Prosek carves out crypto, Web3 offering

NEW YORK: Prosek Partners has formalized its cryptocurrency and Web3 communications and marketing with a dedicated offering.

Prosek has worked with clients involved in blockchain since 2017. However, it carved out the offering in light of traditional financial businesses like banks and hedge funds, called “TradFi” in crypto spaces, getting involved in blockchain, said Joe Scannell, who will lead the offering as MD and head of crypto and Web3.

“We’ve gotten so much interest from both existing and prospective clients, and we didn’t feel like we had a good answer to ‘What do you guys do in this space?’” he said.

He added that seeing TradFi at the inaugural Crypto Bahamas, a blockchain conference this spring that featured celebrities such as football star Tom Brady and former President Bill Clinton, inspired conversations about having a dedicated presence in the market.

Scannell declined to disclose projects his team is working on, but said Prosek’s previous work for the New York Stock Exchange, which involved minting an NFT collection of its high-profile initial public offerings, serves as a good example of work the offering will provide.

Its clients include Skybridge Capital and Nax, an organization that focuses on environmental, social and corporate governance within Web3. Future clients will generally be crypto-native companies, crypto-adjacent businesses like venture capital companies and law firms or TradFi institutions.

Scannell is leading a team of 10 crypto experts that will work across projects, and said he will bring on talent as projects require. His team will work globally but he anticipates most work originating from New York and San Francisco.

The offering won’t have a distinct budget within the agency, he said.

Prosek is aiming to bridge the gap between corporate communications and crypto as the latter appears more often in mainstream media. PR pros with deep knowledge of crypto are in short supply, and Scannell said he wants his team to occupy a unique space by having both skills.

“In the same way that technology PR and communications became sector expertise in a lot of firms, we think the same thing will happen in crypto and Web3 and we just want to be on the forefront of it,” he said.