Reddit partners with crypto exchange FTX to help users manage community points

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Through an integration with FTX, users can purchase ether on the platform. FTX announced in a press release that the firm's payment system, FTX Pay, can now be used to manage community points.

Community points are a way to reward users who interact with a community. The points are stored in a user'sVault wallet that also holds the NFT, a non-fungible token.

A user's community points are displayed next to their usernames as a measure of their reputation, but there are other ways to use them, such as to get community-specific memberships, vote on decisions, and reward creators on the platform. Only the users on two subreddits, r/Cryptocurrency and r/Fornite BR, can utilize community points right now.

When using the points, users will incur gas fees or the cost associated with performing a transaction on the ethereum block, because the points are live on the platform. According to Fortune, this means paying a fee in ether, which some users may not have, or may not know how to get it. The partnership with FTX will allow users to convert the national currency of a country like the US Dollar to the digital currency of their choice.

Users need Eth for gas fees to transact with their Points on-chain, and FTX pay allows them to do that. Reddit is a pioneer in empowering online communities to own their own. We are looking forward to supporting them and their users on this journey.

Bankman-Fried bet on the longevity of the meme stock phenomenon that originated on Reddit and made it easier to purchase ether on the platform. r/WallStreetBets helped propel the GameStop stock to unprecedented heights last year.

In May, Bankman- Fried disclosed a 7.6 percent stake in the free trading platform popular among young investors, and rumor has it that he may be interested in acquiring the company. Traditional stock trading was brought to all users in the US last month.