Animoca Brands Research Report: 5000 fans = Influence tickets? Current marketing status of Pivot Encryption KOL

Author: Ming & hoidya

Compiled by: TechFlow

summary

Key opinion leaders (KOLs) are important marketing channels, especially in the cryptocurrency space, where their role as a bridge between projects and users is particularly critical. To better understand the role of KOL in cryptocurrency marketing, we analyzed Twitter/X accounts related to cryptocurrencies and their “links in profiles” to identify thresholds that are considered influencers and explore the preferences of crypto trading platforms in KOL marketing.

The first indicator to become a KOL is to have a "certified account". Among encrypted users, the proportion of certified accounts grows rapidly with the increase in the number of fans, stably after reaching 1,000 followers. For certified accounts, the percentage of links in a profile rose sharply after reaching 5000 followers and did not stabilize until it exceeded 50000 followers. This shows that 1000 followers is a key threshold for users to consider using their certified identities to increase their influence, while 5000 followers seem to be the nodes they are recognized as influencers.

The most common business link in encrypted user profiles is the trading platform, concentrated between centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized platforms. Among centralized exchanges, the ones ranked the largest by trading volume also dominate the personal profile link. These links are almost all divided into tokenized links (representing direct value sharing arrangements with KOLs) and ordinary links (representing long-term KOL collaboration or voluntary joining). Tokenized links of centralized exchanges are particularly common in Chinese KOLs, and they prefer users with more than 20,000 followers and accounts for more than 3 years.

For decentralized trading platforms, links in user profiles focus on rapidly rising projects, reflecting their need to capture on-chain user minds to promote growth. These links are completely tokenized and appear mainly in English KOLs. Unlike centralized exchanges, decentralized platforms have no specific preference for the number of fans or the time of their accounts, which exceeds the natural distribution range, showing a more permissionless and inclusive KOL marketing method.

introduction

Influencers or key opinion leaders (KOLs) play a major role in consumer-facing marketing, with a market size of $21 billion in 2023. In a mentally-driven industry like cryptocurrency, KOLs have a greater influence because they are able to shape public perception and drive engagement.

To analyze the use of KOL in the field of encryption from a quantitative perspective, we studied 250,000 Twitter/X accounts active in the crypto ecosystem. Our research focuses specifically on certified accounts that include links to crypto trading platforms in their profiles. Certified accounts require paid subscriptions, unlock features such as reply enhancers, long posts, and creator centers, which enhance their marketing potential. Therefore, certification can be seen as a sign of accounts seeking greater influence and aspiring to be a KOL.

The business network link in the Twitter/X profile, commonly known as the "link in the profile", shows the connection of the account. In this analysis, we focused on links to trading platforms, such as links including “binance.com” or “hyperliquid.xyz” to optimize our sample. Trading platforms are the most common business in profile links in the sample user group, and often use tokenized links to attribute new user conversions to specific sources. This makes it an effective filter to identify accounts participating in marketing campaigns.

In addition to focusing on trading platforms, we also looked at the typical characteristics of Twitter accounts participating in these marketing activities. Key characteristics of the analysis include the number of fans, account language, and account existence time. Together, these metrics provide a meaningful overview of how crypto businesses can use KOLs for marketing.

Authenticated Account: Comparison between the encryption field and the

non-encrypted field

The importance of authenticated accounts in the field of encryption

*: Encrypted account data comes from @UseUniversalX and @aveai_info

**: Normal account data comes from @nytimes

Note: Certification means that the user is a premium or premium + account and is subject to a fee ranging from $80 to $160 per year.

• The proportion of authenticated accounts in cryptocurrency-related Twitter/X accounts is higher than that of the average Twitter/X user base, which highlights the importance of authenticated accounts in the field of encryption.

• Certified accounts with less than 1,000 followers represent a growth phase and serve as a key turning point. Once the number of fans exceeds 1,000, the proportion of certified accounts will stabilize and slowly grow from 30% to 50%. This could indicate that reaching 1,000 followers is a threshold for considering paid subscriptions to further expand online presence, marking a key milestone towards becoming a KOL.

• A certified account is more likely to include links in a profile than a regular account. Once the number of fans exceeds 5,000, the proportion of certified accounts grows rapidly, which indicates that the links in the profile create more value for certified accounts with more than 5,000 followers.

Encrypted authentication account: demographic

Demographics of certified accounts (% of accounts as total, total = 131387)

Further focusing on authenticated accounts in the field of encryption, we have collected samples of more than 130,000 accounts. Among them, 80% of the accounts have less than 5,000 followers, and 4% have more than 50,000 followers. In terms of language, 80% of accounts use English and 7% use Chinese. The age distribution of accounts is relatively even, with 11% registered within the past year and 43% existing for more than five years.

• The rest of this report will focus on these encrypted and certified accounts.

Crypto Trading Platform Marketing: Links in Personal Profile

Common commercial domain names appear in the profile of encrypted authentication accounts (% of all accounts)

• Nine out of the ten most popular business links are crypto trading platforms, with decentralized trading platform Axiom.trade at the top. It should be noted that business links do not include self-promotion links, such as Instagram or OpenSea.

