On March 3, 2025, I encountered a scam in the @avalonfinance_ community and suffered a financial loss (details can be found at https://x.com/LiamWang88/status/1896511589270061550).
After publicly reaching out on Twitter and contacting friends in the circle, a member of the AvalonFinance Twitter team reached out to me to help resolve the issue. I also communicated with @0xvebb, the co-founder of AvalonLabs, on TG, reflecting the issue of rampant scammers in the community.
At that time, AvalonFinance's responsible attitude and spirit made me, as a community member, feel very reassured, so I later tweeted to express my gratitude.
(Details can be found at https://x.com/LiamWang88/status/1896731682184806527)
A few days later, I began consolidating wallets (including the wallet with stolen funds) because I wanted to stake a large amount of money in the project. I discovered that a small amount of stolen funds had not been promptly communicated to them. So, on March 10, I sent a TG message to the Twitter team member who had previously contacted me, informing them of this matter and my request, along with a screenshot of the on-chain funds being transferred. I was told, "This is two different matters; you need to talk to my boss." I was taken aback; after they proactively reached out to help me, my omission of this money turned into two separate issues?
Since I needed to talk to the boss, I could understand, so I continued to wait. On March 13, I inquired with this Twitter team member on TG, and the feedback was, "Let the boss make the decision; the boss has seen my message, and he will reply to me."
As of today, March 17, I still have not received a clear response.
This surprised me greatly. On one hand, the completely different attitudes left me astonished; it wasn't even a large sum of money. Even if they didn't want to resolve it for me, a simple acknowledgment would suffice, rather than saying they would provide feedback and then going silent.
On the other hand, I also noticed early on that a response defining their core responsibilities in our Twitter exchange had been modified. Even though I noticed it early, I didn't want to get entangled with them. I felt it wasn't worth it, especially since I know their investors and many partners, and their initial attitude genuinely made me feel they were responsible. Later, I found that the TG chat with this team member had also been deleted. This was another point that surprised me. It made me feel like I was a scammer trying to take advantage of them. To give up my accumulated reputation in the industry for a small amount of money is truly not worth it.
Regarding my need for an explanation, they may have genuinely forgotten to respond to me. It could also be that the project team is very busy and cannot attend to my small matter.
Anyway, I don't want to maliciously speculate on the reasons behind this. For me, it's a small amount of money, and I don't want to waste more time on this matter or trouble friends in the circle. But will I continue to choose to stake a large amount of money? No.
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After my incident on March 3, I received a lot of help and advice from friends. Of course, we also had several discussions on this topic. As a practitioner, I think these questions are worth discussing:
- Can we trust Chinese projects?
At that time, many friends blamed me for participating in a Chinese team project. I don't know when it started that Chinese projects became synonymous with "scamming." I personally do not agree with this statement. I believe that both Chinese and non-Chinese projects can have irresponsible behaviors; I have personally witnessed many irresponsible actions in non-Chinese projects, which is a common issue in the industry. More importantly, as a member of a Chinese team, I certainly want to support Chinese team projects. After all, if we don't support our own, the voice and power of Chinese people in the Crypto industry will be very weak. Do we really want that?
- Is the community important?
If this question were posed to any project team, they would undoubtedly answer 100% that it is important. But the reality is that sometimes, due to considerations of manpower and energy, as well as a lack of effective operational methods, crypto project teams find it difficult to truly operate and manage the community effectively, which is also a common problem. Moreover, an undeniable fact is that many people currently join the so-called community for airdrops and high yields, so the community consensus is very weak. However, the difference between excellent project teams and average ones may lie in this: even if the community initially comes for benefits, excellent project teams can always convey their values through sincere communication and a responsible spirit, thus creating a deeper connection with the community. This needs time to verify, but once such project teams are discovered, in my opinion, they are definitely worth investing in.
- Do project teams need a PR team?
I used to think they didn't need one, but now I believe they do. In the past, my feeling was that every community member in the Crypto industry is a PR person, especially since the content posted daily by project founders on X is a very powerful PR image. However, after spending a long time in this industry, I found that many project teams indeed lack PR capabilities. They either engage in verbal battles on community or social media or only spend money hiring KOLs to promote (with a low return on investment). Additionally, when negative public opinion arises, they think of ways to delete posts, and their PR thinking and methods are too simplistic. In my view, a Crypto project team needs to have a member with PR experience—not just in brand building but also in crisis management. After all, there are various potential public opinion crises in the Crypto industry, and even a single negative incident can cause significant harm to the project team. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Crypto industry needs a mature and experienced PR team even more than the Web2 industry.
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