Reddit – one of the most popular social media platforms around – has partnered with leading digital currency trading platform FTX to introduce a campaign known as Community Points. The campaign is presenting users with new ways to accept crypto payments.
Reddit and FTX Join Hands
Digital currencies have made their way into “speculative” and even “hedge fund” territories. Many have thought of bitcoin, for example, as a means of beating inflation and preventing one’s portfolio from suffering due to excessive money printing, a narrative that has seemingly been facing several challenges over the past year or so.
However, what many people seem to forget is that digital currencies were initially created to help people make payments and gain access to items they need. When they’ve been flushed out by standard institutions or banks, they can turn to crypto to buy the items they require to help themselves and their families. Digital currencies were initially created to push checks, fiat currencies, and credit cards to the side, though this has come with several barricades due to the ongoing volatility these assets face.
Thus, Reddit has become one of the latest companies to help digital currencies achieve their initial goals. Niraj Sheth – staff software engineer at Reddit – explained in a recent interview:
We’re always working to empower communities and introduce new ways to use Reddit, and decentralized, self-sustaining blockchain technology allows us to do that. By working with FTX, we’re able to do this at scale.
FTX CEO and head executive Sam Bankman-Fried also threw his two cents into the mix and commented on his growing excitement to work with one of the world’s leading social media companies. He said:
We’re excited to partner with Reddit to continue their work to empower online communities to harness the power of blockchain.
FTX has been in the news a lot as of late. Aside from the fact that it’s a relatively new digital currency exchange and has become very big and very popular in virtually no time at all, the company has done quite a bit to make crypto much more accessible and mainstream. For example, it’s one of the few digital currency platforms to spend money on television advertising.
Not All the Decisions Have Worked
Recently, the firm made the rounds with a commercial featuring legendary quarterback Tom Brady making fun of the crypto mining process. A previous one – which rubbed several viewers the wrong way – starred Larry David of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame and played during the Super Bowl.
In addition, Bankman-Fried has recently announced plans to donate a lot of money to political candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, though given many of the candidates he’s planning to support are liberals, this could come back to haunt him as democrats don’t have the best track record when it comes to cryptocurrency.
