The Defiant: #1 Ranked Crypto 101 Education & Onboarding Series

[TheDefiant]

Abstract

Empower and Educate:

Education is vital for onboarding new users and fostering widespread adoption. Education therefore is the foundation for the growth of our industry. But here’s the thing: Beyond the immediate challenge of crypto education swiftly becoming outdated upon publication, three other critical issues persist in contemporary crypto education:

1. Information is scattered/messy/unorganized: The inexperienced user often spends valuable time scouring the web for specific information, whereas a more cohesive flow between topics could seamlessly connect and enhance their understanding.
2. Education is unengaging/uninvolving: We’ve yet to encounter crypto educational content that effectively combines teachings with practice. Tutorials and practical guides are typically fragmented across various sources, lacking integration with foundational content for a comprehensive learning experience.
3. Dissemination of information can be biased and misinforming.

But we can do better. The Defiant is a trusted brand with journalistic integrity. It is dedicated to impartial objectivity to empower individuals with accurate, reliable, and transparent information, enabling them to navigate the complexities of crypto with confidence and informed decision-making.

This proposal introduces an unparalleled and comprehensive crypto education series that will be published through two distinct mediums—video and written content—spanning ~10 months.

We’re offering a sponsorship opportunity with a bundle of 5 Crypto 101 topics for $40,000.

Production starts in March, and we’re asking the top brands in Crypto to fund this series. In return, sponsors will be profiled on each topic, in video and written format, distributed across The Defiant’s Web, Newsletter, YouTube and Twitter/X properties. Topic selection is on a first-come-first-serve basis and includes a bonus sponsorship profile on our channels, including Podcast Shoutouts.

Introduction

Three years ago, we set out to create the best educational content on Decentralized Finance.

Today, that series stands as the bedrock of introductory material for DeFi. Our impact has catapulted The Defiant to the #1 spot for YouTube and Google rankings for the “DeFi 101” keyword, making our series the go-to resource in this niche. Second to The Defiant in the video series is DeFi Dad and we’re partnering with him to produce Crypto 101. Even now, select episodes from that series remain our most viewed content, a testament to its enduring relevance and resonance, with the most-viewed videos raking in 74,000 views.

1 Rank on Google Search: “DeFi 101”

1 Rank on YouTube: “DeFi 101” /#2 DeFi Dad (Our series partner!)

Incognito Mode: ignoring the sponsored post, we are ranked #1

But we didn’t stop there. After publishing our final 'DeFi 101’ episode, we continued to create educational content on Web3. Week after week, we covered practical guides and tutorials, spanning several topics such as decentralized exchanges, yield farming, airdrops, L1s, L2s, bridges, the metaverse, minting NFTs, and much more. At The Defiant, our unwavering dedication to crypto education remains a cornerstone of our ethos.

We believe crypto can and should be the underlying rails of global finance – it’s just better at money than the decaying TradFi infrastructure. But for this vision to become a reality, we need to onboard the mainstream public. That’s where content platforms like ours play a crucial role.

We believe independent media companies, with no conflicts or bias, are uniquely positioned to take on this responsibility. The Defiant is one of the only truly independent crypto media companies left with a sizable audience.

Launched in 2019 by Camila Russo, former Bloomberg journalist and author of The Infinite Machine, we’ve raised a fraction of capital versus competitors (just $2m since our 2019 launch) and have no conflicted ownership versus those owned by exchanges, funds or industry whales.

The Defiant has no venture arm and does not invest in crypto. We are funded primarily by subscriptions and sponsorships, with all sponsored content clearly marked as such.

Objectives

The objective of this proposal is to develop a coherent and engaging video series aimed at welcoming and educating new users while tackling prevalent issues in existing crypto educational content.

By addressing the scattered and unengaging nature of current resources, our goal is to seamlessly blend educational content with step-by-step tutorials and practical guides. This series will meticulously guide users through their crypto journey, starting from the fundamental basics and leading them with a hands-on guide for them to gradually acquire on-chain experience. Our goal is to take them from noob to degen in an organized and well-produced series of video and print content.

