Crypto Marketing vs Fintech Marketing

"Crypto is just fintech with a more volatile product."

I hear this a lot. Mostly from fintech marketers about to join a crypto company.

It's half true...

The funnel looks the same. Signup, KYC, first deposit, retention. Same dashboards, same app store.

The physics are different.

I've spent the last eight years on the crypto side of fintech. Head of Marketing at Bitpanda, now Chief Growth Officer and CMO at Relai. These are the seven things that actually change, and what I'd do about each one. The short version sits in the comparison table in What Makes a Great Crypto CMO. This is the long one.

What's the difference between crypto and fintech marketing?

Crypto marketing is fintech marketing with three extra forces. Demand rises and falls with the price. Ad platforms, app stores and national regulators put licence checks on the usual growth channels. And the category starts with a trust deficit, inherited from failures like FTX. The funnel is the same. The planning, the measurement and the channel mix change.

01Demand: your biggest growth driver isn't on your roadmap

People look for a better current account when they move city, start a job or get annoyed with their bank. Fintech demand has seasons (January, payday), but it's fairly steady.

Crypto demand follows the price.

Google search interest in "Bitcoin" hit 100 in May 2021. Two years later it was 18. Same products, same teams. Less than a fifth of the attention.

So plan with two layers. A market scenario (bull, flat, bear) and your plan on top of it. Agree with the CEO which layer the targets sit on before the year starts.

02Measurement: separate what the market did from what you did

In fintech, if acquisition cost drops 30%, your team probably did something right.

In crypto, one green week can double signups and halve your cost per user. Your attribution tool will hand the credit to whichever ad ran last.

Every week I look at Google Trends for "bitcoin" next to our own numbers. If both went up together, the market did the work. If ours went up and search interest didn't, the team did.

The numbers that tell you the truth in crypto:

• Organic share of signups. The part of growth nobody can switch off.
• Your signups against search interest. Are you winning a bigger slice of the demand that exists?
• Retention by entry month. People who joined at the top behave differently from people who joined in the quiet months.
• Cost per activated user, by channel. Not per install. Not blended.

03Paid channels come with a licence check

Fintech ads get checked too. Crypto ads have their own, stricter gate.

Since 23 April 2025, crypto exchange and wallet advertisers on Google in 27 European countries need a MiCA licence and Google certification. Meta wants written permission from exchanges and wallets, backed by a recognised licence.

Affiliates and influencers move with the market too. In July 2022, Coinbase shut its US affiliate programme for influencers, pointing to market conditions. A channel you rent can disappear exactly when you need it.

Paid still works. It just can't be the engine. Paid is the accelerator, organic is the engine.

04App stores add their own gate

Apple only lets exchange apps facilitate crypto transactions in countries where the app holds the licences it needs.

In simple English: a new country is a licence question before it's a marketing question.

The upside? With paid restricted, a strong app store listing becomes one of your best channels. Ratings, screenshots, keywords in every language. Boring work. Most competitors don't do it properly.

05The rules still change at the border

MiCA gave crypto companies one licence and one set of marketing rules for the EU. I wrote about why that's mainly a distribution story in How MiCA Unlocked 450 Million Users.

Europe is bigger than the EU, though. And the rules keep moving.

The UK sits outside MiCA. The FCA bans incentives to invest in crypto, refer-a-friend bonuses included, and adds a 24-hour cooling-off period for first-time investors. Switzerland runs its own regime too.

Spain shows how fast it changes. In 2022, the CNMV made crypto firms notify it before any campaign reaching more than 100,000 people. In December 2024, it scrapped those rules, because MiCA now covers crypto advertising across the EU.

A fintech marketer can plan Europe once. In crypto, someone on the team has to recheck the rules for every market, every year.

06Trust: you start below zero

A fintech asks people to believe it's better than their bank.

A crypto company asks people to believe it won't disappear with their savings. And it asks in the shadow of FTX.

The ECB reported in December 2024 that 9% of people in the euro area hold crypto. The other 91% are your growth market. I'd bet most of them heard about FTX long before they heard about self-custody.

So the message order flips. Fintech leads with convenience, rates and rewards. Crypto leads with who's behind it, where it's licensed, what it costs and how you get your money out. Rewards come after. More on that in Bitcoin Marketing Is Different. Here's Why.

07Team and budget: built for a cycle, not a straight line

In February 2022, Coinbase ran its QR code Super Bowl ad. In March, it cut ad spend by 98% versus February, according to MediaRadar. In April, by another 68%.

No criticism here. Crypto budgets breathe with the market.

Fintech teams are usually hired to a plan and scaled with paid. A crypto team needs a core that can run the owned channels (search, app stores, CRM, content, community) on a bear-market budget. Paid, agencies and events flex on top. The full bear-market playbook is in Marketing Through a Crypto Cycle.

Crypto vs fintech marketing at a glance

What carries over from fintech

Plenty. Most of the good habits.

Onboarding and KYC funnel work. Lifecycle and CRM. Performance discipline. Working with product and legal. A fintech marketer who has done these well will be useful in a crypto company from week one.

What they need to add is the cycle. Thinking in years, not quarters. And writing the "what if the market halves" plan before anyone asks for it.

Fintech teaches you how to grow.

Crypto teaches you how to keep growing when the market says no.

Frequently asked questions

Is crypto marketing harder than fintech marketing?

It has more moving parts. Demand follows the price, Google, Meta and Apple require licences country by country, markets outside the EU such as the UK have their own crypto marketing rules, and the category starts with a trust deficit. The core skills are the same as in fintech, but planning, measurement and channel mix have to account for market cycles.

Can a fintech marketer move into crypto marketing?

Yes. Onboarding and KYC funnel work, lifecycle marketing, performance discipline and brand consistency all carry over. What a fintech marketer needs to add is planning for market cycles, building owned channels such as search, app stores and referral, and knowing which ad channels need a licence in which country.

How do you measure crypto marketing when the market moves your numbers?

Separate market-driven demand from your own impact. Track your signups against Google search interest for the category, the organic share of signups, retention by entry month and cost per activated user by channel. If signups rise while search interest stays flat, your team did the work.

Do crypto apps need special approval on the App Store?

Yes. Apple's App Store Review Guidelines only allow exchange apps to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions in countries or regions where the app holds the necessary licensing and permissions, so each new market needs the licence in place first.