Manuel Medel
Head of Marketing · DeFi / Web3 · GTM, Community Growth & KOL Strategy
Background
Six years scaling DeFi products across perpetuals, spot DEXes, and wallets. I've worked directly with founders, led cross-functional teams, and owned GTM, growth, and incentive design across $500K+ annual budgets. I trade perps daily on the same types of platforms I market, which gives me a practical understanding of what drives acquisition, retention, and volume, from trading rewards and points programs to referral systems and market maker incentives. I also build AI-powered workflows for research, content, analysis, and execution, allowing a single operator to deliver the output of a much larger team.
Campaigns, decks, graphics, and content I either built or directed. Take a look →
Trajectory
Katana
Led marketing for the launch of Katana's perpetuals DEX. Owned the IDEX-to-Katana transition end to end: rebrand, token migration, GTM, and KOL alignment across CT. $3M TVL and 300+ wallet connections on day one through a 0-to-1 trading rewards program built around open interest and taker volume.
IDEX
Led a team of 8 across community, content, moderation, and BD. Built marketing and comms from the ground up across three market cycles. Owned narrative, PR, and crisis comms alongside campaigns and growth.
Grew the community to 70K+ on X, 30K+ Discord, 8K+ Telegram. Designed trading rewards, market maker programs, referral systems, and liquidity vault campaigns. Built ecosystem partnerships with Arbitrum, Berachain, and Polygon, and ran KOL and community collabs with Wassieverse, loldefi, BoldLeonidas, and Coinfessions. Launched Spill The Alpha (100+ episodes with guests including Tradermayne, CryptoCred, and Threadguy).
Stellar Development Foundation
Led full GTM for Vibrant wallet and the USDC arrival on Stellar. Built positioning and brand pillars adopted org-wide. Drove emerging market growth in Argentina and Nigeria through onramp partnerships and Vibrant Yield.
AMBCrypto
Drove an 18% lift in platform traffic through coordinated growth strategies with media aggregators and influencers. Established 50+ commercial partnerships across major exchanges, wallets, and protocols, including Bittrex.
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