Token Gating Creates Financial Barriers
Diving deeper into
Q&A with Raihan Anwar and Colby Holliday from Friends with Benefits
Ethereum is not cheap, and I think entrance into FWB over the last couple of months has definitely been out of reach for a lot of folks.
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FWB was discovering the core tradeoff of token gated communities, price appreciation makes membership feel valuable, but it also turns the front door into a financial filter. In practice, joining meant buying ETH, paying Ethereum network fees, swapping into FWB on Uniswap, and then passing a human review process, so the members most able to get in were early crypto holders and Web3 operators with existing capital and wallet fluency.
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FWB had already raised the token threshold over time through seasonal gates, and one FWB had climbed from about $1 at launch to roughly $200 by late 2021. That made membership more exclusive even before adding gas fees and the extra steps of using a wallet and decentralized exchange.
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The team built counterweights to that exclusivity. Members could earn FWB through Discord participation and work, and the community moved to fund scholarships and fellowships so creatives, LGBTQ applicants, and people without easy crypto access could enter without buying a full stake on the open market.
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This is different from a normal paid membership club where the operator sets a dollar price and pockets the fee. FWB membership was tied to a publicly traded token with market liquidity, so demand from outsiders and investors could push up the cost of joining for the exact people the community wanted to attract.
The next phase for communities like FWB is separating ownership from onboarding. The winners will keep the token as a coordination and treasury tool, but add fellowships, earned access, and lighter wallet flows so artists and new users can join for contribution, not just for having bought crypto early.