What if the real power of Web3 isn’t decentralised finance—but decentralised trust, built one community at a time? In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL sits down with Clemens Behrend, a Web3 entrepreneur who helped scale Bitpanda from pre-seed to Austria’s first unicorn, to unpack a side of crypto most leaders underestimate: customer support as a growth engine. This is not a conversation about speculation or hype. It’s about why communities—not code—ultimately determine who wins in Web3. Clemens’ path into crypto didn’t begin with whitepapers or trading charts. It started with online gaming. As a teenager, he discovered that virtual items had real value—and that people were willing to pay for them. Running an online shop for digital goods taught him two lasting lessons: how to keep thousands of customers happy, and how fragile businesses become when they rely on a single payment method. When that method failed, Bitcoin wasn’t a curiosity—it was a solution. That experience pulled Clemens deeper into cryptocurrency and eventually to Bitpanda, where he spent more than five years building the company’s customer support and community function from the ground up. From day one, the challenge was different from traditional finance. Crypto never sleeps. Markets don’t close on Fridays. Customers trade, panic, and celebrate 24/7. Support had to match that reality. One of Bitpanda’s most underestimated differentiators, Clemens explains, was transparency. Based in Austria, with a clear legal presence and an impressum—rare in early crypto—the company made itself visible and reachable. That visibility built trust at scale. Combined with round-the-clock support, it reassured customers in an industry often criticised for opacity and distance. The episode also draws a clear distinction between Bitcoin and “crypto” more broadly. Clemens is direct: Bitcoin is fundamentally different. It’s the original, with unmatched uptime and resilience. Many other cryptocurrencies, by contrast, behave more like companies—each carrying its own risk profile. Understanding that difference, he argues, is essential before investing. Research is not optional in Web3. Web3 identity is another focal point. Unlike Web2, where users log in with an email address, Web3 connects through wallets—enabling the transfer of financial data, ownership, and value directly on-chain. That shift changes how communities form and how trust is earned. But it also raises the stakes. When customers leave silently, businesses lose the opportunity to learn. Clemens’ advice is counterintuitive but powerful: make it easy for customers to complain. Complaints are not friction—they’re feedback and often the last chance to retain trust. Throughout the conversation, one theme is unmistakable: community is infrastructure. In Web3, technology enables scale—but relationships sustain it. Support teams aren’t a cost centre; they are guardians of credibility in an always-on ecosystem. This episode is essential listening for founders, product leaders, and enterprise executives exploring Web3 beyond the headlines. It’s a reminder that decentralisation doesn’t eliminate responsibility—it amplifies it. Because in Web3, trust isn’t granted by institutions— it’s earned, interaction by interaction.