Reddit has partnered with FTX, a crypto exchange owned by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, to make it possible for users to purchase Ethereum cryptocurrency on the platform.
The new functionality will be applied to community points, which the user earns through making meaningful posts, comments and other contributions to the platform. Originally introduced in 2020, a user’s community points are a measure of their online reputation, and can be used to acquire special community membership, vote, or reward creators on the platform.
Community points, an ERC-20 token built on the Arbitrum Nova blockchain, are stored in a ‘vault’, a blockchain-based wallet where users also store their collectible NFT avatars that Reddit introduced to the platform last month.
Because they exist on the Ethereum blockchain, they also incur gas fees, which users can easily pay by converting Fiat currency to Ethereum through FTX Pay. “Users need ETH for gas fees to transact with their Points on-chain, and FTX Pay allows them to do that,” said Amy Wu, head of FTX Ventures, in a tweet.
Future applications of FTX Pay may be in stocks, reminiscent of last year’s r/WallStreetBets activity which propelled GameStop shares to new heights. So far, however, only users of the r/Cryptocurrency and r/ForniteBR subreddits can use community points.
If you see something out of place or would like to contribute to this story, check out our Ethics and Policy section.
