TL;DR
Would you be surprised to learn that Reddit has had its own cryptocurrency for almost three years now? But, what if I told you that there’s not just one, but two separate tokens launched by one of the largest social networks on the internet? In true crypto fashion, the r/CryptoCurrency thread launched Reddit MOON Coin a while back. MOON is designed as a loyalty token for active community members, while the less talked about BRICK token was launched to represent the Fortnite community on Reddit. Not much traction has taken place with BRICK, but a lot is starting to happen with MOON. After three years in the market, MOON finally grabbed its first major exchange listing on crypto.com this month. So, is it time for MOON to become a premium crypto or is this just the exit liquidity everyone has been waiting for?
While Reddit has fallen from its position as the most active bulletin board over the past decade. It still houses the most active communities in crypto.
Launching a token that signifies this connection to emerging technologies was inevitable. The launch of Reddit Vaults paved the way for users to interact with networks like Ethereum and Arbitrum. Community Points introduced the mechanism that allows moderators and subreddit owners to begin receiving rewards and a sense of ownership for their contributions to Reddit. Any subreddit can issue community points to participants. Testing this new type of reward system, Reddit issued MOON as the Community Points for the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit.
Until recently, MOON has been a walled system that only allows the spending or use of MOON within Reddit. Primarily used to give weight to upvotes, earn special badges, and purchase membership options. But all of that is quickly changing with Reddit’s recent change to its terms of service to include the transfer and sale of community points.
What is r/CryptoCurrency Reddit Moon?
To most people, the r/CryptoCurrency thread appears to be like any other on Reddit. It’s actually become more of a testnet for Community Points. You see, while MOON has been created by Reddit. Community Points are available to all subreddits, but are only able to be claimed by those who’ve downloaded the Reddit app.
Since there hasn’t been much of a market for Community Points until now, investors in this new technology have had a difficult time obtaining quality data for trading. In a move that initially was seen as heresy by Reddit users, the platform announced last month that it would be making changes to the way Reddit interacts with outside applications through API’s, signaling that Reddit was not on the road to becoming a dApp-friendly place.
With Web3 discussions happening left and right this made absolutely no sense, at first. But the bigger picture soon revealed itself to be a wider focus on revenue for Reddit. As improvements are constantly being made to the Reddit API. This was simply the platform’s opportunity to make money from anyone who queries information from Reddit.
This change is part of the speculation behind Reddit MOON and BRICK tokens, perhaps as a way to stop outside users from gaming Community Points through APIs. The limitations of these tokens changed slightly with the release of Arbitrum through the use of the Nova Exchange. But ultimately they’ve remained…
Head of Research Jesse is a passionate seeker of truth who enjoys educating others about Bitcoin. As a free thinker and 2nd amendment advocate, Jesse believes each individual has the right to monetary freedom. “The swarm is headed towards us” -Satoshi Nakamoto
