By
Bena Ilyas
April 22nd, 2024
By announcing its native blockchain wallet – the “Vault” and the Loot Tokens representing the “community points”, Reddit takes the crypto route to establish user authenticity and credibility on its platform.
Reddit, one of the world’s largest community-driven social media platform has unveiled its new cryptocurrency to its users. Reddit has been one of the hot discussion platforms for all crypto-related stuff across the globe. Even popular personalities like Ethereum‘s co-founder Vitalik Buterin uses Reddit to reach out to the members. Subreddits like /r/Cryptocurrency and /r/ForniteBR attracted nearly 20 million monthly visitors on a regular basis. With its new cryptocurrency dubbed Loot Tokens, Reddit has decided to expand its “community points” trial. This is also a step from Reddit to encourage valuable contributions to its platforms.
Besides, Reddit said that they would leverage the Ethereum blockchain platform to incentivize user-contributions through quality comments and posts. Furthermore, the rewards will be distributed based on the user’s contribution to the platform.
Reddit said that these points will represent the measure of the reputation of a user on the platform. Thus, users can accumulate more points and spend them on premium and unique features like custom emojis, badges, and GIFs. Speaking to CoinDesk, a Reddit spokesperson said:
“We continuously run experiments to explore features that engage our users and communities. With Community Points, we’re working exclusively with two communities to test this feature and gather feedback from our users. 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,”
How Does Reddit Loot Token Work?
Each member of a particular Reddit community can have his/her own Reddit Vault. Thus, whenever other users find any post/comment valuable, they can add a tip directly to the contributors Ethereum wallet address. Besides, they can also transfer community points direct to the Reddit member’s vault.
However, to start using Reddit’s local blockchain wallet i.e. The “Vault”, users first need to sign up by scanning a QR code through Reddit’s official app. Reddit says that will ensure that the users have full control over their “community points”. Meaning, neither Reddit nor the moderator will have any control over the spending of the coins.
“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.
To determine the contribution made by a user to a particular community, Reddit points will appear next to the user’s name making the entire process transparent. However, users must maintain a thing of caution.
When a user creates their own Reddit “Vault” they will get access to a private key stored locally on the smart device. But in case the user loses his/her smart device without creating any backup of the key, they will lose access to their “community points” forever.
Initially, Reddit will release a total of 50 million points and will add another 50 million over the course of a year. Reddit has put a maximum cap at 250 million points.