What would a Web3 version of Discord look like when Discord is heavily criticized?

Author: Runsheng, Chain Catcher

Since the birth of Bitcoin 14 years ago, the narrative, tracks, and projects in the crypto industry have shown a prosperous scene. Although decentralization and privacy protection have long been the spiritual beliefs of crypto enthusiasts, an unavoidable question that many people still ponder remains in front of us— the crypto industry lacks its own native social media.

This can be confirmed by the fact that the Web3 community mainly gathers on Web2 social platforms such as Discord, Twitter, and Telegram. Taking Discord as an example, this platform has become the preferred social platform for project teams to engage users, where everyone follows the latest project updates and speaks freely, with hot topics in the crypto space like airdrops and whitelists being discussed continuously.

From a user experience perspective, Discord, as a representative product of Web2 social media, undoubtedly has its inherent advantages of convenience and group effects. However, as crypto enthusiasts gather here, issues such as phishing attacks and privacy breaches have become increasingly apparent, with many projects' Discord communities frequently suffering from hacker intrusions.

On June 5, the NFT project BAYC announced on its official Twitter that its Discord server was briefly attacked, resulting in the theft of NFTs worth approximately 200 ETH. On August 27, the public chain Sui tweeted that its Discord server had been hacked, with comments indicating that some users had suffered financial losses after clicking on links posted by hackers in that Discord.

It can be said that hacker attacks targeting Discord communities have been almost continuous in recent years. A report indicated that in June alone, over 100 NFT Discords, including BAYC and OtherSide, were breached, with more than $22 million stolen. In the article "Wolves in Monkey Clothing: How Billions Were Stolen from Web3 Communities," the author listed four common reasons for Discord hacking: overly broad permissions, leaked bot codes, leaked employee passwords, and compromised network wallets.

Additionally, following the announcement of the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ban on Tornado Cash on August 8, the Tornado Cash Discord server was also deleted, raising concerns among industry insiders about Discord's data control. It is no wonder that BAYC co-founder Gordon Goner publicly stated that Discord is not suitable for Web3 communities.

Web3 social is still in the early stages of paradigm transformation. In the face of numerous projects emerging like mushrooms after rain, aside from star projects like CyberConnect and Lens Protocol, Chain Catcher has noticed that the four projects Comm, Nftychat, Console, and Atem Network also provide a perspective to imagine what Discord in the Web3 space might look like in the future.

In short, these four projects are all committed to becoming the Discord of the Web3 space, optimizing around security, social interaction, and open-source aspects, each with its own focus. Specifically, addressing the security issues exposed by Discord, Comm builds a decentralized application backend through key servers to solve data leakage problems, while Console allows direct login via a network wallet, avoiding third-party bot verification, thus eliminating related data vulnerabilities and hacker attacks.

To address Discord's inability to meet the social needs of crypto users, Nftychat enables users to create or discover communities based on NFTs or Tokens and view information about any other users' NFTs in the chat interface. Atem Network establishes a user-owned group space based on tokens and NFTs, where users can not only chat but also send tokens and NFTs, with all spaces and channels governed by DAO.

1. Atem Network

Atem is dedicated to creating a dedicated Discord for NFT communities and is building a user-owned group space based on tokens and NFTs, where users can chat, trade, and manage P2P group spaces. The project plans to build a decentralized social graph within the Web3 chat framework, including graphs from various platforms such as social media, games, and even Dapps, with a long-term mission to establish social graphs for individuals and groups, integrate with different Dapps, and become a one-stop solution for Web3 social infrastructure.

In Atem, group spaces are formed based on jointly owned tokens or NFTs, and only holders have the right to join and speak in the community. All spaces and channels will be governed by DAO, meaning users collectively decide the community rules. Data is stored in a decentralized manner with end-to-end encryption, ensuring complete anonymity, allowing users to control their data, identity, and governance.

At the same time, Atem users can not only chat with each other like in traditional chat rooms but also send tokens and NFTs. Atem's one-stop solution allows users to seamlessly trade tokens and NFTs in one place without leaving the chat room to log into another trading platform to execute transactions. Atem can also automatically group users into communities based on the tokens or NFTs they own.

