Reddit today announced the launch of previously rumored and highly anticipated Ethereum based tokens on its platform. The social media aggregator, posting and discussion platform will initially create two kinds of tokens for r/cryptocurrency (Moons) and r/FortniteBR (Bricks) subreddits. The beta tokens will be initially deployed on the Rinkeby testnet, with eventual migration to the Ethereum main-net.
Reddit Community Points
The community points or tokens will be distributed amongst contributors for posting quality content, based on karma ratings and upvotes. The final decision for determining the allocation of tokens to contributors will be taken via community consensus. Later, communities will be able to customize their native token also. The new token based system will allow contributors to own a part of their favorite communities and will become a measure of the user’s reputation.
They can be used to purchase premium membership, badges, animated emojis and GIFs etc. The spending of community points removes them from circulation (burning effect) and enhances value of existing tokens. If the premium membership is purchased in FIAT, Reddit will burn tokens on their behalf. The community points or tokens can be gifted, tipped and sent to other users.
Reddit Ethereum Based Wallet “The Vault”
The Reddit mobile app now come with integrated Ethereum wallet called Vault to store and manage the community points, which exist on the blockchain and aren’t controlled by Reddit itself. The vaults have to be secured with complex passwords and users can choose to export the private keys also, for usage with other ERC-20 wallets.
Significance For Ethereum Adoption
Reddit is the 19th most visited site in the world (as of 14 May 2020) and has millions of users around the globe (around 430M users in 2019). Around 20M people use Reddit on a daily basis. By introducing the tokenization and community points on blockchain concept, the site will benefit from the enhanced user engagement and retention of users. The biggest beneficiary however will be Ethereum, which will acquire millions of new active users, who would learn about the blockchain through tokens and will have their ERC-20 based wallets created with ease. This new development alone has the massive potential to further drive mass adoption and high usage of the Ethereum blockchain.