We want to invite communities that are eager to support this series and see the value of having their brands associated with what we believe will become the top educational resource for newcomers. Funding will allow us to achieve a higher production value for the series and better fuel marketing efforts.

Content Overview

The structural goal of the episodes is to provide a seamless and coherent flow of content tailored to the perspective of newcomers while deepening the knowledge of our existing communities. Our aim is to address potential knowledge gaps in the market while providing a clear learning pathway for beginners to ensure that everyone’s crypto journey is a success.

If you believe the episode list could be enhanced or if additional topics should be considered, please share your ideas! We encourage community collaboration. We want the pre-production phase to be a collaborative effort with the community, ensuring a more inclusive and valuable series that can stand the test of time.

We stress that we have the necessary experience in creating an educational series like the one proposed. DeFi 101 was a set of 32 videos published over 8 weeks, produced with thought leaders and subject matter experts like DeFiDad, who will also collaborate with us on the Crypto 101 series.

See Episode List in Appendix

Production Plan

The Defiant will shoot, edit and publish the videos. The format will be a 16:9 Full HD video, where 1/3 of the screen will be allocated to the presenter, and 2/3 of the screen will be visual representations of the information, designed with text, diagrams, animations, and screenshots.

For the tutorials, a screen recording of the product will be displayed to demonstrate the walkthrough while maintaining the 2/3 ratio. The presenter will be one of the Hosts of The Defiant or a suitable stand-in.

We plan to schedule the release of one episode per week, every Wednesday until the full 40-episode series concludes. This timeline indicates an estimated duration of approximately 8 months for the entire series. Consistency in our weekly releases ensures a continuous flow of content, offering our audience a well-paced and thorough educational journey throughout this comprehensive series.

Distribution and Outreach

Our previous educational series ‘DeFi 101’ contained 32 videos and was published between November 27, 2020 - January 24, 2021. The DeFi 101 playlist has accumulated over 340,000 views since publication.

However, during the publication of ‘DeFi 101’, our channel had roughly 4,000 subscribers. Today, our YouTube channel has over 120,000 subscribers with a total viewership of 6 Million+.

Likewise, the tutorial content on our website, including DeFi 101, has attracted over 100,000 unique users spending more than 5 minutes on the site engaging with our educational content.

And given our domain authority in Google and Youtube search puts us in the top 3 for the topic of DeFi 101, we expect the viewership of our refreshed Crypto 101 content to grow 10-fold.

To help drive this growth and reach, we will be promoting the Crypto 101 series to all 400,000 of our active users across all of our media channels, including:

Newsletter: 80,000 subscribers
Twitter/X: 106,000 subscribers
Website: 200,000 monthly Unique Visitors
YouTube: 120,000 Subscribers
Podcast Listeners: 60,000 monthly

Promoting Sponsors: Production Methodology

As a partner, you will gain prominent visibility in both the video and the web article for each topic you choose to sponsor, ensuring your brand is positioned as a valuable partner in the production.

With each video ranging between 3 to 10 minutes, sponsors will receive consistent recognition, ensuring your brand exposure for the duration. Each video includes three shoutouts during key points of the video:

1. Up front mention, ‘thanking our sponsor” for support.
2. Banner/logo/visual indicator that appears midway through the video
3. Full length ad readout, voiced-over sponsored images/video, that lasts around 30 seconds

The series will have an exclusive dedicated section on The Defiant’s website, prominently featuring the sponsor on each DeFi 101 topic. Given The Defiant domain ranking and high rating among crypto keywords, sponsors will also benefit from an SEO perspective. Articles and videos will also be featured in our daily newsletter (80,000 subscribers) for a week after publication and posted on Twitter/X (105,000 Followers).

