- Crypto projects are closing their Discords.
- Fraudsters and a changing user base are to blame, they say.
- Projects risk leaving some users behind.
Crypto projects are fed up with Discord.
Over the past week, Layer 1 blockchain Optimism and DeFi lender Morpho have both set their Discord servers to read-only mode, preventing users from posting.
The reason? The messaging platform, once a key tool for galvanizing crypto communities, had become overrun with bad actors.
“Discord is actually full of scammers,” Merlin Egalite, co-founder of Morpho, said on X. “People would get phished while searching for answers despite close monitoring, safeguards, etc.”
Dozens of other developers have spoken out in favor of Morpho and Optimism abandoning Discord, sharing their own issues with scammers on the messaging platform.
At one point, Discord was a key tool in any crypto project’s arsenal.
Servers, which resemble open forums where users can post messages and chat across different channels, have become invaluable hubs for communities to come together, share information, and receive support from developers.
Still, Discord’s ease of use and popularity has proven to be a double-edged sword. Criminals have invaded servers, targeting users with elaborate scams that often involve impersonating project founders and other influential figures.
Discord has taken steps to combat the scam epidemic. The platform has expanded its definition of deceptive practices and introduced new features and tools to keep users safe.
Yet for many, this is not enough. Today, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
“Discord makes it impossible to protect your users from scams,” 0xngmi, the pseudonymous founder of DefiLlama, said on X. “Even if you instantly ban scammers, they still send direct messages to users to scam them.”
0xngmi said DefiLlama has also moved away from Discord and toward other communication channels, such as live support chat and email. DefiLlama is the sister company under the LLama Corp umbrella.
He’s not the only one to do this.
A Morpho spokesperson said DL News that it moved to a help page and intercom system to eliminate the risk of users being scammed.
Fewer businesses, more institutions
Scammers aren’t the only reason crypto projects are looking for Discord alternatives.
“We realized that Optimism needs to take a different approach to best support our current business strategy,” said Lavender, Optimism’s pseudonymous head of governance, in a post on Discord regarding its Discord shutdown.
In the early days of crypto, using Discord made sense because that was already where many users were. But in recent years, the use of DeFi has shifted sharply towards institutional investors such as trading desks, hedge funds and family offices.
These users typically have experience in the traditional financial world, where communication occurs through more conventional channels such as email, telephone, or other forms of direct messaging.
“Most of our interactions between companies, developers and delegates are through private channels,” Lavender said.
But as crypto projects move further and further away from Discord and toward other communication platforms, they risk leaving some users behind.
“Some users really want to use Discord, so if you abandon Discord, they just won’t send comments instead of using another channel,” 0xngmi said.
Tim Craig is DL News’ DeFi correspondent based in Edinburgh. Contact us with advice at tim@dlnews.com.
