- Crypto projects are closing their Discords.
- Scammers and a shifting userbase are to blame, they say.
- Projects risk leaving some users behind.
Crypto projects have had enough of Discord.
Over the past week, layer 1 blockchain Optimism and DeFi lender Morpho have both set their Discord servers to read-only mode, stopping users from posting.
The reason? The messaging platform, once a key tool in galvanising crypto communities, had become overrun with bad actors.
“Discord is actually full of scammers,” Merlin Egalite, a Morpho co-founder, said on X. “People would get phished while actually searching for answers despite heavy monitoring, safeguards, etc.”
Dozens more developers have come out in support of Morpho and Optimism dropping Discord, sharing their own issues with scammers on the messaging platform.
A key tool
At one point, Discord was a key tool in any crypto project’s arsenal.
Servers, which are like open forums where users can post messages and chat across different channels, have become invaluable hubs for communities to gather, share information, and receive support from developers.
Yet Discord’s ease-of-use and popularity proved a double-edged sword. Criminals have swarmed servers, targeting users with elaborate scams that often involve impersonating project founders and other influential figures.
Discord has taken steps to combat the scamming epidemic. The platform expanded its definition of deceptive practices and introduced new features and tools to keep users safe.
Yet for many, it’s not enough. Now, the downsides are outweighing the benefits.
“Discord makes it impossible to protect your users from getting scammed,” 0xngmi, the pseudonymous founder of DefiLlama, said on X. “Even if you ban scammers instantly they still DM users directly to scam them.”
0xngmi said DefiLlama has also been moving away from Discord to other communication channels, such as live support chat and email. DefiLlama is the sister company under the LLama Corp umbrella.
It’s not the only one to do so.
A Morpho spokesperson told DL News that it has shifted to a help page and an intercom system to eliminate the risk of users being scammed.
Less retail, more institutions
Scammers aren’t the only reason crypto projects are looking at Discord alternatives.
“We’re come to realise that Optimism needs to take a different approach to best support our current enterprise strategy,” Lavande, Optimism’s pseudonymous head of governance, said in a Discord post addressing the closure of its Discord.
In crypto’s early days, using Discord made sense because it was where many users already were. But in recent years, DeFi use has shifted sharply towards institutional investors such as trading desks, hedge funds and family offices.
These users typically have a background in the traditional financial world, where communication is handled through more conventional channels such as email, phone, or other forms of direct messaging.
“Most of our enterprise, developer and delegate interactions occur via private channels,” Lavande said.
But as crypto projects increasingly shift away from Discord to other communication platforms, they risk leaving some users behind.
“There’s some users that really want to use Discord, so if you drop Discord they will just not send feedback at all instead of using another channel,” 0xngmi said.
Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.