In addition to the three mentions in the video, sponsors will be profiled as follows:

1. Logo and brand name recognition on each web article
2. Thanks and @mention to sponsors in two Twitter/X posts, one for video and one for the article
3. Logo, brand name and a link, thanking the sponsor in our newsletter for each topic.

Given the reach and frequency of the promotion alone, sponsoring one topic will generate over 175,000 impressions for the sponsor across all of The Defiant’s media properties. Video and article views for each topic should generate anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 views. We believe these are conservative estimates, given the performance of our DeFi 101 series during a time when The Defiant’s total reach was significantly lower.

The multi-channel promotion of each topic will drive significant reach and frequency for sponsors for one week following the publication of each topic. Following the initial promotion of each topic, we expect a large volume of organic traffic to the educational “evergreen” content, which we will amplify through various tactics over the course of the series. This will include, but not be limited to cross-linking between crypto-101 topics, links from daily news articles, partner cross-linking, and the continuous promotion of this new section of our site.

As always, The Defiant will retain editorial control over the content, ensuring the series remains an unbiased and trustworthy resource.

Sponsorship / Funding Request

We are offering a bundle of 5 Crypto 101 topics for the price of $40,000. In addition to being prominently featured in the organic 101 content across all channels (see Promoting Sponsors section) , sponsors will receive bonus promotions as follows:

1. Podcast Shoutout x4 Episodes
2. Newsletter Banner Sponsorship for one week
3. Square Banner on Homepage and Article Pages for 1 week
4. Global Text Banner for one week

This will bring the total volume of impressions/views for the sponsor to well over 1 Million, reaching The Defiant’s 400,000 active Crypto/DeFi audience.

Team

This project will be primarily led by The Defiant. The Defiant curates, digests, and analyzes all the major developments in decentralized finance, so that you can stay informed and smart about the most cutting-edge and fastest-changing corner of crypto and finance. We’re delivering journalism with authority; objective, data-backed, primary-source, reported pieces written by insiders who can also provide informed analysis on the latest moves.

Alp, the Head of Video at The Defiant, will spearhead and oversee the project, taking charge of directing and producing the video content. Alp has contributed to organizations like Harmony Protocol, TRT World, and founded his production company, Behuzer. He holds a MSc in Neuroeconomics and originates from Tovuz, Azerbaijan.

Jack will be the presenter of the series. Jack is a writer and presenter at the Defiant, working closely with Alp in the video team. Based in Amsterdam, he has lived in five countries to date, gaining experience as a consultant in financial services and E-commerce before entering the world of Web3. He holds an MSc in Business from Northumbria University and a BBA in innovation.

DeFi Dad will be taking on the scripts. DeFi Dad is a respected long-time investor and educator, going back to the early days of DeFi in 2019. He has interviewed hundreds of DeFi founders and builders with over 1M views on YouTube. He’s written hundreds of weekly posts in The Defiant for two years, and as of today, he is invested in 75+ teams as an angel and through his team at 4RC.

Resources and Portfolio

The Defiant YouTube Channel
The Defiant website
The Defiant X
DeFi 101

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”

Appendix: Next Steps

Pick 5 topics you’d like to sponsor (Click here for a larger image):

[Xeonus]

Hi there

Thanks a lot for posting this SP proposal. Great to see Defiant here. After reading through the specifics, I personally have the feeling that this proposal is rather generic and doesn’t mention anything tangible on how you will create impact for Balancer apart from marketing metrics. Our protocol is rather diverse and Balancer technology is not easy to grasp. Actually, it would be great to have more in-depth content on how to use and interact with Balancer, what can be done etc.

I want to leave here some general remarks why I am not really excited about this proposal:

• We already have recently funded a talented and motivated team working on promoting Balancer
• We are fully focused on v3 and all our efforts should be put there. I am not sure another marketing team push is needed
• $40’000 is rather steep and I would like to see those funds used elsewhere, like on improving partner onboarding, multi-sig operations, impact on v3 etc.

