Reddit Unveils Trial Based on Ethereum Platform For Two Cryptocurrency Subreddits

While the decentralized cryptocurrency and blockchain industry has come a long way, it is unfortunate that the industry is still largely plagued with misinformation and fake news.

Popular content aggregator platform Reddit has now rolled up its sleeves to bring legitimacy and quality information sharing on its platform. Reddit has recently unveiled its new Ethereum-based ‘community points’ trial for two cryptocurrency subreddits dubbed r/cryptocurrency and r/FortNiteBR.

As per Reddit, the users on these two subreddits will be rewarded with ‘community points’ as an incentive for creating “quality posts and comments”. These points basically represent the reputations of users within the community and can be traded against premium features like custom emojis, badges, and GIFs.

According to Reddit, “Community Points are a way for Redditors to own a piece of their favorite communities. As a unit of ownership, Points capture some of the value of their community”.

Note that both these subreddits together over 2 million users within the community. However, to receive these community points, Redditors will have to mandatorily open an account with Reddit’s native blockchain wallet “Vault”. Users can sign up for the “Vault” just by scanning the QR code using the official Reddit application.

Note that each user Vault will have its own private key stored on the user’s smart device. So, if one fails to back up their private keys and also lose their smart device, they won’t be able to access the community points ever, and even Reddit can’t help in this case.

Besides, users can also leave a tip for all the posts/comments they either like or see as valuable. Additionally, users can also transfer the ‘community points’ to other Reddit members’ Vault.

These ‘community points’ will always remain in full control of the Reddit members. At any given time, neither Reddit nor the community members can interfere with them. “Your Community Points exist on the blockchain, independently of Reddit, where they can only be controlled by you (just like Bitcoin!). Neither Reddit nor moderators can take your Points away or decide what you do with them. It’s all up to you,” Reddit added.

Reddit further explained that the community points are run by "a suite of smart contracts that manage balances, distribution/claiming and purchasing memberships”. Moreover, since these transactions happen on the Ethereum network, they would come with the “gas” spendings.

Reddit said that in the future as the community grows, they would be adopting better scaling and gas solutions. Initially, Reddit will be releasing 50 million points and will continues to release another 50 million over the next year. Reddit has put a maximum cap of 250 million ‘community points’. “In addition to the regular distribution, half of each month’s burned Community Points are reintroduced into the next month’s distribution. This helps ensure that there are new Points to distribute, even after the maximum cap has been reached,” Reddit detailed.