Reddcoin Review: Social CryptoCurrency For Tipping

Reddcoin (RDD) is a unique project that is dedicated to bring cryptocurrency to the masses through the use of Social Media tipping.

Reddcoin was conceived as a fully fledged social media coin. It has been around for quite some time and is one of the more established cryptocurrencies. During the recent crypto bull / bear markets, RDD has had its own booms and busts as interest has flooded into and out of the coin.

So, is Reddcoin something you should consider?

In this Reddcoin review, I will give you everything that you need to know about the project including tech, development and roadmap. I will also look at the long term adoption and price potential of RDD.

What is Reddcoin?

There are dedicated blockchain social media sites, such as Steem and Social X, and those are great, but what if you could get paid for your social media posts all across the web? Post on Facebook and get paid. Comment on Reddit and get paid. Tweet something great and get paid.

That’s what Reddcoin aims to do. It’s the social media currency looking to make micropayments for creators easy for everyone.

Reddcoin has been around for some time, having been released in 2014. It allows anyone to quickly and easily send and receive its native RDD coin with no transaction fees. It’s the blockchain version of Patreon, but better because it works across many social platforms, and allows anyone to get paid for their contributions.

Reddcoin lets you get paid on many different platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook and more. It works by simply “tipping” the creators of posts and comments on social media. It’s similar to “liking” a post, but the creator gets something of actual value.

Reddcoin also uses a more environmentally friendly approach to its cryptocurrency called Proof-of-Stake-Velocity. Unlike the Proof-of-Work consensus method that requires vast amounts of computing power and electricity to mine new coins, the PoSV mechanism allows every Reddcoin user to mint new coins simply by holding RDD in the official wallet.

The Key Features of Reddcoin

Now that you have a pretty decent overview of what Reddcoin is, let's take a look at some of of the features that make the coin stand out among some of their key competitors.

• Fast Transactions: Reddcoin was created as a fork of the popular cryptocurrency Litecoin which has a really fast transaction time. Reddcoin has a block time of only 60 seconds which is 10 times faster than that of Bitcoin's.
• Tipping: Reddcoin allows users to earn and tip others on a variety of social media platforms with no fees. They have also made this as simple as possible with the release of their new ReddID feature (more below)
• Integrations: The tipping system is already integrated with Reddit, Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, and Justin.tv.
• Unique Consensus: The PoSV algorithm used by Reddcoin encourages users to own (stake) and use (velocity) RDD. PoSV is a more environmentally friendly algorithm compared to the PoW varieties that power Bitcoin or Litecoin's blockchain.
• Incentive Mechanism: The use of RDD encourages tipping others for their contributions on social media platforms. These “tips” are microtransactions but also come with no fees. The tipping system is similar to “liking” but gives users actual value.

How Does Reddcoin Work?

As mentioned above, Reddcoin allows you to quickly and easily send micropayments to others on social networks. You can also receive payments yourself from anyone you interact with on social media. These payments are nearly instantaneous and are free of any fees.

You can send RDD to a colleague to repay them for lunch, send a top to your favorite charity, or simply send a small tip to the creator of a cute kitten meme. Simply click the “tip” button and fill in the persons ReddID.

Use of RDD is encouraged through the PoSV consensus mechanism that focuses on ownership of coins through staking and activity of the coins through velocity. The addition of the velocity component was necessary according to the development team to “promote more active network participation.” It’s actually quite similar to the Proof-of-Stake system from which it was derived, but with PoS there is linear coin aging, but with PoSV there is non-linear coin aging.

Moving From PoW to PoSV

Unlike Bitcoin and so many other cryptocurrencies, Reddcoin has made the decision to switch from what some consider the wasteful Proof-of-Work mining, to the more ecologically friendly Proof-of-Stake Velocity algorithm.

With PoSV coins are distributed across the network by minting them through a process called staking. This differs from mining in the PoW system, which is extremely resource intensive, and limited to those with very powerful computers.

PoSV minting can be performed by anyone, and soon it will even be possible to stake RDD in a mobile wallet to mint RDD from your smartphone. This is thought to be greatly superior to the need for expensive and energy consuming servers and ASIC mining machines.

When you stake coins in the PoSV system the more coins you hold in your wallet the greater your chance of finding a valid block and receiving block rewards. All that’s needed is to keep the wallet connected to the internet and running. Moreover, given the unique coin aging function, there is a penalty that is applied for inactive nodes over those that are inactive.

This does away with the wastefulness of PoW mining and negates the mining arms race. It also avoids the threat of ASICs and multipools, while removing the conflict of interest we see from the ASIC manufacturers. The addition of the velocity component to the algorithm also discourages hoarding behavior and encourages spending, which increases users contribution to the network.

Reddcoin is unique as the only blockchain based social currency. It is hoped that it will work to incentivize more useful interactions, as well as acting as a way to provide a value to the intangible asset of social influence.

It also allows users to continually earn more RDD for as long as they have a wallet holding RDD and connected to the internet. And the more coins held, and the longer they remain in the wallet, the larger and more frequently you can get staking rewards.

RDD Coin

As of August 1, 2014, when the transition was made from PoW to PoSV there were roughly 27 billion RDD. As of May 19, 2019 there are 28,808,713,174 RDD. The PoSV minting process has a 5% annual inflation rate, and there is currently no limit or cap on the maximum supply of RDD.

As was mentioned above, the Reddcoin team held an ICO on February 2, 2014, just two weeks after launching the project. That ICO raised $100,000 by selling 5.45 billion RDD to a total of 386 investors.

The price of RDD remained fairly stable and low for several years, but then in 2017 it got caught up in the broad-based cryptocurrency rally, and by January 7, 2018, it reached an all-time high of $0.032391.

