IIAwards - Review of Reddit

As part of the recently announced IIAwards, in which we celebrate innovations in the fintech and crypto industry, today we will review Reddit.

Founded in 2005, Reddit is an American social media/news aggregation website. Structuring its content around forums dedicated to particular topics, registered users can debate and dispute the issues concerning a forum’s particular focus. A true behemoth in the world of online discussion, the site currently ranks as the 17th most-visited website in the world with an estimated company valuation of $3 billion.

Integrating an open forum with a diversity of relevant links and materials, Reddit’s long standing set-up is easy to navigate and simple to use. Categories are helpfully labelled and characterized to ensure that user-friendliness always remains a principal focus. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or a crypto layman, information is attentively presented in an efficient, streamlined manner, guaranteeing clarity and comprehensibility for all active users.

Featuring an impressive 2.9 million members, Reddit’s r/BitCoin and r/CryptoCurrencies pages are undoubtedly the most expansive, far-reaching crypto communities on the Internet. Posts are frequent and varied; users are from a variety of backgrounds, countries and walks of life. If sociability and size are the most important attributes of community enhancement, then Reddit wins this contest hands down.

Incorporating a wide variety of content with a multitude of easily accessible links, Reddit’s page features an array of useful information pertinent to the cryptocurrency world and its associated offshoots. Dedicating tabs to an assortment of relevant resources and podcasts, the extensiveness of Reddit’s layout is notably varied, ensuring that the readership stays informed and up-to-date. A dedicated chat feature means that any qualms and queries can be addressed by an audience as vast as it is knowledgeable. One caveat should be included in this summary: posts can often be unspecific ramblings or humorous novelty items, and on occasion, sifting for relevant information can take a little time.

Though Reddit undoubtedly supplies its users with beneficial links to educational resources, a vast swathe of its in-house posts are nonchalant and unproductive. Sifting through novelties, memes and ramblings, we get the impression that a stronger sense of curation would facilitate the delivery of education and learning, of which is sufficiently absent at present.

By definition, Reddit is a forum that is completely open to the public, and as a result, a lot of the claims made on the site can be difficult to verify and validate. This is not to say that there aren’t worthwhile, source-backed posts to be found here, but rather that a stricter sense of fact-checking could be enforced. With this being said, Reddit’s modus operandi is at complete odds with the concept of sourcing. The expected house rules are present, but in this realm, it pays to sift.