NFT

Discord: Web3’s Instant Messaging Platform

Discord is known to have the definition of disagreement or lack of harmony between people, so why use it to brand an application created for communication amongst communities? Learn more in this article.

Discord is known to have the definition of disagreement or lack of harmony between people, so why use it to brand an application created for communication amongst communities? Irony would be the best answer but most of all it is memorable and in some way relative to its original users’ disharmony of other communication platforms used prior to Discord’s launch. Its tagline was quite literally “It’s time to ditch Skype and Teamspeak.”

The History of Discord

Created by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, launched in May of 2015, Discord was originally crafted for video gaming communities to facilitate instant messaging and video chatting. Their goal was to create a platform where their users would have facility and access to all things communication. After years of targeting the gaming audiences, Discord has loosened its focus and is open to everyone.

What is Discord?

Discord is an instant messaging platform that is frequently used within different types of communities and projects called ‘servers.’ Community members can create themselves an account and then proceed to joining servers through invites, communicate easily within and without discord servers through text messaging, voice or video chat, as well as private messaging/direct messaging. Many NFT (Non Fungible Token) project founders use Discord to hold the main hub of their projects, where their communities can get quick access to information about the project they are interested in or investing into, straight from the source.

How to Set Up a Discord Account?

Setting up a discord account is very similar to setting up any other account for other platforms. In registering you’ll be asked for your phone number or email, whichever you choose will be sent a verification code. Once you’ve verified, you’ll be able to choose a username as well as a password. Afterwards you will need to enter your birthday and register.

How to Join A Server?

You can access any discord server through invite links. These links are usually written as https://discord.gg/metalaunchers and they can often be found on a projects linktr.ee, instagram or twitter. They can also be sent through direct messages on discord itself. You can invite as many people into a discord server as you want by clicking ‘invite’ through the server which you wish to invite people in.

What is Nitro?

If you’re ready to take your discord experiences to the next level, Nitro is what you might want to purchase for yourself to access cool features. In other words, Nitro is a paid membership with either $9.99 monthly or $99.99 yearly. Nitro grants you global access to cool custom emojis from all the servers you can be a part of, stickers, custom discord number tag as well as server enhancements called server boosters. Not to mention that you can customize your profile photo in each server that you are in aside from your server name to better suit the server you are hanging out in.

The Difference Between a User Profile and a Server Profile

Once you’ve set up an account, you might want to edit your user profile to add a profile photo or even edit your bio so that other members can quickly get to know you. The tricky thing may be that you can edit both your user profile and your server profile. Although what is the difference?

A user profile is your discord account, the profile that will have your biography as well as your username and your general profile picture.

A server profile is when you enter multiple servers and depending on which community’s server you enter, you may want to change your appearance a little bit. Within the server selected, you will change your server profile. Without Nitro you will only have the possibility to change your server name. Your username will not appear to others, your server name will be your identifier for that server. Although your appearance has changed, when another user from that server clicks on your name, they will see your user profile name written below your server name as well as your biography.

Discord Scams

While online scams are very common, entering communities within Discord and being surrounded by many different accounts can potentially involve falling victim to a scam. Although, with being aware, the risks can be mitigated. Most Discord scams occur through direct messaging where people can often be at their most vulnerable.

Discord token theft is a popular one where scammers will ask for you to screen share while they “help you” with something. Most of the time they will lure you into fear in order to convince you that you need their help. If you screen share, they can get access to your discord token where they can then hack your account, most targets of these scams will be project founders or moderators of a project. In hacking their account they can further their operation into compromising the server these founders or moderators are in charge of.

Staff impersonating scams usually happen to phish out sensitive/personal information from the target, or have the target click a compromising link that can potentially drain the target’s account. The scammers will pretend to be the founder of a project which the target is a part of and tell them that they won something.

Token authorization scams through asset transfers is when someone asks you to sign a contract so that they can ‘gift’ you a free NFT, but instead they now have your authorization to your wallet where they drain it. Usually during a lot of free mints, people don’t read or pay attention and get caught by scammers who will drain their wallets after they’ve authorized/signed the contract.

Seed phrase theft is another instance of phishing where you are lured into a forged metamask browser and asked to enter your seed phrase while logging in.

In all, discord is a very easy-to-use or easy-to-get-used-to platform. Once you’re in and get comfortable with the utility of it alongside the great diverse people that you can meet, you won’t be able to get enough of it. Although, it is highly suggested not to trust direct messages from random people. Only trust those you know very well and as for links, unless they come from the official links of a project that you did your own research on and trust, think before you click.