Weve known for a while that Reddit will start monetizing their content with cryptocurrency. It finally happened.
For start they introduced 2 ERC20 tokens for two of their subbreddits. /r/Cryptocurrency and /r/FortniteBR
One called MOON and the other BRICKS.
Each of them will be able to get listed seperately and each have about the same utility that come from the unique features on Reddit. Subscriptions, badges and stuff like that.
"In the case of Reddit, you’ll be able to use these tokens to tip other users, buy badges and awards, take part in weighted polls, or buy a special membership to each subreddit (that gives you a colored user name, specialty loyalty badges, and the ability to embed gif replies in your comments.)"
While a lot of people saw the "20 million new crypto users" news being hyped on twitter i think we should probably pump the brakes a little bit. Right now its probably closer to a couple thousand (if that) out of which most are kids playing Fortnite.
If the #Bittorent and #TRON failure is anything to go by then we can see that just because you introduce a token into a service that doesnt necessarily mean that will translate to onboarding in any way.
Ive had a short discussion with another Hiver a few weeks ago on this topic and at the time i was kind of fearful of what Reddit taking over the content monetization space as the "top dog" would mean for HIVE. Right now, id probably say: "Not much".
HIVE is very niche and currently insignificant in the grand scheme of social media, which means we really wont feel it in any negative way. What it might do is actually raise interest in the mainstream for crypto content monetization which might even benefit HIVE and similar platforms.
But lets remember that Hive also has a very different value proposition then Reddit and is unique in its own way.
Reddit will still remain centralized, it will always have censorship and introducing what is "potentially" money into such a system will lead to a lot of turmoil which makes their token future very uncertain imo.
This is not some start-up that lives and dies with their token. This is a major company that will drop the idea of these tokens in a heartbeat if they see it doesnt add anything to their platform or is actually hurting them in some way.
Right now, MOON and BRICKS are very simple concepts that bring nothing new to crypto except (maybe) new eyes to this part of crypto world we reside in.
I my opinion there is enough room in the market for many social media services with its own crypto token! Some will become large, many others play a niche role. As stated by @markkujantunen in his comment; Reddit may make this type of social networning popular. Marketing is key; Something Steem and now also HIVE is not doing enough and not doing good enough and we may not be able to do this good enough due to the decentralised nature of our community. No single marketing plan can be drawn up and executed. When everybody does some of the marketing, we also get a lot of marketing that is not done right and it will actually backfire on our service. I believe we shall setup a marketing group in our HIVE eco-system, who will take the role of creating a marketing strategy and drives the execution. In the mean time, lets embrase initiatives like Reddit and cryptotokens.
EDIT: its very unfortunate we dont have token creation natively available as a feature yet, and the Reddit guys went with Ethereum.
That is quite unfortunate but i dont think Reddit would have gone with HIVE regardless. Ethereum is a much bigger name in crypto then Hive is.
You're probably right. Though they have the low userfriendliness of GAS, HEX look alike addresses and all of that. But indeed, they have the name :)
EDIT: I tried to comment on the Reddit post, but they dont let me; Have too little Karma and no idea how I can collect enough Karma. Guess by commenting and posting in communities that dont have a minimum of Karma I need.
This is what we get for slow playing smteees!
Maybe if we had SMTs 2 years ago, and thats a big maybe, with many success stories Reddit would have even considered it.
Eth is just too big of a player.
Too big of a player with transaction fees.
Who picks games you must pay to play?
People with more money than sense, iyam.
All hail, Ned!
Anytime the word #cryptocurrency is in the news, its good for the market as a whole. Well unless BTC gets thrown under the bus with a sex scandal of course. Even that could increase awareness for crypto as a whole.
BREAKING NEWS. Bitcoin caught in bed with the US dollar.😱
USD begged for it hardcore, but all it got was a quick pump and dump from BTC.
We all know USA is a he, uncle Sam... But which one Bitcoin is...
Word.
As to the rest of your post, I think your assessment that this brings welcome attention to crypto-rewards for content creators is accurate. There is no danger of us losing anything owing to this. Reddit's model of tokenization pales in comparison to what we have here. But getting people introduced to the concept is a necessary first step and Reddit doing it a welcome development.
What Reddit did with ERC20s is something im hoping SMTs will do on a much wider basis. If reddit sees value in tokenizing content then im sure thousands of other sites, social media platforms, blogs might see value in it as well.
And SMTs will allow even those that lack a technical background to monetize their platform.
Well, SMTs will allow every website to tailor their token according to their own needs without having to involve the base layer tokens of HIVE with the process.
That's why getting SMTs out is so important. It will serve Hive by increasing traffic on chain, which in turn will increase organic demand of RCs and Hive Power.
Good, maybe finally Hive will learn how to monetize the platform and give real value to the token :D
Lol. Well there might be some things to learn from Reddit but i hardly think they will manage to teach us much.
it's good for hive they get to learn about keys etc making them ready for a move to hive
... and then they need to learn about HIVE.
Can't be bothered. If Reddit monetize their shit, their users will be even more curious and start checking other platforms.
I ran away from the censorship bullshit on STEEM, im not about to go to Reddit now.
I dont think i can even post there from my account. My karma is too low. (I said things some folks didnt like😇.
Could never fuck with Reddit because I have no clue how the shit works. Plus, I can earn money from shitposts here, why should I bother posting in some centralised platform that won't enable my alcoholism?
It's too bad this couldn't have been an SMT, or whatever it is we will call it here on HIVE when/if it launches.
Hah, this means reddit will start to suck soon. 😆 Wait until they get filled with shitposts too.