Kols can obtain industry-leading revenue structures through the crypto affiliate programs of top exchanges. For example, Binance’s three-level rebate system (40% share of transaction fees for direct users and 20% commission for secondary network members), as measured by top financial bloggers: For each user guided with an average daily transaction volume of 500,000 US dollars, the average monthly commission reaches 32,000 US dollars (5.7 times the revenue of traditional advertising alliances). The 2024 CoinGecko report indicates that after financial Kols adopted this model, their value per followers (LTV) rose from 1.8 to 15.3, with a median revenue growth rate of 240%. A typical case is the YouTube channel “Encryption and Decryption”, which achieved a peak commission of $48,000 per day for a single contract promotion video.
Operational efficiency has been significantly optimized. Automated tracking tools (such as WhaleTrack) have kept the conversion attribution error within ±3%, and the cost of KOL content production has been reduced by 60% – compared to the 8-hour script production required for brand-customized advertisements, cryptocurrency promotion only needs to reuse standard script templates (with an average time consumption of 1.5 hours). Data from TalentX in Singapore shows that mid-to-lower-tier Kols (with 100,000-500,000 followers) have increased the monthly effective collaboration frequency from 2.8 times to 9 times through crypto affiliate programs, with an average fan conversion rate of 4.3% (the benchmark value for e-commerce product promotion is only 0.9%).
The anti-volatility mechanism ensures stable returns. Leading projects set guaranteed rebates (such as Bybit’s $10 subsidy for new users to counter market declines). During the bear market in 2023, the standard deviation of KOL commission fluctuations was only ±18% (while the BTC price fluctuated ±64% during the same period). Risk hedging strategies include:
Multi-platform layout (Participating in 3 exchanges to diversify risks)
Dynamic conversion rate Settings (Focus on 40% rebate for spot trading in a bear market, and 50% commission sharing for derivatives in a bull market)
Regulatory arbitrage (prioritizing the promotion of licensed platforms such as Kraken, reducing compliance costs by 37%
According to the case of the Dubai Digital Marketing Summit, Kols that adopted a portfolio strategy recovered their revenue 82% faster than the industry average after the FTX incident.
Regulatory upgrades have created compliance dividends. After the implementation of the EU’s MiCA act, the promotion commissions of licensed exchanges have increased by 25% (due to the rise in user trust), but the proportion of legal review costs to revenue has risen from 8% to 15%. On-chain data analysis shows that the fan retention rate of KOL accounts with compliant promotion has increased to 89% (while that of gray promotion is only 52%). For instance, the French KOL “CryptoAstro” saw its cooperation unit price rise by 200% in 2023 due to its strict adherence to AMF guidelines.
The life cycle value is continuously released. Top Kols lock in the lifetime value (LTV) of users through exclusive redemption codes. Chainalysis has tracked and confirmed that a single valid user contributes 1,850 commissions within three years. The case of the Twitter influencer “Bitcoin Female Doctor” shows that the user base she developed in 2019 is still generating an average monthly passive income of 7,300 (accounting for 61% of the total) to this day. However, it is necessary to pay attention to the head effect – the top 5% of Kols obtain 45% of the total commission of the industry. New entrants need a 12 to 18-month cultivation period to achieve a positive ROI.