Below some further questions/remarks:

@TheDefiant

By addressing the scattered and unengaging nature of current resources, our goal is to seamlessly blend educational content with step-by-step tutorials and practical guides. This series will meticulously guide users through their crypto journey, starting from the fundamental basics and leading them with a hands-on guide for them to gradually acquire on-chain experience. Our goal is to take them from noob to degen in an organized and well-produced series of video and print content.

How would that look like specifically? We already have really great Medium articles and our marketing team is working on many collaterals focusing on v3. How would you address timing of the transition from Balancer v2 to v3?

@TheDefiant

As a partner, you will gain prominent visibility in both the video and the web article for each topic you choose to sponsor, ensuring your brand is positioned as a valuable partner in the production.

From a GRC perspective I am not sure we can engange in something like this.

@TheDefiant

Given the reach and frequency of the promotion alone, sponsoring one topic will generate over 175,000 impressions for the sponsor across all of The Defiant’s media properties. Video and article views for each topic should generate anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 views. We believe these are conservative estimates, given the performance of our DeFi 101 series during a time when The Defiant’s total reach was significantly lower.

Are you familiar with our current marketing setup? Would this even make sense and align with our running marketing strategy (@naly, @JediRasta26 )?

Curious what others think.

[TheDefiant]

Thank you for the thoughtful comments and taking the time to review the proposal!

There’s a lot to unpack, so I’ll do that briefly here and hop into your discord and say hi!

1) Impact for Balancer on Marketing Metrics
The opportunity is to have Balancer’s brand associated with evergreen content from a trusted and well respected Brand, The Defiant. You will also be included in a significant volume or promotions with these topics and an opportunity to push any message you choose. Our reach is over 400,000 active DeFi users and we expect the impression volumes we can generate for sponsorship of one topic, including promotions will be over 1 Million. Primarily, we will impact awareness and engagement metrics.

2) Diverse Tech, it would be great to have more in-depth content on how to use and interact with Balancer
The Defiant can help with that too. We offer a variety of sponsorship options, such as articles, social posts, video shoutouts etc. Check out our Media Kit to learn more: https://sponsor.thedefiant.io/

We also produce explainer articles and videos, which are very popular, so we would focus specifically on the areas you feel are most important for our 400,000 active DeFi users.

I’m happy to create a custom proposal that combines the Crypto 101 sponsorship with other opportunities.

3) Your recently funded, talented and motivated team promoting Balancer
That’s great to hear! We’d love to work with a team who’s mandate is to promote your brand, products and services. This ensures we have aligned goals and objectives and can better customize content integrations and opportunities accordingly.

I’m happy to work with this team and they can book me direct: Calendly - Devin or ping me in the general channel of your discord, I’m new and just joined.

4. And regarding your second bullet, “another marketing team” we are not trying to be another marketing team, rather, we are a content partner and/or distribution channel. If you have content you want to push out to our community, we can do that as well.

5) Pricing is steep
We’re happy to customize a package to meet your objectives, whether they be budgetary, strategic or otherwise, so if the price is more than your budget can sustain, we can reduce the scope to fit your constraints. But from a paid media perspective, this is priced under market, given our premium access to audience, current domain authority on DeFi 101, brand and so forth.

Further Questions/Remarks
i) “We already have really great Medium articles and our marketing team is working on many collaterals focusing on v3. How would you address timing of the transition from Balancer v2 to v3?”

• As mentioned, we can customize a package to align with your objectives, such as promoting content you already have, creating new content by our journalists and producers.

• Regarding transition of balancer V2 to V3, we’d be happy to do a specific explainer article or video if that is warranted. We could publish your press releases, articles on the topic as well.

ii) “From a GRC perspective I am not sure we can engage in something like this.” If there is specific constraints, we can work around them.

iii) Current marketing setup and will this align? As discussed, we’d love to work with your current marketing team and build a customized approach that would best align to your needs and objectives.