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Why does it need to be decentralized? It's kind of stupid that just to avoid legal roadblocks like selling a security, Reddit will use a decentralized blockchai
by 127 6y ago
Why does it need to be decentralized? It's kind of stupid that just to avoid legal roadblocks like selling a security, Reddit will use a decentralized blockchain instead of just a database. There's no technical reason for it, just legal and political.
- dylkil 6y agoSeems like this is their first attempt at commoditising engagement. By using ethereum, the tokens are trade-able inside an already liquid system. It also removes trust from the equation.
- b_fiive 6y ago"just legal and political"
- dehrmann 6y agoIt doesn't look like anything with actual value is being traded? All I got from the story was that "political" means reddit admins can't take away someone's tokens.
- Sargos 6y agoIf this was only run on Reddit servers then nothing interesting could be done with it. These BRICKS and MOONS are ERC20 tokens which means they can be traded with other users on things like Uniswap, used as collateral for loans on Compound, and integrated into games such as Cryptovoxels. Being a token enables a lot more use cases than simply being another number in their servers.
- carleverett 6y agoDecentralization isn't really the point - it's going from non-tradable Reddit karma to tradable ERC-20 tokens. Reddit definitely could have built a marketplace that let people trade karma from different subreddits, with a way to deposit and withdraw USD. Like you mentioned though there's the legal challenge of getting licensed as a money transmission service if you do that. But also, why do all that work when all that infrastructure already exists on Ethereum? Plus you get the added benefit that Reddit's tokens can be traded every other asset on Ethereum too.