How to build a crypto community from scratch
Start a crypto community at zero members: pick the gate first, write the storefront, invite the first wallets by hand, then switch the rule on.
Starting at zero means the first decision is not the name. This is how to build a crypto community from scratch on Cherry, the wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app for crypto, where people sign in with a wallet and the room checks holdings on-chain itself. It is for an owner with nothing yet: no group to migrate, no holder list, no audience. You end with a public room, a page a stranger can read without connecting anything, two moderators, and a rule that makes membership mean something.
Before you build a crypto community from scratch
- A wallet with on-chain history. A brand-new wallet can create a public group, and it cannot post in one or leave a review until it has a successful transaction behind it.
- One sentence saying who the room is for. It becomes the page description, and it decides the gate in step 1.
- Ten to twenty wallets you can name: addresses,
.solor.skrnames of people who would show up because you asked.
Step 1: Decide the gate before the name
The rule that decides who gets in is the product. Three shapes cover almost every crypto community, and each says something different to the reader of the page.
| Shape | What membership proves | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Open, no rule | Interest, nothing more | Anyone walks in, including the wallets you want out |
| Holder-gated | The wallet holds a token, an NFT, or a .sol or .skr name | Your ceiling is the holder count, and sellers are paywalled |
| Paid | Someone spent money to sit in the room | You owe them something weekly, in public, under a star rating |
Cherry checks all three itself when someone joins, so there is no verification bot and no separate site to connect a wallet to. A room combines up to five rules and requires all of them or any one. Creating a community is free; on paid entry and subscriptions the owner keeps 70% and Cherry keeps 30%, as of September 2026, which paid communities and channels sets out in full.
Pick the shape you can defend in one line to a stranger.
Step 2: Create the room and take its public link
In the web app’s sidebar, “Public community” opens the Create group screen with Visibility already set to Public. Name the room, add an avatar, and leave “Access requirements” on “Optional”: step 8 is where the rule goes in. Press “Create”.
Group settings then shows the room’s “Link”, which is what you hand out. A group with a handle has the shorter address chat.cherry.fun/@<handle> too, and both open the same public page.
You know it worked when that link opens the page in a browser where you are not signed in.
Step 3: Write the storefront as an offer
Every public group has a public page, and search engines can index it. Fill it in before you invite anyone: it is the first thing an invited wallet opens.
Under “Storefront” you set a “Cover” image, “Community rules” of up to 2,000 characters, and “What you get”: up to six lines of 80 characters each. Write those six as things that happen in the room this week, not as categories. The member count, message count and star rating come from the room itself and cannot be typed in, which is the part a visitor trusts. Full field list in community storefront .
You know it worked when a logged-out visit shows your rules and your six lines above the join button.
Step 4: Open an announcements channel
A channel is a broadcast room: the owner and admins post, everyone else reads. Create one from the sidebar’s “Gated channel” entry and keep it apart from the chat, so a release note is not buried under price talk. Each room holds up to 20 pinned posts.
Cherry Announcements, the channel every signed-in wallet belongs to, had 77,459 members and four posts in September 2026. That ratio is the format working as intended. Channels has the rest.
You know it worked when a second wallet of yours sees the post and gets no composer.
Step 5: Recruit the first twenty by hand
Only the owner, admins and moderators can invite, in one of two ways.
- “Silent invite” is free. It lands in the recipient’s hidden requests with no push notification: the polite version, and the easy one to miss.
- “Invite & notify” costs the flat fee that also prices paid DMs, 0.01 SOL as of September 2026, and the invitee gets a notification.
Invited wallets sit in the member list marked “Pending” until they accept; a paid invite reads “Notified” while it waits. An invite counts as a vouch: invited members skip the holdings check, though never the payment. From a holder snapshot, a developer can invite the list in bulk through the Cherry API .
You know it worked when the first “Pending” entries flip to members and two of them post unprompted.
