That is an interesting move to empower users with a feeling of ownership. Although, it would be more interesting, to me, if they tried to push towards a distributed autonomous corporation instead. The type and amount of operations that could be fully automated is up for debate, but the attempt would be very interesting.
Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
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Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#22I´ts interesting, however the idea of Reddit to allocate 10% of their shares back to the Reddit community for me it´s more than something "cool" as Sam Altman said, and beyond the "a new way to think about community ownership".
From another perspective, It´s just a good strategy to do your own IPO (go public) without the legal/bureaucratic way. It´s creating your own NY Stock Exchange with the idea to increase your value based on what your users are doing now (because it will be possible to buy, sell and trade between users).
So, beyond the message that it´s for “giving back to the community”, Is it more a clever strategy to increase the company value, and even more the stockholders value? or I´m incorrect?
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#23This seems like an interesting but risky experiment if Reddit really does tie something like this to user contributions. First it seems like a massive regulatory headache. From Reddit's perspective, are they going to send out 1099s to their users? Will they require them to have real names and addresses on file? From a user perspective, will I need to worry about my Reddit activity when filling out my tax returns. It…
Can you imagine if people could actually turn their karma into straight cash? The incentive will be even higher to simply echo back to the group what you think it wants to hear.
Sure, but this is differs little from cable news, content mills, or many blogs. Fortunately, subreddits make it easy to filter-out the shallow echo chambers.
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#24This seems like an interesting but risky experiment if Reddit really does tie something like this to user contributions. First it seems like a massive regulatory headache. From Reddit's perspective, are they going to send out 1099s to their users? Will they require them to have real names and addresses on file? From a user perspective, will I need to worry about my Reddit activity when filling out my tax returns. It…
> Finally there is the issue of "circle jerking". Reddit is already notorious for its annoying and dangerous group think. Can you imagine if people could actually turn their karma into straight cash? The incentive will be even higher to simply echo back to the group what you think it wants to hear.
This was the first thing I thought about.
If you check /r/subredditdrama and /r/karmaconspiracy you can see literally hundreds of exemples where people go absolutely nuts for imaginary internet points: coordinate and downvote other people's content, mods with massive subreddit bans, etc. Can you think about what they will do for cash?
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#25If reddit figures out how to get past the legal and technical hurdles this brings, I'm very excited to see what comes of it and if other online communities will do something similar. Communities which produce a lot of content/value for free such as open source developers can begin getting equity in the companies they are helping.
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#26I´ts interesting, however the idea of Reddit to allocate 10% of their shares back to the Reddit community for me it´s more than something "cool" as Sam Altman said, and beyond the "a new way to think about community ownership". From another perspective, It´s just a good strategy to do your own IPO (go public) without the legal/bureaucratic way. It´s creating your own NY Stock Exchange with the idea to increase your v…
Everything you said is totally true, which is why the SEC will block it. The most they could do is set aside 10% of the shares and let users proxy vote them, but I don't think that using them to back a cryptocurrency is going to fly with the SEC. I know a lot of people like Bitcoin because it's magical internet money with no rules, but financial markets are regulated for a reason.
I don't think the SEC would have a problem with the method (using a cryptocurrency) but rather the reason (using a cryptocurrency to avoid SEC IPO/ownership rules). If Reddit were public, I don't see a problem with using their stock to back a cryptocurrency. But it's a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, so the SEC needs to close it before the con men descend.
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#27They will probably be using colored coins (assets issued and exchanged on the Bitcoin blockchain), not their own blockchain/altcoin. Otherwise, they would have to worry about keeping enough miners to make their blockchain secure. Colored coins also offer some cool features, such as trustless trading. It's possible to construct a transaction that sends Alice's Reddit shares to Bob, and also send's Bob's Bitcoins to Al…
Or you could just not use a blockchain. I think some guy named Chaum is rolling in his grave.
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#28So, what kind of crypto currency would this be? Does anyone know if there are plans for a mining operation like bit/lite/doge coin that one could participate in, or is it just a block chain that is allocated to reddit "shareholders" by some other means? (all of this is assuming that "considering a cryptocurrency" == "planning to implement a cryptocurrency")
It sounds more like a "cryptosecurity" than a currency.
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#29They will probably be using colored coins (assets issued and exchanged on the Bitcoin blockchain), not their own blockchain/altcoin. Otherwise, they would have to worry about keeping enough miners to make their blockchain secure. Colored coins also offer some cool features, such as trustless trading. It's possible to construct a transaction that sends Alice's Reddit shares to Bob, and also send's Bob's Bitcoins to Al…
Or you could just not use a blockchain. I think some guy named Chaum is rolling in his grave.
In favor of Reddit managing the ledger centrally? That doesn't allow for the public transparency that they would like, and it would probably be much harder legally (they would be stuck doing a bunch of KYC/AML stuff, which doesn't really make sense for a company like Reddit to need to deal with).
Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you could just not use a blockchain. I think some guy named Chaum is rolling in his grave.
In favor of Reddit managing the ledger centrally? That doesn't allow for the public transparency that they would like, and it would probably be much harder legally (they would be stuck doing a bunch of KYC/AML stuff, which doesn't really make sense for a company like Reddit to need to deal with).
I thought blockchain transparency is a bug and anonymity is a feature; it's hard to keep this stuff straight.
If you need KYC, a blockchain doesn't provide that anyway so you can either add hacks or just admit that it's not the right solution.