What are Reddit’s blockchain-based community points?
Note: Everything in this post has been taken directly from the official Reddit app on Android. My only contribution is a digest and small update at the beginning of this post. All the content is purely for educational purposes.
Update (May 14th):
My leak has been officially confirmed!
Update (April 13th):
The wallet feature in my Reddit app was disabled shortly after this post and hasn’t been enabled since. I also haven’t had any conversations with Reddit staff yet. Like the rest of you, I’m just waiting for the official announcement from Reddit to confirm the news.
Summary with key bullet points:
What are Community Points?
- standard ERC-20 token on Ethereum blockchain
- representation of ownership of a subreddit
- a measure of reputation and contribution within a community
- can be used without restriction, control or permission of Reddit
- can be used in different ways depending on a community’s culture
Distribution and earning Points
- Initial distribution will be 50 M Points and it will count users all-time contribution in a subreddit to date. Then, over the first year, another 50 M Points will be distributed.
- With each next cycle, the distribution of Points will decrease and converge towards a maximum cap of 250 M.
- Points are distributed to users once in 4 weeks based on their contributions with comments and posts.
- some share of Points are reserved for people who contribute to the community in other ways like Mods (10%), Reddit (20%) and another 20% will be reserved for the broader Reddit community.
Spending Points
- you can spend Points on special memberships and get exclusive features in the community like badges, gifs, stickers, animated emojis, (maybe flairs?).
- users with no Points can also pay with $ and Reddit will burn their own Points on the users’ behalf
- spent points are burned and removed from the circulation
Voting and Karma
- polls will be common to establish agreements within a community
- your weight in polls will be based on your contribution in the community
- karma is still earned through upvotes but now also becomes a significant metric in your vote weight and Points earnings
- buying Points will not give you more voting power
Full-text version directly from the Reddit app
What are community points?
Community points are a new tool that represents ownership of a subreddit.
Community points are currently available in some subreddits that opt into them (where go by custom names, such as Bricks).
Community Points are earned every month by making contributions to the subreddit, such as posting and commenting. Points can then be used in various ways, including buying memberships and voting on weighted polls. Point balances will also show up next to usernames, as a form of reputation visible to everyone.
Community Points are fully controlled by the people who own them. they live on the Ethereum blockchain, which uses the same technology as Bitcoin to guarantee property rights and control. even Reddit cannot take them away.
As a unit of ownership, Points are intended to be a flexible tool that can be used in different ways by different communities. Over time, communities will find ways to use points that are unique to them and fit their culture.
Reputation
Points are a measure of reputation and contribution within a community. to highlight the most important members of a community, points balances will be displayed next to usernames on posts and comments in the subreddit.
Memberships
Users can spend points to buy special memberships in their community. A special membership unlocks exclusive features in the community, specifically:
- badges: Icons and images that show up next to your name on posts and comments
- animated emojis: custom-made animations in comments
- GIFs: images from Giphy’s GIF catalog in comments
Points that are used to buy Special Memberships do not go to Reddit. Instead, the Points are destroyed (‘burned’), making everyone else’s share of points go up. this ensures that buying membership rewards the community as a whole.
People who do not have Points can still buy Memberships with dollars. In this case, they will pay Reddit, and Reddit will burn some of its own Points on their behalf.
Voting
Subreddits with Community Points get an additional view of poll results. In addition to the normal headcount view (1 vote per person), there is also a weighted view by Points (~one per Point). this allows the community to see how its core contributors feel.
A person’s weight in the poll is calculated as the minimum of their current balance and the num and the number of Points they have ever earned. this ensures that influence must be earned, and that no one can get Points in other ways to affect their voting weight.
Distribution
Community points are distributed monthly based on contributions made to the subreddit.
Every 4 weeks, Reddit will publish a list of karma amounts earned by each user in that subreddit during that period. the community has a week to review the list and propose changes or alternatives, if they wish. They can do this by creating a new list with an accompanying poll. If the poll meets the minimum quorum and passes, the new list becomes the official contribution values for that period (unless there is evidence of abuse in the vote, such as bribery).