• CEX (centralized exchange) and decentralized platforms divided the positions in the top nine, with OKX and Binance ranked second and third respectively. This observation shows that crypto trading platforms are the most concentrated group that uses links in personal profiles as the form of marketing.

Crypto Trading Platform Marketing: Links in Personal Profile

Trading platform link profile (number of accounts)

In centralized exchanges (CEX), OKX, Binance and Bybit lead in appearance frequency and have almost equal numbers of tokenized links.

• In addition to tokenized links, most CEXs also appear in the form of ordinary links. This is consistent with the background of the large CEX hiring KOLs as brand ambassadors, who do not measure their contributions by tokenized link conversions.

• Among the decentralized platforms, Axiom, BullX and GMGN occupies a leading position in the frequency of occurrence, and almost all decentralized platform links appear in tokenization.

Crypto Trading Platform Marketing: Tokenized Links

Trading platform tokenized link profile (% of all accounts)

• If we consider the crypto trading platform mentioned earlier as the entire universe of tokenized link marketing, Axiom, BullX and OKX are the first three participating platforms, collectively accounting for about 50% of the overall share.

Crypto Trading Platform Marketing: Tokenized Links

Tokenized links to the trading platform (number of accounts)

• Decentralized platforms pay more attention to tokenized links than centralized exchanges (CEX). This difference may stem from the permissionless nature of decentralized platform links, while CEX tokenized links require authorization.

• CEX is mainly aimed at Chinese accounts, especially those with higher number of followers and longer account ages. In contrast, decentralized platforms prioritize English-language accounts, most of which exist in smaller accounts.

Crypto Trading Platform Marketing: Tokenized Links

Tokenized trading platform link authentication accounts divided by fan group (% of certified accounts)

Tokenized trading platform link authentication accounts divided by category (% of certified accounts)

• Most accounts have less than 10,000 followers, and only a small number of accounts use tokenized links.

• The proportion of accounts using tokenized links increases with the increase in the number of fans, reaching a peak of 20,000-29,999. This suggests that 20,000 followers may be the threshold for certified accounts to be seen as valuable for tokenized link marketing.

• Tokenized links are particularly common in Chinese accounts, especially in accounts with 50,000 or more followers. In contrast, English accounts rarely take the initiative to adopt tokenized links regardless of their number of followers.

• A key difference between CEX and decentralized platforms is its method: the decentralized platform link is basically no different from the number of fans in the account, while the CEX link is more common in accounts with higher number of fans.

Crypto Trading Platform Marketing: Normal Links

Regular trading platform link certified accounts (number and percentage of certified accounts) divided by fan group

Ordinary trading platform link certified accounts divided by category (% of certified accounts)

• Certified accounts with 30,000 to 39,999 followers are most likely to use regular trading platform links, which sets a higher threshold than tokenized links. This distinction may stem from the fact that ordinary links prioritize branding over direct user acquisition and require greater manual coordination by the exchange, so it needs to focus on accounts with large followings.

• Regarding the difference between language use and trading platforms, the pattern is closely consistent with tokenized links: ordinary links are mainly related to centralized exchanges and show obvious importance to Chinese accounts.

in conclusion

KOL (Key Opinion Leader) has no doubt the role of the cryptocurrency, acting as an important bridge between the project and its user base. KOL helps users gain a deeper understanding of the project, discover new opportunities, and assists the project to effectively reach the target community. The phenomenon of "links in personal profiles" and self-service tokenized links reflect the dynamic interaction between these three parties.

This study aims to provide an overview of the KOL marketing strategies adopted by well-known crypto companies and projects on Twitter/X. Large centralized exchanges lead in the field of "links in profiles" and use almost equally tokenized and non-tokenized models. Meanwhile, decentralized platforms can share a considerable share with top centralized exchanges in their early stages, relying entirely on tokenized links. For Twitter/X accounts, having 20,000 followers seems to be the threshold for participating in the “links in profile” ecosystem.

With the emergence of “InfoFi” in the crypto marketing field, we expect to develop more innovative ways to coordinate the interests of projects, users and KOLs. Furthermore, innovations in social marketing can go beyond the cryptosphere and may gain mainstream attention in the wider digital marketing field.

Methodology

103,264 fans were randomly selected from @cz_binance and @binance's fans as representatives of the encrypted account, and 60,594 fans of @nytimes were selected for comparison.

Platform: Sampling of encrypted authentication accounts by scanning Twitter/X accounts of 15 trading platforms, including Binance, OKX, Bitget, Bybit, Gate.io, MEXC, Crypto.com, UniversalX, Pepeboost, GMGN, Ave.ai, Photon and BullX. The sampling size of each account is capped at 50,000, so a total of 131,387 certified accounts were captured.

Language: If all text in an account's profile and username are in English, the account is classified as an English account. The rest are classified as Chinese or otherwise based on the non-English language used.

Tokenized links are recognized by keywords in the link: Binance uses "join" or "register", OKX uses "join", Bybit uses "invite" or "partner", Bitget uses "partner", MEXC uses "invite", Gate.io uses "signup", Photon uses "@", BullX uses "/p/", Crypto.com, Axiom and Hyperliquid use "@", UniversalX uses "invite", Ave.ai, Pepeboost, and GMGN.AI use "ref".