DeFi projects have increasingly shut down or tightly restricted public Discord channels after a wave of fraud that industry reports say helped drive roughly $14 billion in crypto scam losses during 2025. The core takeaway is that open chat rooms have become a high-risk front door for impersonation, phishing, and coordinated schemes.
In response, many teams moved community and support activity into locked spaces with stricter access and verification, even if that means less spontaneity and slower support. Projects are choosing safer communications over the convenience of fully public Discord servers.
Why public Discord became a problem
Public servers were repeatedly abused through tactics that made it easy to trick users while looking “official.” Scammers often posed as staff or moderators and used direct messages to pressure users into sharing seed phrases or private keys.
Another common issue came from link takeovers tied to server setup and branding. Attackers reportedly hijacked official Discord invite links when vanity URLs became available, then funneled users into fake servers loaded with phishing prompts and malicious bots.
Those bots were designed to look like normal onboarding or membership tools, pushing users to approve wallet actions that led to fraudulent transactions. By copying the look and flow of legitimate tools, attackers increased the odds that users would click through without noticing red flags.
Fraud also showed up in more “community-style” bait, like fake giveaways and NFT-drop announcements that prompted wallet connections and approvals. Some schemes went further by promoting pump-and-dump groups as exclusive “insider” access, using urgency and hype to trigger mistakes.
How projects are responding and what changes for users
Many operators reacted by closing public channels, tightening moderation, and shifting support into permissioned platforms or verified support portals. The main goal is to reduce the number of places where a scammer can convincingly pretend to be “the project.”
Teams also cut back public-facing admin privileges and strengthened verification steps to reduce single points of failure. In many cases, projects are limiting who can post announcements and adding extra checks before any “official” message goes out.
Additional steps included restricting bot permissions, requiring more than one person to approve announcements, and routing onboarding through authenticated channels. The trade-off is clear: less instant community access in exchange for fewer easy openings for fraud.
For treasuries, compliance teams, and traders, this shift changes how due diligence and incident response works in practice. Counterparties now need clear, documented ways to verify “official” channels outside public chat, especially during fast-moving situations.
