A few days ago, Portal Labs came across an article about the KOL round, where the author said, “The KOL round is a narrow door left for ordinary people in the primary market.” In fact, the rise of KOLs has indeed provided many ordinary Web3 users with real opportunities to access more advanced information, participate in higher-level discussions, and even influence project narratives. Coupled with the explosive growth of the Web3 KOL economy in recent years and the narrative hype around InfoFi this year, many Web3 players are also trying to open up their upward mobility in the Web3 ecosystem through the KOL path.

However, if you want to take the first step on this road, perhaps you need to answer a more critical question first: Are you truly suitable to become a Web3 KOL?

Three Major Conditions — Which One Do You Meet?

In many people’s eyes, becoming a KOL seems like a replicable process: produce content, increase presence at events, network with more people, package your account more professionally, occasionally boost exposure with some data, and follower count seems to grow naturally through these actions. But once you actually enter the industry, you’ll realize that actions alone can only generate short-term visibility, which cannot sustain long-term trust, nor keep you at the forefront of the market.

Web3 is characterized by high information density, rapid narrative shifts, and short validation cycles. Whether a KOL can survive depends fundamentally on: Can you meet all three core underlying conditions that all KOLs need?

1. Can you produce stable output and develop a personalized value?

Long-term updating is the prerequisite for everything, but Web3 doesn’t reward “frequency” per se; it rewards “what only you can provide.” You need to gradually develop your own judgment style, independent perspective, information filtering logic, or a set of thinking pathways that your audience relies on through repeated expression. True value isn’t about “being recognized,” but about “being needed.” Stability ensures your presence, while personalized value ensures your continued existence. Many can persist in posting, but without forming their own distinctive features, they quickly plateau.

2. Can you withstand public scrutiny and long-term exposure?

The Web3 environment is transparent and direct. Your opinions, judgments, collaborators—even a single inappropriate phrase—can be recorded, cited, and amplified. Becoming a KOL isn’t just about “expression,” but about “bearing the consequences of your expression in the open.” This means you need the ability to stay stable in debates, recalibrate yourself under questioning, and continue producing content after mistakes are reviewed. The audience’s true trust isn’t in your infallibility but in your honesty, restraint, and consistency amid high exposure. In other words, public scrutiny isn’t an obstacle but the very environment of a Web3 KOL; whether you can adapt to this largely determines how far you can go.

3. Are you prepared for a 3–6 month investment period with almost no returns?

All KOLs experience a “silent period” at the start: no interactions, no collaborations, no income—sometimes even visibility is uncertain. In the fast-paced Web3 industry, this feedback-free cycle is often longer than in traditional content industries and can easily lead to doubts about the direction. Those who truly stick around treat the first three to six months as a “building phase” rather than a “failure period.” You need to maintain your rhythm without external encouragement, keep your judgment when there’s no applause, and continue accumulating without immediate results. This mindset sounds simple, but it is often the fundamental reason why most people give up on this path.

If you can meet at least two of these three conditions, this path is feasible for you; but if these requirements feel burdensome, unworthy, or out of sync with your rhythm, the answer is clear: you are not suited to be a Web3 KOL.

Two Directions — Which One Suits You?

If you confirm that you possess the foundational conditions to be a KOL, then the next question is more practical: What kind of KOL are you suited to become?

In the Web3 ecosystem, most KOLs ultimately fall into two categories: research-focused or trading/Alpha-focused. Your content form can be diverse, but which category you resemble most will determine how you create value and your future growth trajectory.

Researcher Type

The research path fundamentally relies on understanding to build influence. To pursue this, you need to be able to explain the industry’s complex structures clearly, break down project logic so others can understand, identify risk points accurately, and maintain a relatively stable, coherent judgment framework over time. Research-oriented KOLs are not driven by market sentiment agility but by whether others can gain insights they couldn’t access elsewhere. This requires continuous reading of public materials, tracking English sources, establishing your own narrative and trend structures, and engaging with project teams, institutions, or ecosystem insiders to form your own judgments from first-hand information.

The monetization methods for this type of KOL are usually clearer: after establishing influence, opportunities include project content collaborations, advisory roles, event hosting, analytical support for technical or economic models, and media content partnerships. While the speed of monetization isn’t fast, once trust is built, business opportunities tend to be more stable and long-term than Alpha-focused paths; especially for deep researchers, it’s easier to receive institutional invitations, project advisory roles, and other non-traffic income. However, this path takes longer—generally three to six months of accumulation before gaining recognition, and at least one narrative cycle to be acknowledged by the industry.

