Original author: Ponyo : : FP
Original translation: Luffy, Foresight News
Belief, Action, Resilience, Density, or BARD, is a method I proposed in my previous article, What the Hell Is Community? , to measure the health and strength of crypto communities. In a market where hype often overshadows reality, BARD focuses on the elements that truly sustain the crypto ecosystem: Belief (referring to firm beliefs and ideas), Action (the activity of real builders or users), Resilience (the ability to withstand market fluctuations and setbacks), and Density (network cohesion and social connections).
In this article, I will let ChatGPT use the BARD model to analyze 18 leading cryptocurrency communities during 2024-2025: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Ripple, Cardano, Dogecoin, Movement, Tron, Ton, Aptos, Avax, Cosmos, BNB Chain, Berachain, Stacks, Polkadot, EOS and Hyperliquid. Each project will receive a score of 1-10 on each dimension.
Without further ado, here are the rankings.
BARD score overview
Below is a summary of each blockchain project’s BARD score. These scores are based on current (2024-2025) ecosystem performance: staking and retention rates, developer and governance participation, cultural memes, social activity, and community response to recent market volatility.
Scores are subjective estimates given by ChatGPT based on current indicators and trends and are for entertainment purposes only.
Analysis of major Layer 1 blockchain communities
Ethereum (36 / 40): “Infinite roadmap, endless delays”
The Ethereum community is a unique blend of idealism and pragmatism. It unites builders, speculators, and idealists under an ambitious, diverse and inclusive philosophy that advocates decentralization, innovation, and the public good. Although recent governance tensions within the Ethereum Foundation have slightly blurred the clarity of its mission, Ethereum remains an unrivaled development center in the crypto space, with the highest builder activity and deeply engaged social network in the world. In short, the Ethereum community has a rare combination of firm belief in ideas, sustained action, and tested resilience, making it the most dynamic network giant in the crypto space.
Bitcoin (35 / 40): Fanatical digital gold worshippers with no sense of calm
The Bitcoin community is the backbone of the crypto space, fueled by a near-religious belief in decentralization and sound money. While builders are slow to act, their strengths are their convictions and resilience: Bitcoin maximalists hold on to their positions through regulatory storms and bear markets. They may not be fast in rolling out new features, but in terms of conviction and staying power, Bitcoin is at the top of the community.
Solana (34/40): FTX PTSD Survivors Club
The Solana community embodies resilience and unrelenting action. After the FTX crash, network outages, and brutal market shakeouts, Solana’s loyalists have bounced back stronger than ever with a pragmatic belief in its technology and scalability. Today, it is once again a developer hotspot, leading a wave of new developers in 2024 and a surge in trading volume.
The Solana core community is vibrant, tight-knit, and highly self-identified, connected by shared struggles and network memes. While slightly less cohesive than Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of ideology, Solanas tenacious, counterattack-driven culture makes it a community characterized by action, resilience, and renewed ambition.
Ripple (33/40): “Banker’s Token with a Victim Complex”
The XRP Army is one of the most battle-hardened and loyal groups in crypto, united by their belief that Ripple will revolutionize global finance. Although grassroots developers have limited actions, their strength lies in their extraordinary resilience, having never lost their faith through years of regulatory battles, negative news, and bear markets. They may not produce much code, but their strong beliefs and unparalleled ability to withstand adversity ensure that the Ripple community remains a lasting and powerful force in crypto.
Cardano (31/40): “Peer-reviewed ghost chain”
For patience, solidarity, and sheer conviction in its philosophy, the Cardano community is unmatched in crypto. ADA holders are extremely loyal, with over 60% of the total supply staked.
While the developer ecosystem still lags behind more dynamic competitors, Cardano’s social network (the self-proclaimed “Cardano family”) is tight, active, and cohesive. Their unwavering faith and resilience have enabled the network to thrive amid skepticism, making community culture Cardano’s strongest long-term advantage.
Polkadot (31/40): “Gavin’s Over-engineered Dream”
The Polkadot community sets high standards for decentralization, governance participation, and long-term builder action. Led by founder Gavin Wood’s Web3 vision, Polkadot’s faithful believers firmly believe in a multi-chain future built on interoperability and transparency.
Although the hype has faded in recent cycles, the community has shown admirable resilience, patiently dealing with development delays and smoothly adapting to major governance changes. Polkadots community culture connects different parachain groups and remains cohesive and vibrant.
