Moons are an ERC-20 token on Arbitrum Nova launched by Reddit admins in May 2020 as a part of the Community Points project. They are a means for users to be rewarded for their contributions in r/CryptoCurrency with a unit of ownership in the subreddit.
Moons are independent of Reddit and once earned neither the admins nor the subreddit moderators can take them away from users. Moons are managed by a suite of smart contracts that handle balances, transfers, distribution/claiming, and purchasing Special Memberships. The smart contracts and mobile apps have been reviewed and audited by Trail of Bits, an independent security firm.
The Vault
Moons are stored in the vault, an Ethereum wallet which lives inside the official Reddit mobile app for iOS or Android. Users are provided with the means to restore their vault should they lose/break their device.
Moons can also be used on desktop through use of the vault password or through a push notification on a mobile device.
If you have not already, set up two factor authentication for your account! This will greatly reduce the chance that your MOONs are stolen. How to set up 2FA
Earning Moons
Moons are distributed every 28 days based on the share of the subreddit's total karma a user has earned during this timeframe.
Previously users were required to claim each round, however due to the upgrade to the new scaling network Moons are now sent to users automatically so long as they have a Vault setup.
Moons can be tipped between users using the send arrow within the vault.
Moons can also be won in competitions such as Community Trivia, Cointest and Prediction Tournaments.
Due to a CCIP-005, Moons are awarded to the top five meme posts in r/CryptoCurrencyMemesin terms of upvotes at the end of each week UTC time. These Moons are currently distributed from the mod/community pot in the following amounts: 350 for 1st, 250 for 2nd, 200 for 3rd, 150 for 4th, 50 for 5th.
Upvotes, Karma, Contribution Score, Moons, and You
Generally earning more upvotes means earning more Moons, but let's explore how this happens.
When people upvote your posts or comments, you earn karma based on your net upvotes (upvotes minus downvotes). The exact relationship between your net upvotes and karma is an internal Reddit secret, but you can think of it as a 1:1 ratio if that helps.
To determine your Contribution Score from your karma, Reddit then adjusts your karma according to any modifiers the subreddit has chosen. For example r/CryptoCurrency voted in CCIP-001 to give 2x value to all comments.
Every month, Reddit tallies up everyone's Contribution Score and distributes a set amount of moons. The percentage of those moons that you earn from the distribution is the same percentage of the subreddit's Contribution Score you earned. For example, let's say you earned 10 Contribution Score out of 1,000,000 Contribution Score earned by the entire subreddit for the month and there are 5,000,000 moons up for this distribution. You would have earned 0.001% of the Contribution Score, which earns you 0.001% of the distribution, which is 50 Moons.
Moon Distribution
Initially, 50 million Moons were available to claim for contributors based on karma earned in the subreddit prior to the launch. Less than half of these were claimed and as all claims expire after six months they were lost to those contributors.
Round 1 of issuance began in June 2020 with 5,000,000 total Moons available for distribution. The monthly distribution is on a predetermined schedule that drops a fixed 2.5% each round.
Eventually, Moons distribution will reach a steady state where the total supply continues to grow at 1% a year.
For each round the Moons are distributed as follows: 40% to the Community Tank, 10% to the moderators, with the remaining 50% available to contributors.
The amount of Moons moderators and the Community Tank receive depends on how many Moons were distributed to users' Vaults in the previous cycle. If only 60% of Moons were claimed in a previous round then moderators would receive 60% of their Moons at the beginning of the next distribution cycle. If some of those users then create Vaults in a later cycle and get their previous Moons before they expire, then moderators and the Community Tank will receive an additional part of their stipend at that time.
The ratio of Moons/karma is calculated each round by taking the total Moons to be distributed to contributors and dividing by total karma earned for the round. The data for net karma earned per user is provided by the admins each round in a CSV posted by u/CommunityPoints. The CSV is always posted 7 days before distribution to allow for voting on Governance Polls.
A user who is permanently banned during a snapshot is ineligible for voting and earning for that round. If their ban is overturned later, they will be eligible for future distributions. Temporary bans, even during the snapshot, have no effect on distribution eligibility.
