Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols are increasingly shutting down their public Discord servers, citing the platform's transformation into a high-risk environment for scams and user impersonation. The trend gained significant momentum this week with the announcement from Morpho, a leading DeFi lending protocol.
Morpho will place its public Discord server into read-only mode starting February 1, 2026. The protocol will redirect users seeking support to a dedicated help page and a chat-based ticketing system. Co-founder and CEO Paul Frambot stated that Discord had become "more negative than positive" for user support, pointing to persistent noise and scam attempts that overwhelmed moderation efforts. Co-founder Merlin Egalite echoed this, noting that the platform's structure made it "impossible" to fully protect users from direct-message phishing scams, even with safeguards in place.
Morpho has been testing alternative support tools like Intercom, which Egalite said offers features such as ticketing, instant translation, and automated assistance, significantly reducing exposure to impersonation attacks and making support management "100x easier."
This move is not isolated. DeFi data aggregator DefiLlama has also been migrating away from Discord toward live support chats and email-based ticket systems. Its pseudonymous founder, 0xngmi, asserted that Discord makes it "impossible to protect your users from getting scammed," as scammers can directly message users even after being banned from servers. DefiLlama is adopting a hybrid model, keeping Discord behind additional verification while funneling most traffic to safer channels.
The sentiment is widespread among industry leaders. Marc Zeller, founder of the Aavechan Initiative, labeled Discord "full of scammers" and suggested other major protocols like Aave should reconsider their reliance on the platform. Richard Rodairos of Dragonfly called public Discord servers "one of the lowest-signal communication surfaces in crypto," advocating for their removal to benefit the industry long-term. Nifty Gateway co-founder Duncan Cock Foster supported Morpho's decision, calling Discord moderation one of the most exhausting aspects of his business.
The shift has sparked debate within the community. Some argue that abandoning open Discord servers sacrifices valuable peer-to-peer collaboration, real-time feedback, and community-building. Others counter that the security risks outweigh these benefits and that better execution—using features like disabling DMs, stronger verification, and on-chain tooling—could mitigate the issues.
Security concerns were further amplified by a major data breach in October, where Discord confirmed an unauthorized party accessed a third-party Zendesk support system. Cybersecurity researchers reported that over two million passport and driver's license images from age-verification appeals were exfiltrated, raising serious questions about data privacy and handling on the platform.