Berachain (29/40): Honey-driven DeFi speculation frenzy
The Berachain community defies crypto logic: even before the mainnet launched, fans were fiercely loyal, bonding over online memes, jokes, and the promise of innovative DeFi mechanisms. Their faith has withstood multiple delays, locked up $3.1 billion in liquidity in the pre-launch phase, and hyped up X (Twitter) and Discord.
After the mainnet was launched in February 2025, activity surged, but it is still in the early stages of speculation. Although the true resilience has not yet been stress-tested, the close-knit community and meme-driven culture have created an extremely tight social and economic cohesion. It is small in scale but extremely united; this proves that sometimes, a strong community can be built from scratch with just belief.
Dogecoin (29/40): “Crypto’s favorite bad joke”
The Dogecoin community proves that online memes are more powerful than code. Based on pure, playful beliefs and humor, the Dogecoin army turned a joke into a lasting crypto phenomenon. Despite extremely low developer activity and scarce technical innovation, Dogecoin holders have shown extraordinary cultural resilience, rekindling their enthusiasm time and time again through viral waves and celebrity hype (such as Elon Musks help).
While the Dogecoin community is not tightly knit through technology or governance, holders have built tight social bonds through shared jokes and outsider status. Its strength lies not in what it builds but in its continued positivity, sense of absurdity, and staying power.
Avalanche (29 / 40): Finding the Red Triangle of Narrative
The Avalanche community is pragmatic and builder-oriented, closely linked by a shared belief in its technology (fast consensus, customizable subnets). Although not strongly ideological, they have demonstrated sustained developer activity and healthy ecosystem engagement, launching numerous subnets and maintaining stable trading activity.
Although it has not yet experienced a severe test of resilience, the Avalanche community has quietly persevered during the market downturn and has not lost core contributors, showing steady perseverance. Community members are socially connected, but with a slightly top-down management style, maintaining cohesion between developers and validators, but grassroots participation needs to be strengthened.
BNB Chain (28 / 40): “Changpeng Zhao’s clone factory”
The BNB Chain community has built a large but loosely connected ecosystem by leveraging the loyalty of a large number of retail investors to Binance (or Changpeng Zhao). Beliefs revolve around trust in Binances mature products rather than ideological persistence. Actions are manifested in high trading volumes, but heavy reliance on cloned decentralized applications (dapps) and speculation in pursuit of yield. Despite its amazing resilience in the face of hacker attacks and regulatory pressure, the community focuses more on practicality than purity.
However, widespread user adoption comes with weak social bonds; most cohesion stems from Binance’s corporate umbrella rather than organically grown culture. BNB Chain has succeeded through scale and convenience, and its community lacks deeper ideological unity or grassroots cohesion.
Cosmos (28/40): “Clash of blockchains: IBC”
Cosmos is the internet of blockchains in crypto, driven by powerful ideas around sovereignty and interoperability. The Cosmos community continues to be a gathering place for prolific application chain developers and passionate builders. Despite showing resilience in the face of many major challenges (including the Terra collapse, the heated token economics debate, and Jae Kwons controversial AtomOne fork), Cosmos is facing increasing internal fragmentation. The team and validators have split into competing factions. Ultimately, Cosmos core strength remains its decentralized builder culture, but the current fragmentation portends a severe test for community coordination and unity in the future.
Ton (27 / 40): “Telegram’s Zombie Chain”
The TON community rose from the ashes of Telegrams abandoned blockchain, kept alive by early loyal supporters. As Telegram re-embraces TON and deeply integrates it, the communitys belief in its mission to achieve mass crypto adoption through Telegrams 95 million users is growing. Although recent hackathons and foundation-driven initiatives have boosted developer activity, grassroots action is still slow to grow.
TON’s resilience in dealing with legal woes is commendable, however overall community density remains medium; strong within a core group associated with Telegram but lacking broader, decentralized participation.
Tron (26/40): “Justin Sun’s Stablecoin Casino”
The TRON community is large but pragmatic, focusing on tangible network benefits: fast, cheap transactions, and real use cases such as stablecoin transfers and gambling decentralized applications. Despite the controversy surrounding Justin Sun, the community remains resilient, showing steady growth and impressive daily transaction volume.
Developer creativity is limited, and most activities are driven by the TRON Foundation, mostly simple DeFi clones. On the social level, TRON’s huge user base is relatively scattered and lacks close ties between members, making it more like a silent giant in the field of blockchain practicality rather than a closely united cultural force.