It headed steadily lower from that ATH, and in mid-December 2018, hit a low of $0.001 after which it began to recover. As of May 19, 2019, the RDD coin is up to $0.001989, meaning it has nearly doubled in the first 5 months of 2019.

If you’re interested in buying and staking some RDD you’ll find it listed on a number of exchanges, but the trading volume is on just a handful. These are BiteBTC, Bittrex, and Upbit. There is also a small amount of trade volume on Litebit.eu and YoBit.

Because RDD is a native coin you’ll want to download and install the core Reddcoin wallet, which is a great way to support the network and a safe way to store larger amounts of RDD coins. Alternatively, you can use the newly released ReddID wallet, which is a Chrome extension and is also considered to be quite secure. It is also the easiest way to enable tipping.

Those who choose the desktop wallet can choose between versions for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Currently, the Reddcoin API works natively with Reddit, Twitch, and Twitter, with more social network integrations in the works.

ReddID

This is a new feature that was only recently launched. It will allow you to register your own unique "ReddID" which you will use to send / receive the tips. Once you have your ReddID name you can link it up to your social network accounts such as Reddit, Twitter and Facebook.

With this release, the developers have also included a chrome browser extension. This means that you can hold your RDD right their in your light browser wallet and when you find a post that you think is worthy of tipping, you can send the RDD over with one click from your browser. Moreover, given that this is a light wallet, you do not have to wait for blockchain sync when opening it up.

The ReddID is also helpful as it allows you to search for other users on the network through the use of the of their specific ID. Once you have located this user, you can use the browser extension to send them RDD. There is also a function whereby you can easily invite other users to join the network and increase awareness of Reddcoin.

The ReddID is browser Agnostic and can be downloaded and installed with one click from the Google Play Store. The Chrome extension has a very sleek look and feel, and the team is planning on including the ability to easily exchange RDD for another cryptocurrency right within the wallet in upcoming versions, making RDD an even more convenient experience for users.

Reddcoin Team

Reddcoin was created on January 20, 2014, and was initially a PoW cryptocurrency forked from Litecoin. At the time the development team was anonymous, but that didn’t stop them from raising $100,000 in an ICO held on February 2, 2014, just two weeks after the project was launched.

It wasn’t until 2017 that Reddcoin finally made an official announcement that introduced the team members, including founding developers John Nash and Leonard Simonse. Subsequently, they’ve continued to update the community on the status of the team, which is completely 100% composed of volunteers.

The current CEO/COO of Reddcoin is Jay Laurence, who was an early adopter of blockchain technology, beginning with Bitcoin. He was a miner as early as 2011 and was one of the first PeerPlays witness. Prior to that he was heavily involved in Dogecoin’s social media presence and was an early supporter and contract holder of ProtoShares and AngelShares, which eventually became BitShares (BTS).

Reddcoin Social Presence

As the social currency of the web, you might expect that Reddcoin has a huge social media community itself. And you wouldn’t be disappointed.

On Reddit, which is well known as a gathering place for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, the Reddcoin subreddit has over 40,000 followers. That’s a huge number, and it’s topped by Twitter, where the Reddcoin account has 69,100 followers. Facebook is a bit smaller but still has over 27,000 people following the Reddcoin page.

Reddcoin even has its own forum called Reddcoin Talk. The forum isn’t hugely active, but it seems to get a new post or two every day and goes to show how active the Reddcoin community is.

Reddcoin Development

Something that I like to sometimes do to determine just how much work is being done on a project is to look into their public code repositories. This can give one a rough estimate of the code that is being pushed by the developers at Reddcoin.

Hence, I decided to dive into the Reddcoin GitHub and took a look at some of the most important repositories. Below are the code commits for the top 3 most active repos in their GitHub:

So, it seems as if the developers are still active pushing code to their repos. Unfortunately, this is less than I have seen on other projects. Indeed, Reddcoin ranks at number 195 when it comes to commits over the past 12 months (according to CoinCodeCap)

This could come down to the fact that other projects are actively building out their protocols whereas Reddcoin is a more established blockchain. It would be good to see this activity pickup later this year as the community works towards their public roadmap.

Some of the most interesting additions goals in this roadmap are in their "Long Term Initiatives" board. Below are some of the potential developments that I will be keeping an eye on:

• PoSV 2.0: They will be improving the current PoSV algorithm to strengthen the current reward scheme. They will also extend the algorithm to encourage more staking nodes
• Mobile Share / Tipping: This could be a really interesting addition as it will bring a great deal more users into the fold
• Ledger Nano Support: For those users who want to “Hodl” their RDD in a hardware wallet, this could be something to watch
• Twitch Integration: This is another massive social network that Reddcoin could exploit. Being able to "tip" twitch streamers for their content is an exciting prospect
• Merchant Adoption: There are currently a number of Reddcoin payment gateways that you can use to accept RDD. The developers are actively looking to add additional payment providers and gateways to increase adoption

Conclusion

While it’s hard to predict the future of Reddcoin, the same could be said for any of the new blockchain projects. Reddcoin has actually been around for some time, and while there have been criticisms about the idea behind the platform – who is going to pay people rather than just “liking” their social media content – there’s some validity behind it.

After all, we tip for other things. Patreon has become quite successful, and in many ways, it is also a tipping platform. And the social media site Steemit has had success in a similar fashion, with users “likes” on the platform having a monetary value. There’s some indication that adding such a feature across all social media could become quite successful.

In fact, Reddcoin has come a long way in its 5+ years of existence, and even with a team of volunteers, it has made consistent progress and improvements to the platform. It does have some way to go, but given the current functionality and continued efforts even through the crypto-winter of 2018, it seems Reddcoin could become quite successful as more and more people come to embrace cryptocurrencies.

Disclaimer: These are the writer's opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.