see it, but it's pretty obvious to me.
It was interesting to find similarities between pictures made by Starknet and zkSync. This suggests that inside the industry there is a certain idea of what a futuristic L2 project should look like, and that many are using the same AI tools for visualization.
I recommend looking at branding more broadly and approach the creation of materials more strategically and holistically to make the style of the project unique.
In the picture below, you can see how the Starknet team uses community-building platforms. I checked Zealy and here is what I found:
Confusing points about Starknet brand and marketing:
- The brand style on social media is not consistent. The team often uses different styles and it’s not always looks good:
- The project has a low engagement rate. For example, despite more than 200K followers on X, only 100-150 likes and 10-20 comments under each post. The competitors have more engagement.
Polygon zkEVM
Polygon zkEVM is aiming to become a decentralized Ethereum Layer 2 scalability solution that uses cryptographic zero-knowledge proofs to offer validity and finality of off-chain transactions. Polygon zkEVM wants to be equivalent with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
https://polygon.technology/polygon-zkevm
Main Message:
Bring Ethereum to everyone.
Explanation:
Polygon zkEVM Beta is the leading ZK scaling solution that is equivalent to Ethereum Virtual Machine: The vast majority of existing smart contracts, developer tools and wallets work seamlessly.
I can’t count properly the quantity of followers of Polygon zkEVM without the main Polygon brand. But the total numbers on X and in Discord are more than 2.5M.
Last year, I recorded a video about Polygon's marketing. A lot has changed since then, but check it out if you're interested.
In the picture below, you can see how the Polygon team uses community-building platforms. I found activity on Zealy and Galxe, but it isn’t easy to divide Polygon and Polygon zkEVM to evaluate the data correctly.
Confusing points about Polygon zkEVM brand and marketing:
It is challenging to assess Polygon zkEVM's marketing efficiency because the brand of Polygon Technologies strongly influences recognition.
However, there are objective business indicators relevant to this type of infrastructure project, for example, TVL. This metric counts the total value of digital assets locked in a DeFi protocol or smart contract. The higher the TVL, the more reliable the network, platform or DApp is. In simple words, this is an indicator of the level of trust in a particular project.
Since Polygon launched its mainnet on March 27, 2023, the total TVL is $66.91 M. That's not much when compared to the $442 M on zkSync (launched on March 24) and Scroll's $16.59 M (launched on October 17).
Based on these data, I can conclude that Polygon zkEVM, compared to competitors, is currently less popular among developers. Most likely, the answer lies in the technical plane, but marketing and DevRel should not be discounted.
Scroll
Scroll is rollup that extends Ethereum’s capabilities through zero knowledge tech and EVM compatibility.
Main Message:
The L2 network built by Ethereum devs for Ethereum devs.
Mission:
To provide an accessible scaling solution that preserves the essence of Ethereum – trust-minimized, secure and open source.
Despite the fact that the launch of the mainnet took place recently, Scroll already has a wide audience on social networks. This indicates an interest in the project in the entire L2 direction.
Comparing with competitors, Scroll has many followers in Discord - more than 500K. On X - 600K+, and this is quite a good number considering the youth of the project.
To attract attention to the mainnet, on October 17, Scroll launched a flash mob on X with AI-generated images picturing the company's logo. The flash mob was supported both by the Sсroll team and by community members from various companies.
At the upcoming Devconnect in Istanbul, Scroll and L2BEAT are organizing a big event dedicated to L2 networks. This is an exciting idea, so let's see what the teams will prepare for the attendees.
In the picture below, you can see how the Scroll team uses community-building platforms. I found Scroll on Zealy:
Confusing things about Scroll brand and marketing:
The only thing I like and dislike at the same time is the very close visual connection to Ethereum.
On the one hand, visual associations with Ethereum make it clear that the project is fully dedicated to working with Ethereum and its scaling.
On the other hand, Ethereum's visual style has inspired too many projects and events. Characteristic illustrations and pastel colors are used very often. There is a high probability that the project can be confused with another or that the Scroll branding will become irrelevant if Ethereum changes its visual style.
Optimistic Rollups
Optimistic rollups operate under the assumption that all transactions in a batch are valid and do not perform any computation by default. If a transaction is deemed invalid, there is a challenge period during which anyone can challenge the transaction by generating a fraud proof.
Successful fraud proofs trigger a re-execution of the disputed transaction and update the rollup’s state accordingly. Optimistic rollups are EVM-compatible and can use native Ethereum tools to build on top of them.
Comparative statistics of activity on the optimistic rollups websites according to SimilarWeb
Among the optimistic rollups, Base received the most traffic to the website. While Optimism had a million fewer visits in the last three months.
Arbitrum is a leader in attracting and retaining users on the site. This means that users find what they are looking for or are interested in learning about the project.
According to this screenshot, Arbitrum is the most popular search term among the optimistic rollups networks. It has almost 31% of the Google queries.
Traffic from social networks is similar to the trend of zk-rollups. X is in the lead, with a large difference between YouTube and other social networks.
It is interesting that Base, which was launched three month ago, receives the most traffic from social networks. This can indicate high-quality content marketing and work with the audience in social networks.
And now let's take a closer look at the projects.
Arbitrum
Arbitrum One is an Optimistic Rollup that aims to feel exactly like interacting with Ethereum, but with transactions costing a fraction of what they do on L1. Centralized Sequencer receives users’ transactions and regularly sends the transaction batch to mainnet Ethereum.
I like the website and its design. It looks stylish and easy-to-read.
