The Human Protocol: Trust in a Decentralised Age
Day Two of the London Blockchain Conference 2025 opened not with a tech demo or a keynote about scalability – but with a story about people.
That story belonged to Elfried Samba, co-founder and CEO of Butterfly Effect and the creative mind who helped turn Gymshark from a scrappy start-up into a global phenomenon. His message to the crowd on the Visionaries Stage was clear, punchy, and profoundly relevant to the blockchain generation:
“Whatever you’re doing, you’re scaling for trust.”
In a world obsessed with algorithms, protocols, and automation, Samba argued that the real frontier of innovation isn’t technological – it’s emotional. Trust, he said, is the ultimate currency of the decentralised era. And in this new economy, your personal brand is the protocol that powers it.
Building Community Through Storytelling
Samba’s journey is proof that personal branding isn’t vanity – it’s survival.
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he moved to the U.K. as a child with a clear mission: to make the most of his “golden ticket.” He looked for role models – his parents, naturally, and later Steve Jobs, whose storytelling prowess turned technology into magic.
“The most powerful person in the world,” Samba quoted Jobs, “is a storyteller.”
That idea stuck. When Samba spotted a job opening at Gymshark – a then-little-known fitness brand – he didn’t just apply; he stood out. He added every team member on LinkedIn and started posting content he thought they’d find valuable. Within six months, he’d landed the job.
Over the next seven years, Samba helped scale Gymshark from 24 employees to 1,000, 1 million to 20 million followers, and £8 million to £1.4 billion in valuation. His secret weapon wasn’t paid ads or influencer gimmicks – it was community.
“I scale community for brands and people,” he told the audience, smiling.
That ethos – putting people at the centre of every growth strategy – is now the foundation of his agency, Butterfly Effect.
The Gymshark Effect: Story Over Slogan
At Gymshark, Samba saw first-hand how the rules of marketing had changed. The brand didn’t become a billion-pound business by shouting louder – it did it by making people feel something.
During the pandemic, when trust in corporate messaging was at an all-time low, Samba leaned into transparency. Instead of hiding behind campaigns, Gymshark’s founder Ben Francis went front and centre, creating behind-the-scenes YouTube videos that showed how the company worked, failed, and learned.
That openness was magnetic. People didn’t just buy leggings – they bought into a story.
“Being known is not enough,” Samba said. “You have to be liked. You have to be respected. That’s how you earn trust.”
In an era when brand IQ (information and logic) is democratised, emotional intelligence (EQ) has become the real differentiator. People remember how you make them feel, not how well you pitch.
Personal Branding as the New Protocol
Samba’s keynote felt less like a marketing workshop and more like a wake-up call for innovators in blockchain, AI, and digital finance.
In decentralised industries where anonymity and automation dominate, trust doesn’t live in code – it lives in people.
“People have been bombarded with so many messages,” he explained. “There’s so much AI, people don’t know what to trust anymore.”
The antidote? Personal brands that act as proof-of-trust.
Samba shared stats that made the audience sit up:
- 88% of people trust word-of-mouth recommendations most.
- 82% trust a company more when its executives are active on social media.
- 77% are more likely to buy from a company if the CEO engages online.
- Yet only 30% trust brand messaging directly.
In other words: your founder’s face, your developer’s voice, and your community’s stories will always outperform your press release.
Or, as Samba put it:
“Conversation drives commerce.”
Web3’s Reputation Crisis – and How to Fix It
Samba didn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths. The blockchain industry, he said, still struggles with perception.
He pointed to the fallout from Sam Bankman-Fried and the endless stream of crypto influencers whose feeds swing from private jets to prison cells. “This is not a good representation of what we’re trying to do,” he said.
To move forward, the industry needs new faces and new stories – voices that convey credibility, not just charisma.
His advice to founders and Web3 innovators: simplify the message. If your definition of blockchain sounds like “a distributed digital ledger among peer-to-peer nodes,” you’ve already lost half your audience.
“We can do better than that,” he laughed. “What would Steve Jobs say?”
Jobs, of course, never sold a 5GB iPod. He sold “1,000 songs in your pocket.”
The lesson? Humanise the story. Translate technology into meaning. Replace features with feelings.
Scaling for Trust in the Web3 Era
Samba’s philosophy aligns perfectly with the broader blockchain movement’s promise: decentralisation as a tool for empowerment. But he adds a crucial caveat – decentralisation without human connection is just noise.
Founders, developers, and innovators need to think like storytellers. A wallet address won’t inspire trust – but a human face behind the innovation might.
He challenged attendees to treat personal branding not as ego, but as infrastructure. Just as blockchain provides transparency through code, personal brands provide transparency through personality.
For enterprises, this means encouraging executives to speak publicly and authentically – not as corporate mouthpieces, but as humans with convictions. For start-ups, it means putting community before clout, and trust before tokenomics.
The Butterfly Effect of Belief
Elfried Samba’s parting message could have applied equally to a founder, a policymaker, or a developer:
“Talk less. Do more. Make people feel something.”
In that simple directive lies the playbook for thriving in the decentralised world. Whether you’re building a blockchain platform or a consumer brand, your greatest asset isn’t your tech – it’s your ability to inspire belief.
Because in an ecosystem where everyone is building “the future,” the projects that will actually scale are those that make people care.
Samba calls it “scaling for trust.” Others might call it authenticity at scale. Either way, it’s the same truth: technology may enable the connection, but humanity sustains it.
The Takeaway: Brand Is the Bridge
For innovators navigating the Web3 frontier, Elfried Samba’s keynote wasn’t just inspiring – it was a strategy manual.
Build your community before your campaign.
Show your process, not just your product.
Tell stories that make people feel something.
Because at the end of the day, whether you’re pitching investors or posting on-chain, your personal brand is the bridge between what you build and why people believe in it.
And as Samba reminded everyone that morning in London: in the decentralised era, trust isn’t traded – it’s earned.
That’s exactly why the London Blockchain Conference 2025 has earned the trust of its participants: by delivering an event that goes beyond hype to real insight, real expertise, and real connection.
To explore how thought leaders and innovators are redefining identity and influence in this new landscape, watch the on-demand sessions from the London Blockchain Conference 2025.
Then take the next step—register your interest for our upcoming webinar, “From Chaos to Clarity: Understanding the Global Crypto Regulation Wave and Why It Matters for Business,” on 10 December 2025. It’s where clarity meets opportunity in the evolving world of digital innovation.
