In 2020, Reddit introduced Community Points, a novel initiative that rewarded content creators with Ethereum-based tokens for their contributions, allowing them to showcase their achievements with badges and emojis on the platform. While this experiment initially added a fun and rewarding aspect to the Reddit community, it has since been discontinued. The decision to end it was primarily due to the high cost of maintaining scalability, which was considered unsustainable.
Tim Rathschmidt, Reddit's director of consumer and product communications, announced that the program would conclude by early November. He explained that the expense of keeping the system operational outweighed its benefits. This discontinuation would significantly impact only a few subreddits, as the original vision of bringing every Reddit user into the world of blockchain technology proved to be financially impractical.
Rathschmidt mentioned Reddit's exploration of alternative solutions that are decentralized, secure, and highly scalable. In 2022, an attempt was made to reduce costs by migrating the project to Arbitrum Nova, but even Layer-2 solutions proved to be prohibitively expensive.
Uncertain regulatory conditions surrounding cryptocurrencies also played a role in this decision. The evolving regulatory environment and its associated uncertainties added to the challenges of sustaining the Community Points program. While it's improbable that the SEC would specifically target Reddit, the overall unpredictability of regulatory changes led Reddit's administration to reconsider the program.
The discontinuation of Community Points had repercussions on cryptocurrency tokens associated with Reddit, such as the MOON token from r/CryptoCurrencies, which saw a significant drop in value. MOON, for example, experienced an 86.4% decline, and DONUT, the community points token of the EthTrader subreddit, also plummeted by over 50%.
Reddit's decision to wind down the blockchain-based Community Points program was influenced by scalability issues, high costs, and regulatory uncertainties, ultimately leading to a significant impact on affiliated cryptocurrency tokens.
#moon #reddit

On June 12, 2023, a large number of cryptocurrency communities on Reddit went private or read-only in protest of new changes to the platform. The changes, which were announced by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman in April, would prevent users from freely accessing APIs and other tools used to develop third-party apps.

The protest was organized by the r/cryptocurrency subreddit, which has more than 4 million members. In a post announcing the protest, r/cryptocurrency moderators said the changes would "severely hamper the development of new tools and services for the cryptocurrency community." They also argued that the changes were "a clear attempt by Reddit to monetize its user base."

The protest received broad support from other cryptocurrency communities on Reddit. By the end of the day on June 12, more than 7,000 subreddits had gone private or read-only in support of the protest.

In response to the outcry, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the company was "committed to working with the community to find a solution that works for everyone." He also said the company was "open to feedback" and would "continue to listen to the community."

The protest is a sign of the growing importance of cryptocurrency communities on Reddit. These communities have played an important role in the growth of the cryptocurrency industry and are likely to continue to play an important role in the future.

Here are some of the reasons cryptocurrency communities on Reddit are protesting the new changes:

The changes would make it more difficult for developers to create new tools and services for the cryptocurrency community.

The changes would allow Reddit to monetize its user base.

The changes are not transparent or open to comment.

The protest is a sign that the cryptocurrency communities on Reddit are not happy with the new changes. It is also a sign that these communities are willing to take steps to protect their interests.

#reddit