In the Chinese-speaking community, the value of research-oriented KOLs is often seen as “helping others understand what they can’t.” This is a long-standing deficiency in the Chinese community: the ability to explain complex mechanisms in a structured way is rare. For Chinese users, most industry content is initially in English, so your ability to bridge the information gap, grasp source materials, and build your own understanding pathway is a competitive advantage.

However, for those with a Chinese background, this path involves additional practical factors: the lag in English information is just the surface issue; deeper are cultural expression differences—Western industry discussions tend to be more direct and confrontational, while Chinese expressions are more nuanced, which can affect your ability to maintain professionalism in public discussions. Additionally, compliance is a concern: research KOLs often touch on tokens, project collaborations, economic models, and even potential endorsement obligations, all of which require cautious handling in the Chinese context. You must understand how to disclose collaborations, judge whether content involves investment advice, avoid misinterpretation, and decide which collaborations or content are appropriate. These restrictions make content boundaries tighter for Chinese research KOLs, but also create a differentiation advantage: if you can establish stable expression within these boundaries, your credibility will be higher.

Ultimately, those on the research path are competing to be “the person others come to” rather than “the person who just observes.”

And this path is inherently slow, but slow is its value.

Trader Type

Trader-focused KOLs emphasize “quick judgment and action.” They are less about explaining the industry and more about identifying opportunities: airdrops, on-chain behaviors, narrative triggers, sentiment turning points, short-term trading ranges, task changes, contract dynamics, ecosystem hotspots. Their content usually involves action advice, execution strategies, operational tips, or clear “what to do and when” pathways. The more chaotic the industry, the more valuable these KOLs become, as they handle the filtering, judgment, and decision-making for others.

The monetization structure here is also quite different. Trader KOLs typically monetize through traffic-related channels: community groups, membership services, trading strategy sharing, task path organization, airdrop tools, AMA collaborations, or even execution partnerships with projects. The faster they grow, the larger scale they can reach; but their income is less stable because it depends on market activity and opportunities. During bullish cycles, they can rapidly gain followers and monetize; during downturns, they quickly face “no content to produce,” with emotional and psychological costs that other KOLs rarely experience.

For Chinese users, the value of trader KOLs is more direct: “leading the way, saving time, reducing trial and error.” The Chinese ecosystem’s information is naturally lagging, task paths are inconsistent, and on-chain conditions are more complex, so many users see these KOLs as “navigation systems” that are one to three steps ahead.

However, for Chinese backgrounds, this path has additional difficulties compared to research: the lag in English info is just the surface; deeper are issues like time zone differences, overseas task update rhythms, and the inability to participate smoothly in key discussion platforms, which means you must fill in many gaps in the information chain that others don’t need to. In the Chinese context, some trading-related expressions are less free than overseas, especially those that might be interpreted as “direct investment advice” or “trade signals.” Therefore, when pursuing the trader path, you need to be more cautious about how you frame your judgments, directions, and collaborations, clarifying what can be shared and what should be avoided before your influence grows, to prevent being caught off guard by inappropriate expressions during rapid market movements.

Another practical issue with the trader path is that as long as your content relates to trading, your judgments will directly influence users’ funds. Whether or not you intend to “guide,” if losses occur, users will instinctively blame you as the primary responsible party. This psychological mechanism exists in all markets, but Web3’s faster pace and greater volatility make feedback more immediate. If you choose this route, you must think ahead about how to set your expression style, boundaries, and rhythm to avoid being pulled into users’ emotions and outcomes.

Choosing the trader path ultimately depends on whether you can find a sustainable rhythm amid speed, judgment, and pressure.

Otherwise, this route can exhaust you faster than any other.

Summary

No matter which path you choose, being a KOL is never a replicable process; it’s a result of long-term commitment. It requires consistent expression, the ability to face public scrutiny, and maintaining your judgment across different cycles. While research and trading paths seem very different, those who succeed in the long run are not necessarily because they chose the right direction, but because they continuously create value within their chosen path.

If you’re contemplating whether to start, Portal Labs hopes this article helps you see only the “threshold” and “forks.” Ultimately, the key lies in whether you’re willing to invest your time and attention into a rhythm you can sustain long-term. The direction can be found gradually, but mastering your rhythm is up to you.