Discord is the activity center of the Web3 community. For crypto projects, it’s the place where the backbone of an active community is formed — those who truly bring value. Recently, the number of on-chain addresses across networks has exceeded millions, and projects can’t distinguish real participants from automated farms.
That’s why roles in Discord have become the main way to identify useful and engaged people.
Essentially, roles are a form of ambassadorship without pre-announced rewards or salaries. You contribute — the project team notices your contribution, and depending on the roles you obtain before TGE, you receive an allocation.
Why crypto projects bet on roles
Roles are a convenient tool for filtering users. Instead of distributing tokens to everyone, teams track specific user actions on servers and in social networks, granting allocations selectively.
What roles you can get. Main roles:
1. Roles for chat activity
These are basic roles. They’re given to those who are active in chat: talk, answer questions, participate in discussions and events.
Also, on some servers there is an XP system where each message gives a certain amount of XP. Example: to get level 1 you need 100 XP; 1 message = 2 XP; by writing 50 messages a user gets a level and the role corresponding to that level.
As of the time of writing, these roles are practically devalued.
2. Content creators
If you create posts, threads, memes, videos, or art, and all of it is related to the project — there’s a high chance you’ll get a role.
Usually Discord has separate channels for publishing media content.
3. Moderators, regional moderators in language branches.
One of the most prestigious roles. Essentially part of the team.
This is no longer about farming through content and event participation, but about daily and many-hour presence in chat, answering newcomers’ questions, keeping order, and monitoring compliance with chat rules. Initiative and involvement in creating events.
4. OG
The rarest role. It goes to those who joined Discord at the very beginning, helped the team, built infrastructure, and provided maximum value. Slightly below moderators and not as time-consuming.
How to choose projects for role farming
The ideal strategy is similar to choosing projects for future airdrops, but the focus shifts toward community quality and the team’s activity.
You should focus on:
The number of roles issued and how often they’re issued. The value of roles is diluted directly in proportion to how frequently they’re handed out. The harder a role is to get in a project, the more valuable it is.
Community engagement. You can track engagement in certain project branches where you can see the amount of contribution on Twitter, Medium, and other social networks. If the community is weak — full skip, though there are exceptions.
Strong VC Tier-1/Tier-2;
An active team that communicates in Discord, hosts AMAs, and launches events.
A good example is the hype around projects like Monad, Succinct, Story Protocol:
How to farm roles effectively: a working system
Getting a role doesn’t mean writing a thousand messages. Today, something completely different works.
1. Engagement and communication
Answer newcomers, share useful resources, post your observations, and create interest around the topic.
People should remember your nickname.
2. Regular content on social networks
Posts, threads, memes, videos, art — all of this gives a huge boost to attention on your account.
3. Participation in project activities
Quizzes, asking questions during AMA sessions. Taking part in contests and helping organize them, game nights: poker and other games. Helping translate articles into your native language and publishing them in language branches
4. Offering real help
If you can draw, write articles, do marketing, edit videos — offer it to the team or moderators.
OG roles are often given for this kind of help.