Reddit boss rules out timely crypto integration

In addition to Twitter, Reddit is the scene meeting place for everything that has to do with crypto. The community exchanges information via the platform, discusses new and old projects, arranges joint pump campaigns, and sends the dumbest memes to each other. The platform has been actively involved in the NFT market since July last year, with great success. Over ten million digital avatars have been sold, the market capitalization is around 120 million US dollars. Integrating cryptocurrencies: an obvious step for many. However, CEO Steve Huffman rejected this at the Paris Blockchain Week to BTC-ECHO – for now.

No crypto integration on Reddit for now

“Too complex and too risky” – the reasons why Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is opposed to crypto integration for the time being seem banal. There is no question that there is “a lot of interesting potential there”. “From a regulatory point of view,” cryptocurrencies are currently too hot a topic, said the 39-year-old entrepreneur and developer in an interview with BTC-ECHO at the current Paris Blockchain Week.

For now, Reddit will continue to focus on its core crypto business: NFTs. The inclusion of avatars was a “very important step,” says Huffman. This can be read from the constantly increasing demand. “So we’re going to continue in that direction for a while.” However, the crypto connection does not seem to be entirely out of the question. “We will see how the market develops outside of NFTs”.

Only Bitcoin and Ethereum?

Huffman has an open but not uncritical stance on crypto. He does not own any other NFTs than the Reddit avatars: “They seemed too much like a scam to me”. One reason why the Reddit NFTs are sold at fixed prices and not hawked on the speculation-driven secondary market. “Whenever you see the prices at these auctions being so high, I think it’s either fraud or wash trading.”

His opinion about cryptocurrencies is also ambivalent. “I believe the world needs a Store of Value and that’s probably Bitcoin, right? A Store of value is really useful, but I don’t think we need more.” Ethereum, on the other hand, works “really amazing” as an application platform. As for the rest, skepticism prevails: “I think a lot of the uses of cryptocurrencies outside of store of value or applications are fishing.”

This article was created in collaboration with the BTC-ECHO editors Daniel Hoppmann and Moritz Draht.