Reddit has put its plans to develop a cryptocurrency, called ‘reddit notes,’ on hold. The company decided to cease development of reddit notes due to the uncertainty surrounding the legal frameworks for cryptocurrencies, according to a Hacker News post by Reddit co-founder and executive chairman Alexis Ohanian.
“We will be issuing redditnotes,” Ohanian said. “Our research leads us to want to wait until the law and technology around cryptocurrency are further along before deciding exactly how.”
Reddit initially announced its plans for reddit notes back in December. The cryptocurrency was supposed to be used as a way to give a piece of Reddit back to its users. Investors in Reddit’s most recent funding round agreed to give 10 percent of their shares back to the user community. The concept was to then distribute 950,000 reddit notes to users through a lottery in late 2015.
The story behind the story: Although Ohanian claims reddit note is on hold for legal and technical reasons, it appears this may be more about shifting priorities at the company than anything else. The reddit note effort began under former CEO Yishan Wong, who resigned in November. After Wong left, Reddit’s lead developer working on the reddit notes code, Ryan X. Charles–who came to Reddit from BitPay–continued working on the project. But in a post on Reddit Charles says he felt his days at the company were probably numbered. Charles announced via Twitter on Friday that he’d been fired, saying that cryptocurrency was no longer part of Reddit’s “near-term plans.”
We’ll always have Bitcoin
If you’re a hardcore Reddit user who was hoping to get a reddit note you’re out of luck for now. But anyone looking to use cryptocurrency to tip other users or purchase Reddit Gold can always use Bitcoin. Reddit has accepted Bitcoin for Gold, the site’s premium membership program, since 2013.
[via The Verge]