Anyone Can Copy Your Crypto App. Can They Copy Your Business?

For much of his career, Aleksei Voiutskii has been working on a problem that technology founders often underestimate: how to turn a product into a viable business.

He founded NODES as a marketing consultancy, later expanded its work into technology solutions, and now evaluates emerging companies from another perspective – as a private investor and business angel. Through NODES’ Startup Accelerator and Crypto Advisory practices, he also helps technology founders navigate the journey from product development to market entry and scale.

That combination of experience in marketing, user acquisition, technology, and investing gives Voiutskii a particular perspective on one of the questions facing Web3 today: what happens to a startup when the technology behind its product becomes easy to replicate?

“When I evaluate a startup, the number of impressive features it has is not what interests me most,” Voiutskii says. “I want to understand why customers would choose this particular business, trust it with their money, and keep using its product even if a competitor offered almost identical technology.”

For Web3, that question is becoming harder to ignore.

AI-powered development tools are lowering the barrier to entry. Open APIs provide access to sophisticated trading infrastructure. Features that once required substantial engineering resources can now be reproduced in a fraction of the time.