- Reddit is looking to scale its Ethereum (ETH)-based rewards with projects asked to submit solutions.
- Over 20 projects have submitted their proposals, including Matic Network, NEAR protocol, and OMG Network.
- The competition will not have any paid bonuses but opens a gateway to massive exposure and market with the social platform.
In mid-June, Reddit announced its partnership with the Ethereum Foundation to add crypto rewards to the social platform. The “Community Points” rewards would be based on the ETH blockchain allowing users to ‘tip’ content creators and posts published in an aim to improve the quality of the platform.
However, Ethereum’s “slow” network settlement times and, at times, high transaction fees look to cause an issue in the future with over 430 million Reddit users expected to use the rewards system. To this end, the Reddit team turned to the Ethereum community a month ago to ask for scaling solutions from developers.
“The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off”
Reddit launched this competition in mid-July, closing its doors on July 31st, with 22 teams sending detailed scaling solutions pitches. Reddit will select a working concept from the list of blockchain solutions sent with a keen eye on resources-efficiency, transaction costs reduction, and transactions per second (TPS).
The competition, however, only offers extra exposure, a ready market, and fame to projects that will be selected. No monetary incentives were mentioned in the release.
So which top blockchain startups sent scaling solutions pitches to Reddit by July 31?
Matic Network: The Ethereum sidechain proof-of-concept will provide several features to ensure scalability on Reddit’s Community Points program. With a highly scalable Layer-2 solution, Matic processed over 3 million transactions with a total gas fee of $3.52 in only 12 hours. The solution also connects directly to Ethereum with the Plasma predicates on Ethereum providing security, composability, high scalability, and smart contracts integration features to Reddit.
1/ #Reddit
We submitted our POC for Reddit Scaling Bake-off!!!Matic sidechain processed 3mn transactions over 12 hours with a total gas fee of USD 3.52!!!
Our Submission is here: https://t.co/mziWvFUVfr
Detailed blog is here: https://t.co/45Ogjj9Kxa pic.twitter.com/7uyk0lqwY3
— Matic (@maticnetwork) July 29, 2020
SKALE Network: This is a network of easily configurable elastic sidechains that differs from normal blockchains that charge a transaction fee. SKALE allows developers to directly pay for resource usage from a prepaid balance kind like Amazon’s Web Services. Reddit will need to build a new blockchain on SKALE (based on ETH 1.0) with the “Community Points” rewards re-integrated. The total cost is said to be anywhere between a couple of hundred dollars to $40,000, depending on the size of the new network.
SKALE enters The Great Reddit Scaling Bake-Off!
@reddit gets:
7.2 Mln Txs per hour
More here
https://t.co/ZD4GM38jXx#Ethereum pic.twitter.com/TTIvH5rYh1
— SKALE Network (@SkaleNetwork) July 31, 2020
OMG Network: OMG Network development team will use the Community Points Engine (CPE), a Chrome Extension that “allows for fee-less and near-real-time value transfer while browsing the OMG Network subreddit” and to all Reddit users. The team further hinted on introducing Plasma sidechains to offer higher security and scalability.
ICYMI: The Community Points Engine powered by OMG Network is a Chrome Extension that works on the r/omgnetwork subreddit and allows users to transfer community points for FREE.
Want to learn more? Join our virtual demo on Monday! https://t.co/rEkOF9ExD2
— OMG Network (@omgnetworkhq) August 2, 2020
Solana: The Ethereum sidechain solution, currently leading the Reddit Scaling Bake-off, sent its submission-only two-days before the closing date. Solana aims at providing a fast and scalable platform interoperable with Ethereum. However, the platform still lags behind Matic on the fees department, having completed 1 million transactions for $10.
Hey everyone – Solana has officially made a submission for the ‘Reddit Scaling Bake-Off’. Solana tackled the Scaling Bake-Off this week and completed the entire 5-day challenge in under six minutes for less than $5 USD.
https://t.co/9EyXyPpfjL
— Solana (@solana) July 29, 2020
Other projects that have submitted their plans include NEAR Protocol, Aztec privacy protocol, Everest platform, and others. However, while the community votes on their favorite project, Reddit holds the final say on who will create the scalable solutions for its Community Points program.
