Reddit says it will soon shut down its long-running blockchain-based rewards service, Community Points, due to scalability concerns.
Officially released on October 17 announcement In the r/cryptocurrency subreddit, a Reddit team member said that while the platform sees “some future opportunities for community points, there is no way to broadly scale it across the platform.”
Community Points services, including special membership features, will cease on November 8th. “At that point, you will no longer see points in your Reddit vault, nor will you earn any points in the community,” a Reddit team member wrote.
The community points feature was first launched in May 2020, providing point rewards for users who actively participate in certain Reddit subreddits, aiming to incentivize higher-quality content on the platform.
These points are Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens stored in the platform’s internal crypto wallet service called the “Reddit Vault.”
The points service was initially launched on the Ethereum network and later migrated to Arbitrum, a layer 2 scaling solution for greater scalability.
Each Reddit subreddit has its own token, with the Moons (MOON) token being the native crypto asset of the r/cryptocurrency board, and Bricks (BRICK) being used in the r/FortNiteBR subreddit. Users can use these points to purchase badges and exclusive items for their avatar.
Responding to the initial statement, r/cryptocurrency moderator “CryptoMods” explained that they had just learned of the decision and were “disappointed” by the move.
Related: Reddit community token surges after Kraken listing
“First and foremost, your moon is still yours and will not be burned. The transfer function in the smart contract is not turned off and Reddit is removing control of the contract,” they wrote.
The value of Reddit tokens MOON and BRICK plummeted after the news broke, with Reddit users and cryptocurrency enthusiasts expressing disappointment and anger at the decision.
Anonymous trader Byzantine General told his 163,000 followers on
What the heck, Reddit (yes, actually Reddit the company) just empowered their users by “discontinuing” their native cryptocurrency.
-90% is what it is. pic.twitter.com/lzuqs1KNsX
— Byzantine General (@ByzGeneral) October 17, 2023
“Reddit basically screwed every r/cc user within a few hours. I have canceled my special membership. I will never use this damn platform again. I hope whoever runs this cesspool All rotting in hell. What a joke,” Reddit user “Bunker Beans” wrote In response to the original post on r/cryptocurrency.
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