A board choosing a web3 consulting firm should run a short written selection against eight questions, and drop any firm that will not say exactly how it gets paid. Conflicts are the expensive mistake here. In October 2024, US prosecutors charged 18 individuals and entities in a case alleging that token companies paid market makers to fake trading volume.
Who decides this
The board owns this decision, or the CEO with explicit board sign-off. The board is accountable for three things: that the adviser’s incentives match the organization’s, that one party is answerable for the outcome, and that the engagement leaves records the organization can defend later. The CEO usually runs the process. The board should approve the brief, the shortlist and the final contract, because an adviser on a token programme touches treasury, disclosure and market conduct.
What is the board actually buying?
The board is buying accountability for an outcome, not hours of advice. Before writing to any firm, the board should state in one page what must be true in twelve months: a token live on named venues, a foundation structure in place, a partner programme with signed counterparties. A firm that cannot restate that outcome in its own words after one call is not the firm.
This also settles the most important structural choice. One lead firm, accountable for the whole plan, with specialists it manages. Or a panel of specialists the organization coordinates itself. A lead firm costs more per head and concentrates dependency. A panel looks cheaper and leaves the seams to the CEO. For an organization without a senior operator who has launched a token before, we would choose a lead firm and keep legal counsel and the smart contract auditor engaged directly by the board.
Which questions separate a delivery firm from a deck firm?
The questions that matter are about who does the work, how the firm is paid, and what it has shipped, not about its view of the market. Ask every shortlisted firm the same eight questions, in writing, and score the answers side by side.
| Question to ask | A good answer | A weak answer |
|---|---|---|
| Who on the first call will do the work? | Named partners, with time committed per week in the contract | “Our team” or a senior pitch followed by junior staff |
| How are you paid, by whom, and in what? | Cash fee for the client’s work; any token component capped, vested and disclosed in the contract | Tokens at a discount, unvested, or “we’ll find a structure” |
| Do you receive anything from market makers, exchanges, launchpads or vendors you recommend? | A written list of every commercial tie, with a commitment to disclose new ones | “We have great relationships” with no disclosure |
| Do you own or operate any product you might recommend? | Names the products and explains when it would not recommend them | Denies any tie that a quick search reveals |
| What did you ship, and can we speak to the client? | Specific launches or structures, with references available with client permission | Logos without a person to call |
| What will you tell us that we do not want to hear? | A frank first view of the plan’s weakest part | Agreement with everything in the brief |
| What does the first phase cost, and what do we get? | Fixed scope, fixed fee, a written deliverable, and a clear exit | Open-ended retainer from day one |
| Who owns each part of the plan after you leave? | A named owner inside the organization for every workstream | The firm remains the only party who understands the plan |
Two answers on this table are disqualifying on their own: refusing to disclose commercial ties, and refusing to name who does the work. Everything else is a matter of degree.
How should the board run the selection?
Run a written process with three or four firms, a paid first phase, and a decision memo the board signs. A blockchain consulting firm worth hiring will expect this and respond well to it.
Start with a short brief: the outcome, the constraints, the budget authority, and the decisions the board has already taken. Send it to three or four firms, not ten. Ask for the eight answers above in writing, plus a proposed first phase with fixed scope and a fixed fee.
Interview the people who would do the work, not the business development lead. Call at least two references per finalist, and ask each reference what the firm got wrong. Then buy the first phase from one firm, not a free pitch from three. Paid diagnostic work shows how a firm thinks under real constraints, and a free pitch shows how it sells.
Close with a one-page decision memo to the board. Record why the firm was chosen, which conflicts it disclosed, and how they are handled. That memo is the record the organization will want if a regulator, an exchange or an investor later asks how the adviser was selected.
Which conflicts of interest should disqualify a firm?
The conflicts that matter are payment in the client’s own token, undisclosed fees from market makers or exchanges, and ownership of products the firm will recommend. Each one can be managed if it is disclosed and capped. None can be managed if it is hidden.
Market makers deserve the hardest look. In its October 2024 action, the SEC alleged that promoters bought “market-manipulation-as-a-service” from firms that wash traded tokens with bots. An adviser who earns referral fees from a market maker has a reason to recommend one, and the board needs to know that before it signs anything.
Paid promotion is the second risk. The SEC’s position, stated when it settled a 2022 case for $1.26 million, is that anyone promoting a crypto asset security must disclose the nature, source and amount of the compensation received. An adviser that also runs marketing or introductions for tokens it is paid in should be able to show how it handles that disclosure.
Ownership of products is the third. Some firms in this market belong to groups that also run launchpads, lock or vesting tools, exchanges or data products. That is not disqualifying. The global securities standard-setter IOSCO put conflicts from vertical integration first among six areas in its 18 policy recommendations for crypto markets, published in November 2023. The board should ask the same question of an adviser: which of your own products might you recommend, and what happens if they are not the right tool?
Token payment is the fourth. A firm paid mainly in the client’s token has a short-term interest in the price at its own unlock, which may not be the organization’s interest. Cash for the work, with any token component capped and vested on the same schedule as the team, is the cleaner structure.
What should the board expect to pay, and how should it scope the fee?
Fees for web3 consulting vary widely, and there is no reliable public benchmark to anchor them. Most serious firms price by programme rather than by the hour, and many do not publish rates at all. Alcyone, for example, publishes no rate card.
Scope the fee instead of benchmarking it. Buy a fixed-scope, fixed-fee first phase with a written deliverable, and judge the next phase against what that deliverable showed. Ask whether the first-phase fee is credited against later work. Tie any later phase to named outputs and owners, not to months on retainer. If a token component is proposed, cap it, vest it like other allocations and have counsel review it before signature.
What goes wrong: five advisers, one blind spot each
The common failure is not a bad adviser. It is five reasonable ones, each hired separately, none responsible for how their advice fits together.
A typical pattern looks like this. A tokenomics shop designs the supply model. A law firm structures the foundation without seeing the vesting schedule. A market maker is chosen through an introduction from a listing agent. A marketing agency is paid partly in tokens that unlock before the team’s. An auditor reviews contracts that no longer match the published allocation. Each adviser did its job. The board still faces a launch where the float, the legal structure and the market-making terms contradict each other, and nobody owns the contradiction.
The fix is a selection decision, not a better adviser. Name one party accountable for the whole plan. Require every other adviser to work to that plan. Give the board a single document that shows who owns each part.
How Alcyone approaches it
Alcyone is TrustSwap’s advisory practice, and the board should weigh that the same way it would weigh any adviser with owned products: TrustSwap also runs Team Finance, the TrustSwap Launchpad, The Crypto App and Panthea. Alcyone states that clients are under no obligation to use those products. Fees are paid in cash, and a capped, vested token allocation is considered only in specific circumstances and subject to counsel review. The structure of how an Alcyone advisory engagement runs follows the selection logic above. It starts with a thirty-minute call with a senior partner, then a two-week, fixed-scope, fixed-fee assessment credited against further work. The plan that follows names an owner for every part. The partners on the first call are the ones who do the work, and Alcyone says it will tell an organization early if it is not the right fit.