Once the contribution values have been finalized, Reddit publishes the final list, along with Reddit’s signature for each user who has already created a wallet. This signature is used to claim Points on the blockchain. For users that have not yet registered a wallet, Reddit will sign their karma amounts on-the-fly once they do register their wallet. Users will have 6 months to claim their Points from the time the final list is generated, before they expire.
In addition, some share of Points are reserved for people who contribute to the community in other ways. Mods get a 10% share for their administrative contributions to the subreddit, Reddit gets 20% of Points and another 20% will be reserved for the broader Reddit community.
The number of Points distributed each cycle decreases over time and converges towards a maximum cap. Initial distribution will be 50 million Points, based on karma earned in the subreddit to date. then, over the first year, another 50 million Points will be distributed. Over time, the amount distributed every cycle will continue to decrease so that the total number of distributed Points approaches 250 million.
In addition to the base schedule above, half of the burned points are reintroduced each month into the next distribution. This will gradually result in later distributions leveling off to a roughly fixed amount of points.
Note that the initial distribution round works a little differently than later rounds. Karma for the initial round is counted from all time in that subreddit, and Reddit does not publish a CSV with the data (since communities do not yet have Points to vote on changing it).
Wallet
There is a new section of the Reddit app called “Wallet” where you can manage and use your Points. In your Wallet, you can see your Points balance for each subreddit. You can also claim any Points you have earned and spend them on things like Special Memberships. In order to access this section of the app, you must be subscribed to a subreddit that has Community Points. Behind the scenes, your Wallet is a way to access the Ethereum blockchain. When your Wallet is created, it generates a public address and a private key. The public address is your address on the Ethereum network where your Points are stored. The private key is the only way to access it or use your Points.
Only you control your private key. Even Reddit has no access to it. Reddit only knows your public address (so it can check your balance and issue new Points), but Reddit cannot do anything with your Points without your explicit permission.
Backup and recovery
The private key to your Wallet is kept only on your device. That means if you lose your device, your Wallet and all of your Points could be lost. Even Reddit would be unable to recover them. To prevent this, you can back up your Wallet in two ways: -Store a secure, encrypted backup of your private key on Reddit servers. This backup is encrypted with a new “Wallet Password” that must be different than your Reddit password. The encryption prevents anyone else (including Reddit) from accessing your private key from the backup.
Save the Wallet’s Recovery Phrase. The Recovery Phrase is 12 words that can be used to recover the Wallet. We encourage people to store them in a secure place that others cannot get to, such as a password manager.
On the blockchain
Community Points live on the Ethereum blockchain. This uses the same technology as Bitcoin to guarantee that only you own your Points and only you control them. Community Points are stored as standard ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. This makes them interoperable with existing blockchain tools. Ethereum is a public blockchain that Reddit does not control. This means your Community Points can be seen and used independently of Reddit, without having to get Reddit’s permission to use them. Points are owned pseudonymously. Nothing on the Ethereum network connects to your real name or real identity.
How is this different from Karma?
Karma is a score that reflects how much a user has contributed across all of Reddit, as earned through upvotes on posts and comments. Karma cannot be traded or used for other purposes. Karma scores are also centralized — they live on Reddit’s computers and are owned and controlled entirely by Reddit, not by users.
Points are a decentralized blockchain token that represents ownership in a community. They are stored outside of Reddit, they can be traded freely, and they can be used for any number of purposes within the community, without restriction or control of Reddit. If Reddit stops operating, or the community leaves Reddit, Community Points still continue to exist.
Vote manipulation and Karma farming
Reddit’s site-wide policies strictly prohibit vote manipulation, and we have dedicated teams and technology in place to detect and mitigate spam and abuse. Users who attempt to manipulate votes may be temporarily or permanently banned from a subreddit and/or the site.
Regarding Points specifically, any user that has been banned from the site or a subreddit will not be awarded Community Points in future distributions. If a user is not acting in good faith but has not been permanently banned, the community can also vote on an updated karma CSV to make changes to the distribution. This empowers the community to take corrective measures in edge cases of Points earned in bad faith.
In the future, we will continue to evaluate and explore alternative models to mitigate abuse.
