Statement from the Team

There has recently been a lot of chatter in the community regarding the price drops and questions about what we will do about it. We will try to address as much as we can here to increase the transparency of what the team is thinking and to maintain an open dialogue.

HZN Price

The biggest consideration for everyone is obviously the price of HZN.

The Horizon Protocol team is aware of the decreases in HZN price and the greater crypto (and global) market and are truly empathetic to everyone affected by it. Just know that the Horizon Protocol team are also HZN stakeholders and are impacted by the HZN price and the greater market conditions just like everyone else. These types of market conditions are out of the control of the team and we see these times as an opportunity to hunker down and BUIDL. The team views the project through a longer time horizon and believes the current bearish market conditions are just temporary and will recover in time, just like how the crypto market has survived every other bear market in the past. The team intends to be laser focused on the important fundamentals of consistently building up the Horizon Protocol ecosystem, community, and adding value to the DeFi ecosystem.

Marketing

The marketing push that we had planned was scheduled to go live 3–4 weeks after launch, but with the crash of the crypto market and then the LUNA disaster after that, the market sentiment was not conducive to any kind of paid marketing push, so we asked our media planners to hold off on it for the time being.

What does it mean when we say that the market sentiment is not conducive to a paid marketing push? In the current risk-adverse market, funds are mostly flowing to the safety of Bitcoin. Bitcoin dominance is trending upwards and most other crypto projects are bleeding against it unless they have found a large injection of capital. In this state, very few investors are interested in taking risks on smaller projects. Everyone is just trying to protect their investments. Spending money on a paid marketing campaign blast right now is like trying to put out flyers for a gym during COVID lockdown. No one is looking for it and no one will be able to come.

The more opportune times for paid marketing campaigns are during stable or bull markets because funds typically flow from blue chips to larger alt projects, which then flow to smaller alt projects. This happens because everyone is making money, or at least not losing money, and has the confidence to take on more risks. Pushing the messaging out at these times makes the most sense in terms of impact and return on investment. Given that, there are always marketing activities that can be done regardless of the state of the market. Activities around organic growth such as building relationships within the BNB and DeFi ecosystem by reaching out to other projects, improving and developing our presence on socials, being apart of or hosting community AMAs, establishing technical or marketing partnerships, producing more useful educational content, and doing any other reputation building activities that don’t require a high upfront costs. We believe these types of activities can lay the foundation for stronger results down the line when we do activate paid marketing campaign blasts.

Next Steps

This leads us to questions about what we plan to do next. In short, our goal is to hunker down and do things that prepare us to leverage better market conditions. This includes all the foundational organic marketing activities listed above as well as relationship building with other projects, CEXs, and potentially larger investment bodies, and the continued development of the protocol, as we have only just made it to the starting line in terms of what synthetic assets can bring to the DeFi world.

Conclusion

For every one coin you saw grow to a large market cap, dozens of projects disappeared and died. Successful projects require being in the right place at the right time or survive long enough for the market conditions to become favorable. The team is not against doing big marketing spends, but it needs to make sense in terms of its return on investment to ensure the longevity of the project. We have several paid marketing activities lined up and are waiting to pull the trigger for when market sentiment improves, and in the meantime, our efforts in organic marketing activities never stop.

We maintain this community to be fully transparent with what we are considering and to keep an open dialogue because it is part of the initial mission stated to become a DAO. We also plan to continue developing, because development helps us attract better potential partnerships with other projects and potential investors.

At the end of the day, the team is always trying to make the best decision for the health and longevity of the project and that will not necessarily be aligned with what some of the shorter time frame investors want. Our community management team have done a fantastic job fielding your questions, organizing, and passing on your thoughts about the project on a daily basis. If you do not agree with the vision of the project or our thoughts presented here, we would love to know your constructive feedback. We understand that it may not be for everyone so we wish you all the best if that’s the case.

On a final note, for those in the community who are interested in being a part of the Horizon Protocol team by developing content, becoming a project advocate, or just making a great idea happen, please reach out to us. We are actively establishing a project advocacy program as we believe a motivated and productive community will significantly improve the project’s growth and success as well as each individual token holder.

The Horizon Protocol team is certain of the long term growth of our space and plan to be a relevant contributor to it for years to come. We would like to thank the community as your honesty, participation and contributions are the true value of this project.

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