Weeks after Redditors noticed a limited beta implementation of a points and rewards function and what seemed to be a digital wallet on the platform, Reddit officially announced its new Community Points system built on the Ethereum network to better engage its plethora of users across various communities, driving them to post better quality content with the promise of points that can be customized for different uses in communities or to unlock user account privileges, such as the ability to include GIFs and custom emojis in their posts.
“We continuously run experiments to explore features that engage our users and communities. With Community Points, we’re working exclusively with two communities to test this feature and gather feedback from our users,” a Reddit representative said, according to Coindesk.
Community Points are fully transferable between users for tips, or if users would simply like to send their peers points for other reasons. Reddit states that when a user spends their points, the points are ‘burned’ from the system, which makes the points that users have on hand increase in non-monetary value. The points can also be exchanged for votes, where these votes are casted in community polls.
The points are kept in what Reddit calls the ‘Vault’, the platform’s version of a simple digital wallet tagged to individual users who have absolute control over the points in their wallet. Upon the creation of the Vault, users will be able to see their public wallet address and a private key. Points earned across multiple communities can be tracked in the Vault as well.
The new feature is still in its beta testing stages and this will remain the case until the end of summer, when all Community Points will be transferred from the current Rinkeby testnet to the Ethereum blockchain upon successful completion of the testing phase.
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