Why people don't trust crypto products: 978 comments, sorted
We read public comments about token rewards, wallets, staking and web3 games, and sorted what people fear and what makes them act. Then we compared it with how we designed three crypto products.
Across 978 comments about using or trusting a crypto product, the biggest reason for distrust is that the offer looks like a scam or a cash grab: 307 of 978 passages (31%). It leads the rewards and games sets. For wallets and staking, the top complaints are practical: failed transactions, signing and approvals, and complexity. People say they act when a real product sits behind the token and when the first step is clear and low risk.
- Comments read
- 4,378
- About trusting or using a product
- 978
- Say it looks like a scam or cash grab
- 31%
- Product types covered
- 3
Token rewards programs and airdrops
208 of 891 passages were about trusting or using this kind of product. Bars show how many expressed each theme.
How we designed Watt2Trade for itWallets, staking and tokenized goods
384 of 1,925 passages were about trusting or using this kind of product. Bars show how many expressed each theme.
How we designed HubsAI for itWeb3 games, tokens and quest hubs
386 of 1,562 passages were about trusting or using this kind of product. Bars show how many expressed each theme.
How we designed Everreach Labs for itFive things the comments ask for.
- 01
Show the product before the prize.
Scam and cash-grab worries lead the rewards and games sets. In the launch film we made with OMNI for Watt2Trade, half the running time is the product itself, and the reward amount never appears on screen. See the case.
- 02
Show the connect step in full.
Signing fear shows up in both the rewards and the staking sets. A connect flow that says what connecting unlocks, warns before a signature and names it a login, not a transaction, answers it before it's asked. See the case.
- 03
Design failure as carefully as success.
Failed and stuck transactions are the most common first-hand complaint about wallets and staking: 53 of 80 passages come from people it happened to. State what failed, what to do next and that funds are safe. See the case.
- 04
Put the terms on the page.
Lock periods, vesting and where rewards come from are what sceptics ask about. A tokenomics page that shows every number at every width does more than a promise. See the case.
- 05
Lead with the game, not the token.
In the games set, 'owning it adds nothing' is almost as common as 'it's a scam'. Gamers ask where the game is; give them the game first and the economy later. See the case.
How we read 4,378 comments.
We gathered public comments by searching for each topic: Hacker News through its Algolia API, questions on the Ethereum and Bitcoin Stack Exchanges, Lemmy communities and Steam reviews, in October 2026. A judgment model, TypeSafe's Jev, read each passage and answered three narrow questions: is it about trusting or using this kind of product, which theme does it express, and who is speaking. Each set used its own theme list, so the sets are shown side by side rather than added together, except for the scam and cash-grab themes, which all three share.
Limits. These are topic searches, not a survey, so the counts show what comes up most often, not how many people feel it. Hacker News and Lemmy lean more sceptical of crypto than crypto-native communities, and Reddit was not read. Themes are one model's best guess per passage. The research was done after the three projects shipped; it explains why the designs fit, not how they were planned.
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