Nansen Bets Web3 Messaging Will Deter Hacks and Spam

Competition to become the go-to crypto native messaging platform is intensifying with data analytics platform Nansen joining the race.

Nansen launched a crypto-native messaging platform currently open in beta to their paid users as well as token-holders of select communities, the company said in an emailed statement.

The platform, Nansen Connect, was built as a reaction to the countless hacks, pump and dump groups, and spam that the crypto community experiences on Twitter and Discord. Nansen Connect is only open to paid Nansen Standard members and token-holders of NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Hashmasks, and Doodles.

Real-time Holdings

In August 2021, Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, led a $20M funding round in XMTP Labs, the builders of XMTP (Extensible Message Transport Protocol), a secure messaging protocol for web3. In January, block explorer Etherscan launched Blockscan, which allows users to message specific Ethereum addresses.

Like previous solutions, on Nansen Connect, users must connect their wallets in order to send other users messages. Because users can see real-time holdings of other users, this leads to full transparency and accountability. But it also raises questions about privacy – will users really want to disclose their financial information with everyone they interact with?

To prevent spam from reaching users’ inbox, Nansen designed a message request tab similar to that of Twitter or Instagram. There are also a few semi-public group chats running.