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Discord pulls back new NFT integration as gamers and Discord users lash out about NFT scams and shilling marketplaces. Can the crypto-community build something at ShillZone.io
There are few online communities that can create change within major corporations. The general gaming community is one of the biggest around and they rallied together to squash a major development in one of the community’s most used applications. On Friday, November 12, we saw Discord, a popular application that connects people of similar interests like gaming through voice/video chat as well as hosted servers, saw a backlash against their latest development to include Ethereum NFTs.
Founder and CEO of Discord, Jason Citron, announced on Twitter integration of NFTs via a connection through digital wallets like Metamask, which would allow a user to verify and upload their NFTs to a profile picture; adopting a similar approach to Twitter’s integration. While Discord has many Crypto-Esque servers, including market watchers, NFT projects, and blockchain developers, it was the general gaming community that expressed the loudest content for the new update.
Thousands took to social media to express their distaste for the integration calling for many users to cancel their Discord Nitro service, a paid subscription to Discord, in order to protest the new change. Many Discord users are not fond of the Crypto-Community stating NFTs are Ponzi-schemes and do not belong on the same platform as gamers. Even a Reddit post calling to action their dislike for the NFT service reached thousands of users in a few hours lending to some eye-opening comments that include a lot of misinformation around NFTs and how they can be used.
“I kindly request that you do not engage in the NFT scene. I want an app that does not enable a money laundering scheme that is also proven to contribute to climate change. The last thing that I want as a user of your product is to hurt the environment, which I care about deeply.” — ⊗.: :.⊗ (@Ghost_Manul) November 9, 2021
Discord members distaste for NFTs and the Crypto Space; Source
This has since been recoiled from Jason Citron and the Discord development team, until further notice. The battle between gamers and crypto users has swung back to the general population of discord members for now, but in my opinion, this is only a minor setback for NFT projects and shillers.
For those not in the Crypto-sphere, NFTs are a fundamentally disruptive new technology that brings power to the individual that bypasses corporations and institutions to lend power to an open and secure community of artists, developers, and investors. Yes, there are plenty of scams, Ponzi schemes, and pyramid schemes, but this also exists in the real world. As with any new technology, there will be bad apples looking to steal their way to riches. How soon we forget the early days of the internet where billions of dollars were stolen without recourse, but we now rely on this technology on a daily basis, and some would argue it should be considered a national utility now.
To those in the Crypto-sphere, they understand the utility and functionality behind blockchain and smart contracts. For many, blockchain seems inevitable, only a matter of time until the general population picks up on these ideas and integrates them into our everyday lives much as we did in the early 2000s with the adoption of the internet.
For now, the gamers have the edge, but how will the Crypto-community respond to this backlash? Can they co-exist on the platform? When NFTs make their way to AAA gaming, will these Discord users abandon their games? Only time will tell.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/discord-drops-ethereum-and-nft-integration-plans-after-backlash
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Final Thoughts
When researching this article and talking to many other Crypto-Community members, we were shocked to see the gaming community lash out the way they did! We can understand that Discord was initially set up for the gaming community, but it also works for the purpose of an NFT project community. The developers of Discord can see this, but with the gaming community threatening their bottom-line, they are beholden to the corporate power of profits.
So, now what? Could the Crypto-Community create our own way to market and build a community around an NFT project? This is an experimental idea, but we want to open this up to the community as a challenge to see what we can come up with. We have set up a simple site at ShillZone.io to hopefully spark a community-driven social media platform that is dedicated to NFTs. As of right now, this project is a mere idea, and we are looking for volunteers, suggestions, and anything else that may arise.
Please check out ShillZone.io to add your ideas and to participate. More to come as this develops.
***Single Point Gallery does not give out financial advice nor are we affiliated with any project unless specified, we are merely an informational and entertainment entity. Buyers should always complete their own due diligence and decide on their own merits***