Atem Network was established in November 2021, with a team background covering Tsinghua University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and other institutions. In February this year, it completed a $3 million seed round of financing, led by INCE Capital, with participation from GSR Ventures, Mask Network, Mirana Ventures, A&T Capital, Atlas Capital, Foresight Ventures, Zonff Partners, and Zhihu co-founder Michael Zhang.

In August this year, Atem Network announced a complete brand upgrade, expanding from a Web3 social product to a social protocol supporting the Web3 creator ecosystem, helping creators tokenize their content, allowing users to own their content and fan networks, and directly interact with fans for Web3-native engagement.

Official website: https://www.atemio/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/atem_network

2. Nftychat

Nftychat was established in 2021 and is dedicated to creating a "Web3 version of Discord," aiming to build a communication platform for all Web3 citizens. Compared to Discord, Nftychat's advantage lies in its Web3 platform being more secure and reliable than Web2 platforms.

Specifically, when users log in with ENS bound to their Ethereum identity and keys, no one can impersonate their identity, thus protecting data security. At the same time, users can start chatting by simply connecting their wallet address, without needing an account password, allowing free use and avoiding the bots and spam that plague Discord.

Users can also create or discover communities based on NFTs or Tokens and view information about any other users' NFTs, POAPs, and social media information such as Twitter, Telegram, and LinkedIn in the chat interface. Nftychat, combined with ENS login, becomes an intuitive DAO governance tool.

Currently, the project can be accessed via desktop browsers, with a user interface similar to Discord, and has initially set up language channels for Chinese, Russian, and others, with a total user base of fewer than 10,000.

In March this year, Nftychat completed a $1 million financing round, led by Archetype, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Balancer Lab CEO Fernando Martinelli, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko, Kaiynne, Hjmomtazi, Nanexcool, RyanSAdams, Sassal0x, and Skeeeeto.

Official website: https://nftychat.xyz/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nftychat

3. Comm

Comm aims to become the Web3 version of Discord, positioning itself as an encrypted native communication tool based on joint key servers. To address the data vulnerability issues present in Discord, Comm extends end-to-end (E2E) encrypted communication services suitable for chat applications like Signal or WhatsApp, aiming to allow community members to host their own backend servers, with only users able to access their data.

Specifically, it hopes to build a decentralized application backend through key servers, thus achieving complete user sovereignty. According to its official introduction, this is the secret to Comm being able to reach the same level as Discord. Comm believes that centralized server models will never support an almost infinite and persistent world-class metaverse, and a decentralized network composed of personally owned servers and devices is the only way to provide the necessary computing resources.

As its founder Ashoat Tevosyan stated in an interview, "Our most radical view is that in the future, everyone will have a personal private server." Ultimately, centralized backends will be replaced.

Chain Catcher has noted that Comm has launched its app in app stores, with an interface similar to Web2 applications, and due to being in the early stages of development, its features are somewhat limited. In August this year, Comm announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, led by CoinFund, with participation from Electric Capital, Slow Ventures, LongHash VC, Shima Capital, and Eniac Ventures. Including previous financing, it has raised a total of $7 million.

Official website: https://comm.app/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/commdotapp

4. Console

Console is positioned as an encrypted native chat tool and aims to become the "Web3 alternative to Discord." To address existing issues such as phishing attacks and third-party bot security vulnerabilities on Discord, Console's alternative advantage is primarily built on Web3 principles, achieving true decentralization, open-source, security, and community ownership.

It is reported that users can log into Console directly using their network wallets, and identities can be queried directly from the blockchain without the need for third-party bots, thus eliminating vulnerabilities associated with bots; Console does not have access to user identity data, protecting users from data breaches and hacker attacks.

Additionally, accessing Console will come with a set of DAO tools for financial management, governance, and bounties. After the release of Console, the core team will establish ConsoleDAO, entrusting the future development of Console to community management.

Currently, Console has launched a beta version and is accepting applications from 10 communities. This month, the NFT project Crash Punks, which has a Discord community of 25,000 members, has fully migrated to Console.

Official website: https://www.console.xyz/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/consoledao