Cryptoverse Speculates On Alleged Reddit Plans With Ethereum (UPDATED)
Speculations that an Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based asset may be coming to major discussion website Reddit and that it is working on adding a points system based on this blockchain have recently become a new talk of the Cryptoverse. (Updated at 15:08 UTC: updates in bold.)
The story starts on Wednesday morning with redditor MagoCrypto opening “literally just the normal official Reddit app on Android” and finding a ‘wallet’ menu option there, and in it ‘blockchain.’ The redditor “got super excited to share with rest of y’all,” writes MagoCrypto who, according to a Reddit profile is a community manager at Unstoppable Domains, a San Francisco-based company that’s building blockchain domain names.
Not many people seem to be able to see this ‘addition’ to the app, and MagoCrypto stated that it’s not any beta testing. Even though not many details are available at the moment, MagoCrypto argues that “a huge social media implementing a blockchain asset can really be good for crypto adoption.”
“We continuously experiment with ways to support communities on Reddit. In this instance, we’re working with one community to test a feature that represents a user’s involvement in a community. We value and seek out community feedback as we continue to explore features that engage our users and communities,” a Reddit spokesperson told Cryptonews.com.
However, redditors are already making their own conclusions and are speculating based on the video MagoCrypto posted yesterday, showing what seems to be a beta implementation of a work-in-progress.
Reddit is implementing a points system on the blockchain! (Official Reddit app on Android) from r/CryptoCurrency
What can be seen is the user accessing their wallet, which offers options such as ‘recovery phase’, ‘introduction’, ‘help’, as well as ‘frequently asked questions’. In this last one, MagoCrypto finds the ‘using points’ section with categories that include ‘memberships’, ‘voting’, ‘reputation’, ‘what are community points,’ and ‘tipping and transferring’. These may potentially indicate that some form of awarding other users and/or being involved in the site’s and Reddit ecosystem’s future development may be possible, as well as transferring the points in some way, though we can’t conclude if users would be able to transfer these points to external wallets (outside Reddit). Nonetheless, it would indicate that these Reddit points, like crypto, would posses some value, at the very least within Reddit. The ‘getting points’ section includes ‘distribution’, wallet’, ‘backup and recovery’, and ‘on the blockchain’, further suggesting that users may each have their own blockchain address.
Based on the details that they could notice, commenters quickly reached a conclusion that the blockchain in question is Ethereum, given the valid Ethereum address that could be seen in the video. The address currently has one transaction recorded, receiving ETH 0.0001. The address that sent it has sent the same amount of ETH nine times to a contract in the last three days.
Reddit user bumbaclotdumptruck finds that it’s unlikely that this is an official app, given the ‘todo’ pages, and that this is probably a UI (user interface) design prototype.
Many have asked the question “is blockchain necessary here,” answering it promptly with “no, it’s not, but…” User ROGER_CHOCS, for example, says that there’s a lot more “that could be implemented to this. [Decentralized autonomous organization’s] and such for every sub to allow more community involvement, moving servers away from centralized providers to something like Sia S3.” Many more are excited as this could potentially open a number of different opportunities and use cases.
“Is it necessary, probaby not,” wrote Admirral. “But it is a luxury to have imo. The real question should be… what advantage does blockchain bring? It allows users to freely trade the tokens without any restrictions, and also open doors for people to link the currency to DeFi protocols. Is this all necessary? Absolutely not. But for the blockchain enthusiasts, those are awesome features to have available and makes Reddit stand out from competitors with similar systems.”
NeoShinobii speculates that this system could bring some limited edition and time-sensitive awards that users can get and that would have their own hash key, eventually becoming collector’s items. And while some comment that blockchain is always necessary, others are worried that blockchain is used just for marketing purposes. User Patri_Kelley argues that “blockchain doesn’t need to be in everything. In mos[t] causes it is used as a buzzword for speculation.”
