Reddit has decided to shut down its ‘Community Points’ initiative that it launched for its crypto-friendly users back in 2020. Citing stability concerns, the feature let Reddit users earn Ethereum rewards based on the up votes they got on contributing to a subreddit with insightful content or by volunteering to moderate the community. In an official announcement released on October 17, the social networking platform informed its users that its Community Points programme will be coming to an end on November 8.
“Part of why we’re winding down Community Points is because we’re able to scale several products that accomplish what the Community Points program was trying to accomplish, while being easier to adopt and understand. Though we saw some future opportunities for Community Points, there was no path to scale it broadly across the platform,” said Reddit’s official post.
The Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens, that were rewarded to eligible Redditors, were extracted from the ‘Reddit Vault’, which is the platform’s own crypto wallet service.
Reddit’s crypto tokens MOON and BRICK have seen a sharp price decline since the news of community points being withdrawn broke on its blog. Meanwhile, a debate has started on X concerning Reddit’s decision among community members.
While some people on X are claiming that Reddit may have ‘rugged’ the investors of MOON and BRICK with this move, others are defending the platform saying that it makes sense for it to shut down features that are not performing as expected.
What the fuck, Reddit (yes actually the company Reddit) just rugged their users by “discontinuing” their native cryptocurrency.
-90% just like that. pic.twitter.com/lzuqs1KNsX
— Byzantine General (@ByzGeneral) October 17, 2023
So, in general, if a company starts a feature they should continue till eternity?
— Pratik (@Pratik_in_Web3) October 17, 2023
Reddit, as of now, has not addressed these claims.
“We still love the idea that inspired Community Points. Specifically, finding better ways to improve community governance and empower communities and contributions. Though the moderators and communities that supported Community Points have been incredible partners – as it’s evolved, the product is no longer set up to scale,” its announcement noted.