Step 6: Share a link that shows the conversation
Adding ?preview=true to the room’s link skips the page and opens the chat. The visitor reads real messages with a working composer, and the wallet prompt arrives on send. Logged-out arrivals at the page get the same offer as a “Preview the chat before joining” button.
This works for a public room with no gating rule and no mini app attached, the argument for staying ungated through week one. Nomadz is that shape: public, ungated, 525 members and 605 messages in September 2026.
You know it worked when a private browser window lands you in the messages with no wallet prompt.
Step 7: Promote two moderators before you need them
Roles run owner, admin, moderator, member. A moderator can invite, mute, kick and ban members, never admins or other moderators; only the owner hands out the admin role.
Pick two from the first twenty who post on their own and are awake in different hours. Do it while the room is quiet, because the day you need a moderator is the day you have no time to pick one. Mute, ban and the word blacklist are covered in anti-spam .
You know it worked when someone other than you removes a spam post.
Step 8: Switch the gate on once the room is talking
Open “Access Requirements” in group settings and add a “Token requirement”, “NFT requirement”, “Domain requirement”, or “Paid entry”. The editor looks up the mint or collection as you type, so a wrong address fails in front of you.
A visitor then sees the rules on the public page under “To join you need”, or “Meet any one to join” when the rules use any logic, with a count of how many they already pass and a re-check control beside it. Nobody gets a DM asking them to verify on a website.
The “Apply to existing members now” toggle handles the people already inside: on save, members who miss the requirements are paywalled at once, and with it off they are re-checked on the regular cycle anyway. Small gates work. The Solflare Community, gated on the wallet a member signed in with, had 154 members and 5 stars from 8 reviews in September 2026.
You know it worked when the public page shows your requirement and your own second wallet is refused.
Step 9: Count what week one produced
Member count is the number people buy, which is why it is the one worth ignoring. Three others tell you whether the room is alive:
- Posts per member. The page shows both numbers, so the ratio is a division. Seeker Club ran 58,270 messages against 8,640 members in September 2026, close to seven each; Nomadz sat near one.
- Returning wallets: how many of the first twenty posted on two different days.
- Invites still marked “Pending” after a week. A high count means the invite was never seen.
Nobody can promise you a member count, and a guide that quotes one is selling something.
Troubleshooting
- Your own messages are refused in your own room. That wallet has no successful transaction behind it yet; post from one that has.
- The preview link opens the page, not the chat. The room has a gating rule or a mini app attached.
- You bought members and the room reads worse. Purchased lists are fresh wallets, which cannot post in a public group and cannot rate it, so the page shows a large member count beside a flat message count and no stars.
Related guides
- Move a community off Telegram , when you already have members somewhere.
- Create a token-gated group chat , for the gating rule in detail.
- Sell access to an alpha group , for pricing a paid room.
Once that one sentence is ready, create the group at chat.cherry.fun .
FAQ
How do I get my first members for a crypto community?
Invite them one wallet at a time. The owner, admins and moderators can invite by wallet address or name: a “Silent invite” is free and lands in the recipient’s hidden requests, while “Invite & notify” costs 0.01 SOL as of September 2026 and reaches them with a notification. Everyone after the first twenty arrives through the room’s public link.
How do you grow a crypto community without buying members?
Bought members are fresh wallets, and a wallet with no successful on-chain transaction cannot post in a public group or leave a review. The member count moves, the message count stays flat, and the page shows no stars, which is the pattern a buyer checks for before paying. Growth that holds comes from a link that shows the conversation before it asks for a wallet.
Should I gate my community from day one?
Gate it once the room has a conversation worth qualifying for. An empty holder-gated room asks a stranger to prove something before they can see what they are proving it for, and only a public room with no gating rule can be read logged-out. Week two or three is the usual moment, with “Apply to existing members now” switched on so the roster settles at once.
Is it free to start a crypto community?
Creating a community on Cherry is free, and so is joining an ungated one. The only charge sits on money the community makes: on paid entry and paid subscriptions the owner keeps 70% and Cherry keeps 30%, as of September 2026.
Sources
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