DeFi projects reduce public Discord use as scam risk rises

Several decentralized finance teams are scaling back or locking public Discord servers amid rising concerns that the platform has become a hotspot for scammers. The change gained attention after DeFi lending protocol Morpho put its public Discord into read-only and directed users to alternative support channels.

Builders and data providers say Discord is increasingly hard to secure and that phishing is a persistent problem. Morpho co-founder Merlin Egalite said the move was "not an easy choice," noting users were being phished while seeking help despite heavy monitoring. Morpho said it has been testing tools such as Intercom for ticket management and AI responses.

DefiLlama’s pseudonymous founder 0xngmi said the platform has been quietly reducing reliance on Discord and shifting toward live support chat and email tickets, arguing Discord makes it impossible to protect users: "Even if you ban scammers instantly, they still DM users directly to scam them," 0xngmi wrote.

Industry figures voiced support for stepping back from Discord. Richard Rodairos called public Discord servers "one of the lowest signal surfaces in the space" and advocated clearer documentation and asynchronous support.

Key Topics

Crypto, Morpho, Defillama, Discord, Phishing, Intercom