Reddit Partners With Ethereum Foundation to Work on Scalability Solutions

Key highlights:

• Reddit has teamed up with the Ethereum Foundation to work on scalability solutions for Ethereum
• Reddit currently uses blockchain tech for an initiative called Community Points
• Community Points are blockchain-based tokens that reward users for participation in Reddit communities

Reddit partners with Ethereum Foundation as it looks to commit more to blockchain tech

Popular discussion platform and aggregator Reddit has partnered with the Ethereum Foundation to work on scalability solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem.

Last year, Reddit dived into blockchain for the first time through an initiative called »Community Points«. Built on top of the Rinkeby Ethereum testnet, Community Points are tokens that reward participation in Reddit communities, better known as subreddits. Users who accumulate enough Community Points can purchase a special membership to the subreddit represented by the token in question, unlocking exclusive features such as the ability to post animated GIFs or add custom badges to their usernames.

Community Points were launched for two subreddits – r/cryptocurrency users can earn »Moons«, while r/FortniteBR users can earn »Bricks«. The tokens can be held in a »Vault« on Reddit’s mobile app, but they can also be withdrawed to an Ethereum wallet and transacted freely on the blockchain.

After launching Community Points, Reddit also hosted a competition where developers could submit scalability solutions that could handle the activity generated by Community Points. According to yesterday’s post from by Reddit admin "jarins", this competition helped kickstart Reddit’s collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation. jarins added:

"Through this partnership, we will be increasing our commitment to blockchain, accelerating scaling and resources for the Ethereum ecosystem, and bringing the value and independence of blockchain technology to millions of redditors."

According to the post, any tech that results from this collaboration will be made available publicly and open-sourced. Reddit is also looking to add blockchain experts to its staff, and is currently hiring for a senior backend engineer with experience in blockchain development. 

One of the main ways in which the Ethereum project is approaching scalability is Ethereum 2.0, which will introduce proof-of-stake and sharding. However, there also other approaches to scaling Ethereum, namely through layer 2 solutions that incorporate techniques like rollups, Plasma, and sidechains.