diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index bd20617b..b8384f47 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -3180,6 +3180,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "percent-encoding 2.1.0",
  "pin-project-lite",
  "serde",
+ "serde_json",
  "serde_urlencoded 0.6.1",
  "time",
  "tokio 0.2.20",
diff --git a/plume-common/Cargo.toml b/plume-common/Cargo.toml
index 6309fee2..d5b5f765 100644
--- a/plume-common/Cargo.toml
+++ b/plume-common/Cargo.toml
@@ -16,7 +16,6 @@ hex = "0.3"
 hyper = "0.13"
 openssl = "0.10.22"
 rocket = { git = "https://github.com/SergioBenitez/Rocket", rev = "async" }
-reqwest = "0.10"
 serde = "1.0"
 serde_derive = "1.0"
 serde_json = "1.0"
@@ -32,3 +31,7 @@ version = "0.4"
 [dependencies.pulldown-cmark]
 default-features = false
 version = "0.2.0"
+
+[dependencies.reqwest]
+features = ["json", "blocking"]
+version = "0.10"
diff --git a/plume-common/src/activity_pub/inbox.rs b/plume-common/src/activity_pub/inbox.rs
index b04b4076..4d08e810 100644
--- a/plume-common/src/activity_pub/inbox.rs
+++ b/plume-common/src/activity_pub/inbox.rs
@@ -279,7 +279,8 @@ pub trait FromId<C>: Sized {
 
     /// Dereferences an ID
     fn deref(id: &str) -> Result<Self::Object, (Option<serde_json::Value>, Self::Error)> {
-        reqwest::ClientBuilder::new()
+        // Use blocking reqwest API here, since defer cannot be async (yet)
+        reqwest::blocking::Client::builder()
             .connect_timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(5))
             .build()
             .map_err(|_| (None, InboxError::DerefError.into()))?
diff --git a/plume-models/Cargo.toml b/plume-models/Cargo.toml
index 8e22ec07..94b5c1a1 100644
--- a/plume-models/Cargo.toml
+++ b/plume-models/Cargo.toml
@@ -16,7 +16,6 @@ lazy_static = "1.0"
 migrations_internals= "1.4.0"
 openssl = "0.10.22"
 rocket = { git = "https://github.com/SergioBenitez/Rocket", rev = "async" }
-reqwest = "0.10"
 scheduled-thread-pool = "0.2.2"
 serde = "1.0"
 serde_derive = "1.0"
@@ -47,6 +46,11 @@ path = "../plume-common"
 [dependencies.plume-macro]
 path = "../plume-macro"
 
+[dependencies.reqwest]
+features = ["json", "blocking"]
+version = "0.10"
+
+
 [dependencies.rocket_i18n]
 git = "https://github.com/Plume-org/rocket_i18n"
 branch = "go-async"