Here's what's triggering them:

1. You lead with the technology, not the problem

Nobody wakes up thinking "I need a zero-knowledge proof solution." They wake up thinking "I'm tired of getting hacked" or "cross-border payments are expensive as hell."

Start with the wound. The tech is how you treat it, not why people should care.

2. Your roadmap is 90% future promises

"We're going to build X, then Y, then eventually Z."

Cool. What have you actually shipped? What can I use right now?

Vaporware talks about the future. Real projects talk about what they've already done.

3. You use words that don't mean anything concrete

"Trustless, permissionless, decentralized infrastructure for the next generation of web3."

Translation: I have no idea what you actually do.

If you can't explain it without buzzwords, you either don't understand your own product or you're hiding that it doesn't work yet.

4. Your demo shows features, not magic

"Here's our dashboard. Here's the settings panel. Here's how you navigate the menu."

Nobody cares about your UI. Show me the thing that shouldn't be possible. Show me the moment that breaks my mental model of how this is supposed to work.

If your demo doesn't make someone say "wait, WHAT?"—it's not a demo, it's documentation.

5. You can't explain the problem without explaining your solution first

"Our protocol solves the trilemma of—"

Stop. What's the actual problem? In words my grandmother would understand?

If you have to explain your innovation before you can explain the problem, you've lost the plot.

6. Your website looks like every other web3 project

Geometric shapes. Gradients. "Building the future of [X]." Same hero section. Same vague three-column feature list.

When you look identical to 47 rugpulls, people assume you're rugpull #48.

Visual sameness = trust erosion.

7. You promise "mass adoption" without acknowledging current constraints

"This will replace all traditional finance."

Will it though? Or will it serve a specific use case really well for a specific audience?

Overpromising makes you sound delusional. Be honest about what you've actually achieved and what's still hard.

8. Your team section is full of anon cartoon avatars

Look, I get it. Privacy matters. But when you're asking people to trust you with their money/data/infrastructure, "trust me bro" doesn't cut it.

Either show real credentials or be so technically transparent that anonymity doesn't matter. Pick one.

9. You explain how it works before proving that it works

"Our novel consensus mechanism uses a combination of—"

I don't care. Does it work? Show me. Then, if I'm still interested, explain how.

Proof before process. Always.

10. You talk like a whitepaper instead of a human

"Our protocol facilitates cross-chain interoperability through a novel bridging mechanism that leverages—"

Versus:

"Send tokens between chains in 30 seconds without trusting a centralized bridge."

One sounds like you're trying to impress VCs. The other sounds like you're solving a real problem.

Most of these aren't lies. They're just lazy communication habits you picked up from other web3 projects.

Break the pattern:

• Lead with the problem, not the innovation

• Show what works now, not what you'll build later

• Kill the jargon and say what actually happens

• Make your demo impossible to ignore

• Be honest about constraints

Your product might be revolutionary. Your communication doesn't have to sound insane.

Building something real in web3 but can't explain it without triggering scam alarms? I help projects find language that actually converts. email me!