Social news platform Reddit has announced its decision to discontinue Community Points, the blockchain-based community point rewards service, effective November 8, citing regulatory constraints on scalability as the primary reason.
Launched in May 2020, Community Points were designed to incentivize quality content and positive engagement within various subreddits. These rewards were represented as Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens stored in the Reddit Vault, an in-house crypto wallet service.
Initially hosted on the Ethereum network, the service later migrated to Arbitrum, a layer-2 scaling solution, to enhance its scalability. Different subreddits had unique tokens; for instance, the r/CryptoCurrency board featured the Moons (MOON) token, while the r/FortNiteBR subreddit used Bricks (BRICK). Users could utilize these tokens to purchase badges and exclusive items for their avatars.
Official Announcement By Reddit
In an official announcement on the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit, the platform’s Community team member, u/cozy__sheets, revealed the decision to discontinue Community Points. It includes Special Memberships, which will cease to exist after November 8. Users will no longer see Points in their Reddit Vault or earn them within communities.
The platform mentions regulatory challenges as a primary reason for its discontinuation. Despite receiving support from moderators and communities, the service struggled to adapt within the changing regulatory landscape.
The platform remains dedicated to the core idea behind Community Points, emphasizing enhancing community governance and empowering contributions. As a strategic decision, ending Community Points will enable the platform to allocate resources toward more scalable alternatives, such as the Contributor Program.
This program allows eligible users to earn cash based on their karma and gold from qualifying contributions, presenting a simpler and more accessible option. With the rollout of an improved reddit.com experience, the platform recognized that Community Points would not seamlessly integrate into the updated platform without significant resource allocation.
Therefore, the decision was made to shift resources to more scalable programs like the Contributor Program. Community Points, including Special Memberships, will be phased out by November 8. Points in community wallets will be burned by the end of the year.
The platform expressed gratitude for the community’s involvement and emphasized that the lessons learned from Community Points would be applied to empower more communities and reward contributions in other ways, ensuring a continued commitment to the program’s spirit. The platform remains open to questions and feedback regarding this transition.
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