Karma earned from stickied/pinned/distinguished posts are not considered for distribution.
Posts and comments that are deleted by users or removed by moderators are not considered for distribution.
Users do not need to be subscribed to the subreddit to earn moons for karma earned in this sub, but their mobile app may not prompt them to create a vault.
Rinkeby vs. Mainnet
Due to scalability issues, Moons originally launched on Rinkeby testnet with the plan to migrate over to the Ethereum Mainnet. Reddit partnered with the Ethereum Foundation in February 2021 to develop an open-sourced scaling solution for Moons.
In July 2021 Reddit announced that Moons would be migrated to a new Layer-2 rollup using Arbitrum technology. This network was tested on top of Rinkeby before migrating to Arbitrum Nova in August 2022.
In August 2022 Reddit announced that Moons would be migrated to Arbitrum Nova, a Layer-2 scaling solution built on top of the Ethereum Mainnet. With this migration Moons are no longer considered to be on a test network and no further migrations are expected in the future.
While Arbitrum Nova has significantly lower fees than other networks, there are still gas fees that need to be paid to use Moons on mainnet. Reddit maintains that they will continue to cover gas fees for distributions and for spending Moons on features such as Special Memberships and Reddit coins, however users are now responsible for gas fees for tips or transfers within the vault. Reddit partnered with FTX to provide a solution for users to purchase ETH on Nova in order to pay for these gas fees, which are currently expected to cost less than $0.01 per transfer.
Arbitrum is a non-custodial scaling solution that is compatible with Ethereum, offering ETH/ERC-20/ERC-721 interoperability, censorship resistance, and EVM smart contracts. As these smart contracts are identical to those on L1 Ethereum, developers can port existing solidity apps or write new ones using familiar toolchains such as Truffle or Buidler.
With the upgrade to the new Layer-2 network, Moon transfers are faster and claims are processed automatically.
Use Cases
Moons are used to vote on Governance Polls that influence how the community is governed and how moons are distributed. Your maximum voting weight is determined by your amount of earned moons, which includes those received through the normal distribution or from the Moon Distributor Account (contest awards, etc). If you acquire moons beyond the amount you have earned, you will not gain voting power. If you sell, tip, or otherwise transfer away your moons below the amount you've earned, your voting weight will be decreased proportionally.
Moons can be tipped between users.
Moons can be used to purchase the r/CryptoCurrency Special Membership which allows for embedding gifs in comments, special emotes & custom flair/color for the username.
Moons can be redeemed for Reddit coins, but only for use in r/CryptoCurrency.
Moons are a proof of reputation and contribution in the r/CryptoCurrency community. The more a user contributes, the more Moons they will earn, which results in more influence in the community. This reputation is inherently portable across the Internet.
As ERC-20 tokens Moons can be used off of Reddit in websites or apps that support them. Developers can start building on top of Moons through standard blockchain tools and protocols to add more utility and value.
Moon Burns
Moons are burned when users buy the premium membership or redeem Moons for Reddit coins. When the membership or coins are purchased with moons they are sent directly to the burn address for payment and when the membership is purchased with cash the admins burn moons on the user's behalf from the Community Tank. It is possible for new methods of burning Moons to be implemented in the future.
Each round half of the Moons burned during the previous distribution cycle are reintroduced.
Governance
Subreddit governance takes place in the form of moon-weighted polls that can be created by any redditor with an idea on how to improve the subreddit or Moons system. Moderators retain the right to approve or deny polls for any reason, but usually based on technical feasibility.
In the event that two conflicting polls pass in the same cycle, the one with more votes in favor will supercede the other.
How to Create a Governance Proposal
- First, follow the steps outlined in the governance framework to ensure the idea is new and you can refine your idea with community and mod feedback. You should only proceed once you have support from the community and explicit approval from moderators.
- Review the Moons Events Schedule and plan to post your poll on the day of the next snapshot
- Select 'poll' as your post type and switch the poll type from 'general' to 'governance'. Note: Governance Polls can only be created in a desktop browser at https://new.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/submit
- Enter your title, starting with your CCIP number as a prefix. You will be issued a number when your poll text is fully approved. