A co-founder of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection faced a backlash for blaming the Discord messaging platform after ETH 200 (USD 378,000) worth of digital assets were snatched in an exploit.

On Saturday, Gordon Goner wrote on Twitter that Discord “isn’t working for Web3 communities" after the project's Discord server was hacked. "We need a better platform that puts security first," he added.

However, some observers were quick to lash out at Goner for blaming the instant messaging social media platform.

“Don’t blame Discord for users getting socially engineered, having [direct messages] open and clicking phishing links,” said pseudonymous NFT analyst OKHotshot. “Use the tool correctly first before blaming it.”

Discord security developer Captain Plantain also said phishing attacks will happen no matter what platform you choose, suggesting that the team should take the time and set up a "multilayer security" in order to prevent such incidents from happening again in the future.

Nevertheless, the hack took place after attackers managed to post phishing links in both the official BAYC and its related metaverse project called Otherside’s Discord channels after compromising the account of Boris Vagner, the project’s community manager.

Yuga Labs, the company behind BAYC, later confirmed the exploit, saying that around ETH 200 "worth of NFTs appear to have been impacted."

Notably, this is at least the third time a bad actor has been able to compromise the social accounts of Bored Ape to steal users' funds over the past two months.

In early April, the team announced that a "webhook in our Discord" was compromised, asking users not to mint anything. On April 25, the project's Instagram account and Discord server