Main Message:
Welcome to the future of Ethereum.
Description:
Designed with you in mind, Arbitrum is the leading Layer 2 technology that empowers you to explore and build in the largest Layer 1 ecosystem, Ethereum.
Arbitrum runs several social media pages and has more than 1.3 million followers only on X and in Discord.
I want to highlight one of the pages dedicated to getting to know the Arbitrum project in the format of entertainment content. The content is aimed at a mass audience and reveals the features of work at Arbitrum and the underlying technology.
Recently, zkSync launched a similar project with a character which also looks like Pepe. I will follow the progress of both.
In the picture below, you can see how the Arbitrum team uses community-building platforms. I checked Zealy and Galxe:
Confusing things about Arbitrum’s brand and marketing:
- Rebranding and its communication. Seven months ago, the Arbitrum team changed the logo and some brand elements due to the Arbitrum Foundation's creation. But now, they realize that many partners in the network still use the old logo because… they don't see the difference. And it is almost invisible.
What does this case show us? Two important things.
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Rebranding should be justified by a business need. Do you understand why the logo became a little taller and narrower after the creation of the DAO? I don't. It is not obvious.
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Rebranding must be well communicated so your audience has an emotional connection and people remember the changes. Otherwise, you will have to do what Arbitrum does after seven months.
The promo video about the beginning of decentralized governance for the Arbitrum protocol.
On the one hand, the idea of creating a video is good, because among decentralized projects, classic video advertising is a rare thing. And for that I want to praise Arbitrum.
But on the other hand, from the point of view of the logic of storytelling, I have many questions about the video. The plot seems promising, but the implementation breaks the laws of drama. As a marketer, I analyzed the commercial which the team created to announce Arbitrum Foundation and the ARB tokens airdrop. You can watch a video with my analysis:
Optimism (OP Mainnet)
OP Mainnet is an EVM-equivalent Optimistic Rollup chain. It aims to be fast, simple, and secure. With the Nov 2021 upgrade to OVM 2.0 old fraud proof system has been disabled while the new fraud-proof system is being built (https://github.com/ethereum-optimism/cannon).
Main Message:
Ethereum, scaled.
Philosophy:
We pledge to uphold the values of Ethereum by producing infrastructure that promotes the growth and sustainability of public goods.
Optimism’s audience on X and in Discord is less than competitors’, but there are still good numbers:
The Optimism network logo resembles the hype streetwear brand Supreme. I don't know if the designers faced such a task, but in my opinion, they are similar.
The brand red color on one side makes the style recognizable and makes Optimism stand out from the competition. On the other hand, such a red color in interfaces is often used to indicate errors, and it is noticeable in the picture with the ecosystem.
A bright graphic element that attracts attention and acts as a corporate hero. It's easy to identify and draw, so I think it's a good visual trick.
The announcement of the Onchain Summit as part of the Devconnect events in Istanbul. Please note that the banner is designed in the form of tiles, which will become limited edition merch.
In the picture below, you can see how the Optimism team uses community-building platforms. I found activation in the format of NFT collection on Galxe:
Base
On August 9, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase launched Base, a Layer 2 (L2) solution for Ethereum.
Base is an Optimistic Rollup that has been developed on the Ethereum network, utilizing OP Stack technology. OP Stack is fully EVM-compatible protocol. According to the developers, the open source code and interoperability of the solution will make it possible to build the Optimism Superchain blockchain system.
Coinbase is the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and the only one publicly traded in the United States. It’s became the first public company to launch its own public blockchain.
I like the website, it looks fresh and not typical. Without detailed illustrations, in line with branding of Coinbase.
Main Message:
Build anything on Base.
Description:
Base is a secure, low-cost, builder-friendly Ethereum L2 built to bring the next billion users onchain.
Thanks to the popularity of Coinbase and the Optimism network audience, Base has many followers and constant growth.
There is an NFT marketplace built on Base called Onchain Summer. It was created to attract artists, gamers and musicians to empower Base’s brand. Also, the team created a blog on Mirror under the same name.
In the picture below, you can see how the Base team uses community-building platforms. The company is active on Galxe and Zealy launching many quests and NFT collections:
Confusing things about brand and marketing of Base:
Base is backed by one of the largest players in the cryptocurrency industry, so there is reason to believe that the project will actively develop and occupy a significant market share. In terms of marketing, Base has a lot of support from a company which has well-established marketing processes and a significant budget.
Now I don’t have any confusing points about Base’s marketing, but I have some doubts about the project’s fidelity to the idea of decentralization. We'll see how it goes.
Conclusion
First of all, if you've read this far, thank you! I hope you found something useful for yourself and now know more about marketing and brand growth of L2 Ethereum networks.
Secondly, despite the size of the article, I managed to reveal only a small part, and in fact, each project can be analyzed deeper. Every day, the marketing teams of these projects come up with and implement new ideas for promoting the project, finding partners and developing the direction of DevRel. Therefore, I always recommend watching projects in dynamics.
The founders of all the projects mentioned in the article were guests of the Bankless Show. You can watch the videos by clicking on the projects’ names:
In my opinion, from the point of view of marketing, big players zkSync and Arbitrum, as well as "newcomers" Scroll and Base, are showing themselves well now.
We will see what happens next later. I am waiting for the launch of the Taiko mainnet and other projects. I am sure there will be something to discuss in the future.
Read my previous entries about blockchain influence on marketing, branding and UX in 2024 and about 7 deadly sins of Web3 startups in marketing.
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