Reddit crypto community goes offline: Here’s why

Numerous sub-communities on Reddit, including popular crypto subreddits, unanimously decided to go private for 48 hours to protest against new company policies that prevent the use of third-party applications.

In April, Reddit announced plans to modify the way users can interact with Reddit Data API, a seven-year-old application that enabled developers to create tool and utilities for moderation and other activities.

Most subreddits retaliated the move as Reddit’s intention to build native moderator tools directly impacts the community’s ability to create and use third-party tools – predominantly used for moderating the content and interactions. As a result, communities decided to go private or in read-only modes between June 12 – June 14, protesting against the upcoming change.

The list includes major crypto communities, which have been instrumental for millions of investors worldwide to discuss various aspects of the ecosystem.

Some of the popular subreddits dedicated to discussing Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies that are protesting against the change include r/Bitcoin, r/CryptoCurrency/ and r/cardano. Reddit has also received backlash for introducing paid access to its Data API.

While nearly 3,500 subreddits were estimated to become inaccessible, the numbers could increase if other communities join the revolt. On the other hand, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman backed the social media platform’s decision by revealing the need for being “a self-sustaining business.” He said:

“We respect when you and your communities take action to highlight the things you need, including, at times, going private.”

Moreover, to eradicate the extensive use third-party moderator tools, Reddit plans to launch mobile moderator tools for Reddit’s iOS and Android apps in the coming months.

Contrary to the ongoing community retaliation, Reddit is close to achieving a new milestone in terms of collectible avatar holders on the platform.

Reddit managed to amass 10 million holders of its collectible avatars barely within an year of the launching “Reddit NFTs.”

Reddit’s collectible avatar marketplace was launched on the Ethereum scaling network Polygon in July 2022, which allows independent artists and Redditors to design customizable NFT collections.

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