You will learn what is Reddit used for and why Is Reddit community a big deal in this article. Reddit is a social news platform that allows users to discuss and vote on content that other users have submitted. Almost everyone in the crypto field knows Reddit and Reddit is also developing the Community for the blockchain and crypto world.
What is Reddit used for?
Reddit is a collection of discussion boards (called subreddits) on various topics where members can upvote or downvote posts. It has an enormous (and devoted) userbase with 430 million monthly active users and 150 million pages visited each day. Reddit proclaims itself to “The Front Page of the Internet” and it's kinda true: viral videos and stories that you read on Buzzfeed or see syndicated on local news often come from Reddit.
Along with its massive popularity and influence, it's important to understand Reddit's reputation system for its users, called Karma. When you submit a post and it gets a bunch of upvotes, you get more Karma points. When your post gets downvoted, you get less . Karma is a coveted metric as it can increase the number of people who see your posts. It's also a point of pride for users. More Karma means you've used Reddit for a while and people support your posts.
What Are Community Points?
Earlier this month, Reddit announced they were launching a pilot program called Community Points. Community Points, in the words of Reddit, allow users to “earn Points by contributing to the community, for example by submitting quality posts and comments.”
Sounds like the existing Karma reputation system, right? Well, there's a twist. Reddit has built their Community Points on Ethereum, the blockchain network. Community Points are digitally represented as tokens on the blockchain: 1 Community Point on Reddit is mirrored by 1 Community Point on the Ethereum blockchain.
Why Are Community Points on the Blockchain?
Alexis Ohanian, husband of Serena Williams and cofounder of Reddit, is a believer in cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks. His venture capital firm was one of the first backers of Coinbase, now one of the most popular cryptocurrency products. He's a consistent supporter and cheerleader cryptocurrencies.
The explainer for the Community Points program describes the current landscape of the internet as being a far cry from the “free frontier” it was when it first started.
It goes on to describe the consolidation of the Internet into walled platforms, which trapped users and limited possibility.
Last, it talks about the potential for users to reclaim their “ownership of the frontier,” presumably through blockchain networks.
For now, it seems Reddit is hoping to push blockchain adoption by acting as a mainstream onboarding tool between its enormous audience and the Ethereum blockchain.
Why Is Reddit Community a Big Deal?
Blockchain has still not reached mainstream adoption and Reddit's program exposes blockchain to a larger audience. Reddit not only has a large user base, but it also holds real cultural cache due to its unique position on the Internet. The fact that they are using blockchain and Ethereum is really exciting.
Reddit has also created a solid onboarding experience for its users by walking them through setting up a Vault and integrating blockchain directly with two popular subreddits. They're using a process called meta-transactions (which you can learn more about here) to help facilitate The sometimes-tricky process of submitting Ethereum transactions.
Reddit is also doing this with (at least partly) the idealistic intention of helping to build the broader blockchain and internet community. Identifying Ethereum as the best place to leverage these intentions is a great vote of confidence for both blockchain and Ethereum.
Bottom Line
Creating a community on any platform takes a lot of time and hard work, and Reddit is no different. If you have a product or brand that thrives on interacting and gaining feedback from people, Reddit is a great place to do it. So it is good to know what is Reddit used for and why Is Reddit community a big deal.
