Reddit launches waitlist for sitewide expansion of 'Community Points'

Reddit has launched a waitlist, as well as a dedicated website, for an upcoming site-wide expansion of its ethereum-based "Community Points" token rewards program.

The social media platform, based on upvotes that earn users' karma points, first forayed into cryptocurrency token rewards in December 2019, when it launched an Ethereum-based token reward called "Donuts" on the r/Ethtrader subreddit. ".

In May 2020, the platform expanded its rewards program to include “Moons” in the r/Cryptocurrency subreddit, and “Bricks” for r/FortniteBR’s Ethereum testnet.

Now, the program will roll out as an opt-in feature of sections across the platform. Reddit users will be able to earn community points for contributions to subreddits, such as creating and uploading valuable content, or volunteering to moderate the community.

While points are still in beta, Reddit has "strongly advised caution." It is against the site rules to sell, exchange or trade these points.

"This behavior is very dangerous when credits are on the testnet - credits may be lost, or they may not be migrated to Ethereum mainnet," Reddit said.

The Community Points program is currently running on the Rinkeby testnet version of the Ethereum blockchain and plans to migrate to the Ethereum mainnet using the Eth-2 layer scaling solution Arbitrum.

Despite warnings from Reddit, owners of trial token rewards have been able to devise an intricate scheme to swap tokens for fiat currency.

Once the reward system is transferred to the mainnet, these tokens will likely be able to be exchanged, held or traded on cryptocurrency exchanges like other ERC-20 tokens.

Both users and moderators can sign up for the waitlist and request that the Community Points feature be added to their subreddits once the test item goes live.

Each subreddit participating in the program will be able to create "special memberships" that users can purchase with their points. These memberships unlock features like badges, GIFs, and animated emoji.

The plan will also introduce a "weighted voting" feature, which will give users with more community points a greater say, and therefore be active contributors in subreddits.

"Community Points are a measure of your reputation in the community. In subreddits, they appear next to usernames, so the biggest contributors stand out from the crowd," the new site explains.

Tokens will be stored on-chain in personal vaults, and they will be able to view, send and spend their community points within the Reddit app. Since points are on the blockchain, users can embed their "reputation" anywhere on the Internet.

Reddit held a "Scaling Bake-Off" contest in August 2020 to choose an Ethereum scaling solution for the project. In the following July 2021, Arbitrum was selected as the best candidate.

Reddit has not yet provided a timeline for the project. The social media platform is also working to build an NFT marketplace.