What is Reddit’s BRICK token?

The Beginner’s Guide

BRICK is an ERC-20 token that serves as a community token within the r/FortNiteBR subreddit — one of the largest Reddit communities dedicated to the Fortnite: Battle Royale game mode by Epic Games.

Reddit is a social media platform made up of tens of thousands of discussion forums on specific topics, called subreddits. Reddit users join subreddit forums to discuss and share specific topics, ranging from world news to internet memes, via moderated message boards.

Reddit users can use BRICK tokens to perform a variety of functions. Holders can purchase different of premium features on Reddit using BRICK tokens. These features include unique items that appear on users’ Reddit profiles such as badges and custom emojis. Redditors can also use BRICKs to pay for Special Membership perks.

Redditors can also tip BRICK to other Reddit users for posting interesting content. This allows Redditors to earn rewards that can have real world value for the content they share on the site.

BRICK tokens also function as a governance token that provide holders with voting powers within the community. The more BRICK tokens a person holds, the more voting power they have in governance polls within the subreddit. Governance proposals influence the strategic direction of the community, and can include things such as altering BRICK distribution cycles and implementing new functionality.

BRICK tokens are part of a larger Reddit initiative called Reddit Community Points (RCPs). Moderators and content creators within different subreddits can earn Points for their contributions within different subreddit communities.

Just as the r/FortNiteBR subreddit features BRICK as their official cryptocurrency, the r/Cryptocurrency subreddit features a similar native token called MOON. If you are interested in learning more about MOON tokens, check out our Kraken Learn Center article What is Reddit MOON?

What are reddit bricks brick

Who created BRICKs?

Reddit.com launched their Community Points project in 2020 as a way to reward its millions of content creators.

RCP tokens are similar in some ways to the other incentives the company has offered in the past.

Reddit karma has long been the forum’s primary points system for rewarding users who post high quality content and comments. Reddit users receive karma points whenever other members of the community upvote their responses.

The difference between RCPs and karma points is that RCPs are a type of cryptocurrency, while karma is essentially a reputation system.

RCPs have a real-world monetary value that’s decided by the market, and can be bought, sold and traded between individuals around the world just like other types of digital assets. On the other hand, karma points have no intrinsic value outside of bragging rights on Reddit.

Reddit users can earn rewards by posting and earning upvotes in any subreddit that supports RCPs. Of the 100,000+ subreddits that exist today, only a small handful have launched their own Reddit-based cryptocurrencies.

How does BRICK work?

When RCP tokens like BRICKs first launched, they existed on a Rinkeby testnet — an Ethereum-based sandbox environment. More recently, RCPs have migrated to Arbitrum Nova, a layer-2 network built using Arbitrum’s AnyTrust technology. Arbitrum Nova transaction costs are significantly lower than Ethereum, making it ideal for high-volume social media applications.

When sending BRICK tokens to other Reddit users as a gift or tip, a network transaction fee more commonly referred to as a gas fee, is required. This fee can be paid in the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, ETH. In order to acquire ETH, you can use a trusted cryptocurrency platform like Kraken.

If a Reddit user decides to use BRICK tokens to pay for features such as Special Membership, Reddit will cover any gas fees that may be associated with the transaction.

Special Membership is a set of exclusive features available to users who purchase a premium subscription to the subreddit. These features include exclusive access to loyalty badges that show how long a member has been part of the community, as well as the ability to post GIFs in comments on Reddit.

Earning BRICK

According to the official BRICKs Wiki Page, Redditors earn BRICK tokens based on their contributions within the r/FortNiteBR subreddit.

These contributions can be anything from an original post that a user may submit, to a comment they post on other people's content. Generally speaking, the more upvotes a user earns, the more BRICKs they are eligible to receive.

BRICKs are distributed every four weeks. The amount distributed to each subreddit user is based on the total karma a user has earned during this timeframe on the r/FortNiteBR subreddit. While users were previously required to manually claim their BRICKs each round, BRICKs are now automatically sent to each users’ Reddit Vault.

Reddit initially released 50 million BRICK tokens to the community when the project launched in May 2020. At that time, members of the r/cryptocurrency community could claim their BRICK tokens based on the amount of karma they earned within the subreddit prior to the launch.

Vault

A Vault is Reddit’s version of a cryptocurrency wallet.

The Vault is a way for Redditors to view their BRICK balance and spend them on various offerings. Vaults are only accessible through Reddit’s mobile applications.

Similar to any cryptocurrency wallet, Vaults generate a public address, where the BRICKs are stored, and private key, which lets users access and utilize them. If you are learning more about how different cryptocurrencies like BRICK use private keys you can check our Kraken Learn Center article How do cryptocurrencies use cryptography?

Of note, Reddit has access to the ledger balances of RCP tokens, meaning that they can use a Redditor’s public address to check their balance and send them rewards.

Why does BRICK have value?

BRICK tokens allow Redditors to earn rewards that have a real-world monetary value for posting comments on the site. The more a user contributes, the more BRICKs they may potentially earn.

Its multiple utilities, coupled with a limited max supply (max 250 million tokens) and large user base (2.7+ million r/FortNiteBR subreddit users) makes it an appealing cryptocurrency for many.

New listings on decentralized and centralized exchanges also allow buyers outside of Reddit to purchase and speculate on BRICK tokens. They may see long-term value in owning a Reddit-based cryptocurrency that they believe may continue to grow in popularity.

Why should I use BRICK?

You may be interested in BRICK if you want to take part in the r/FortNiteBR subreddit's governance voting process, or are already doing so.

If you are already an active content creator on r/FortNiteBR, you may be considering creating a Vault to claim the BRICK tokens you earn by taking part in discussions.

Active Redditors can also purchase BRICKs to tip their favorite content creators on the site.

Lastly, you may believe in the long-term opportunity in owning a cryptoasset widely used by a popular Reddit community like r/FortNiteBR's BRICK token.