The problem with Reddit

When I first started researching cryptocurrencies, I found Reddit a useful tool to learn from. Within are many subreddits for a variety of coins. Not only was it possible to hear directly from developers, but you could also learn from the community itself. Since then, especially after the most recent bull run, I have found Reddit to be severely lacking in critical thinking.

This isn’t just an issue regarding Reddit. The level of debate within the wider crypto community has become worse as a whole. Defensiveness over one’s bags means any criticism can be met with outright denial. Further to this, certain subreddits have become breeding grounds for wild conspiracy theories. The animosity between the BTC and BCH crowd is a prime example of this. r/Bitcoin is now known to be moderated to keep a certain level of sense. Yet, one gaze at r/btc can often leave your head hurting.

The r/btc subreddit was created as certain members of the Bitcoin community felt that the r/Bitcoin subreddit was being too heavily moderated. This was around the time when the scaling wars were really kicking into full force. Therefore, r/btc was created to be seen as the bastion of free speech, where users could say what they like about the developments around Bitcoin. Since then, after the fork, r/btc is the place you go to if you’d like to learn about Bitcoin Cash.

However, after viewing this subreddit a few times, my head really began to hurt. Notions of Craig Wright “clearly” being a Blockstream spy, or even those working for Blockstream being government spies are commonplace. Of course, there is no actual evidence for such claims, other than they have pursued different paths in their development of various Bitcoin forks that Bitcoin Cash fans wholly disagree with. If their ideas were backed by hard evidence, or even if the subreddit was full of ideas of how the technical aspects of bigger blocks work, then this would be fine. However, such redditors make it easily understandable as to why r/Buttcoin (a subreddit for the sole purpose of mocking BTC and crypto fans) is becoming so popular.

The level of self-awareness within certain aspects of the crypto community is akin to Ricky Gervais’s character in The Office, David Brent. The situation was made worse during the bull run of 2017, when so many new people were joining. This wasn’t the newcomers’ fault. Rather, the level of debate had already sunk to low enough that it was only going to get worse. Reddit can still be a useful tool, but use it wisely. As r/btc has proven, moderation is required to keep subreddits on a necessary level for constructive debate.

Can Reddit ever come back and prove to be a truly valuable tool? I highly doubt it.