Launch day is the moment your community is worth the most and the moment it is least protected. New members flood in, everyone is watching the announcements, and attackers know it. A single convincing fake link in the first hour can cost your members more than the launch earns them.

Why launches attract scammers

Scammers do not target quiet servers. They target attention. A launch concentrates thousands of hopeful, distracted people in one place at one time, which is exactly the environment where a fake mint link or an impersonated founder gets the most clicks.

• Impersonators copying admin names and avatars.

• Fake claim or mint links posted the second you go live.

• Urgency traps that push people to act before they think.

Before the launch

The work that protects a launch happens days before it. Give collony.ai time to learn your community’s normal rhythm so it can tell a real member from a fresh throwaway account on the day it matters.

One week out: lock down the basics

• Restrict who can post links in announcement channels.

• Pre-approve your official domains so lookalikes stand out.

• Brief your human mods on the exact links you will post.

• Add a verification gate for new joiners so bot waves slow down at the door.

• Agree on one internal channel where mods verify official links before anything gets pinned.

48 hours out: rehearse the moment

• Pin a message listing your only official domains, and state clearly that the team never DMs first.

• Decide exactly who posts the official link, from which account, at which time.

• Run a dry run: post a test scam link in a private channel and confirm it gets caught and removed.

During the launch

When you go live, let automation handle the volume so your team can handle the edge cases. collony.ai holds and flags suspicious links the instant they appear, so a scam never gets its first few minutes of visibility.

• Enable slow mode in announcement channels so a scam link cannot ride the flood of messages.

• Watch for lookalike admin names, impersonators often join minutes before you go live.

• Route member scam reports to one channel so nothing drowns in the main chat.

On launch day, speed is safety. The scam that gets removed in seconds never becomes the story everyone remembers.

After the launch

Once the rush is over, review what got flagged and feed it back into your rules. A launch is not a one-off event, it is training for every Web3 community you protect next.

Do this once and your next launch starts from a stronger baseline. Protection compounds, and so does the trust your members place in you.

The scams that show up on launch day

Launch-day attacks are predictable enough to prepare for by name. Fake support accounts DM new members offering to "help you claim", using the same display name and photo as a real admin with one character changed in the handle. Fake contract addresses get posted in the seconds after the real one, often by accounts that joined weeks earlier and stayed silent. Fake giveaway and airdrop links spike the moment volume does. And impersonated founder accounts DM your largest holders directly.

Each has a specific counter. Impersonation is caught by profile checks rather than message filters, which we broke down in how impersonation scams work. Fresh scam domains need link reputation scoring because no blocklist has seen them yet. And the coordinated account waves are only visible as behavior, not content.

Frequently asked questions

When should moderation be set up before a token launch?

At least a week before. Behavioral detection needs a baseline of what your community normally looks like, and your team needs time to rehearse the plan. Turning protection on the morning of the launch protects you far less than turning it on seven days earlier.

What is the most common launch-day scam?

An impersonated admin sending direct messages with a fake claim link, timed to the minutes right after your announcement. It never touches the public channel, which is why the pinned rule that the team never DMs first matters more than any filter.

Should you close DMs during a launch?

You cannot close other people’s DMs, but you can blunt them: tell members loudly and repeatedly that anyone DMing them about the launch is a scammer, and give them one obvious place to report it. Members who expect the trick do not fall for it.

How do you moderate a Telegram group during a token launch?

Lock permissions before launch so new members cannot post links or media, run a join gate, keep the real contract address pinned and repeated, and have behavioral detection running for impersonators and coordinated waves. Volume on launch day is far past what a human team can read.