Stacks (25/40): “The little brother ignored by the Bitcoin community”
The Stacks community bridges the gap between Bitcoin maximalism and smart contract innovation, maintaining a belief that Bitcoin can go beyond digital gold. Despite their small size and some isolation from the wider Bitcoin community, their dedication to mission-driven development has led to a certain resilience. However, limited growth or visibility in the wider crypto space has kept the Stacks community close-knit but niche.
Hyperliquid (24/40): “Jeff’s on-chain casino cult”
Hyperliquid is a newcomer to our list. The Hyperliquid community is centered around a compelling idea: Binance on Chain, uniting traders under a niche but passionate mission to pursue high-performance decentralized trading. Driven by community-centric token economics (70% of tokens are allocated to users, and profits are redistributed), early adopters have shown strong, almost fanatical conviction. However, activity is mainly concentrated in the trading area, rather than broad development or governance.
Resilience is promising but untested; Hyperliquid has not faced significant adversity or regulatory scrutiny. Community bonds are strong within a core group of traders but weak outside of that group. Overall, Hyperliquids focused user base makes it a strong player in a niche space.
Aptos (23/40): One K-pop hit song cannot create a chain of prosperity
Aptos launched with huge hype and VC backing, but the shine has faded. Early belief was largely speculatively driven, with many joining for the airdrop rather than genuine buy-in. By 2025, the community is more grounded, with real builders, active regional groups, and a growing ecosystem in DeFi, NFTs, and Real World Assets (RWAs). Still, the recent departures of co-founder Mo Shaikh and ecosystem head Neil reveal cracks in the team. Developer growth is strong, but much activity is still driven from the top down. Resilience has withstood market downturns and internal changes without a major collapse. Aptos has the infrastructure, traction, and global reach, but still lacks the cultural glue.
Movement (16 / 40): “The Move chain that no one cares about”
Movement is an ambitious but nascent Layer 1 ecosystem that aims to build a modular Move language Rollup network based on Ethereum. Its early community is mostly driven by curiosity and speculative interest, and has not yet formed deep conviction or widespread recognition.
To date, on-chain activity has been extremely limited, mostly developer experimentation and staking, and true ecosystem traction has yet to be achieved. The swift and transparent response to early liquidity crises hints at potential resilience, but greater tests lie ahead. Lacking a distinct culture or close personal connections, the Movement community is currently just a concept that has yet to prove itself through adoption and continued growth.
EOS (8/40): The $4 billion ghost chain that self-destructed
EOS raised $4.1 billion in 2018, promising to change the world. But it broke its promise. Overhyped and underdelivered, developers churned, users left, and it faded from view. The original community fell apart, and so did faith in EOS as a platform. Today, a small group of die-hard fans run the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), trying to save the project through upgrades and rebranding. Their perseverance is admirable, but they are rebuilding on the ruins. Developer activity is minimal, users are few and far between, and even Tether stopped minting USDT on EOS.
EOS is not dead yet, but it is undoubtedly on the verge of death. The story of EOS is a cautionary tale: Even billions of dollars cannot buy a lasting community without sustained conviction, action, and cultural resilience.
in conclusion
It is clear from this experiment that early-stage communities tend to score lower in the BARD model, especially in terms of action and resilience. This is normal: new projects are usually built from the top down, have fewer bottom-up contributors, and have not yet experienced adversity. Therefore, it may be premature to deny their potential just because they have not had a chance to prove themselves.
At the same time, once a community has withstood a real stress test or multiple market cycles, conviction and density typically deepen. Grassroots movements, meme culture, and strong social networks rarely happen overnight. With this in mind, the BARD model could be improved by taking a “stage-aware” approach, giving different weights to newly launched chains on certain dimensions (such as resilience), and distinguishing between top-down construction and true bottom-up participation in terms of action scores.
Another dimension is cross-project synergies. In ecosystems like Cosmos or Polkadot, the community spans multiple interconnected networks; this can have a significant impact on density (and sometimes resilience), forming a meta-community that might be overlooked if each chain is viewed in isolation.
Finally, the BARD model could incorporate more qualitative measures, such as developer tools, meetups, or user-generated initiatives, to ensure that noise from hype does not inflate the score.
In summary, the value of the BARD model lies in asking tougher questions about what truly drives lasting communities. Even in a market filled with short-term attention spans, hype cycles, and fierce competition, some ecosystems still demonstrate enduring conviction, real construction, and strong social networks. Identifying and measuring these rare traits may be the best way to preserve the community spirit that originally drove cryptocurrency.
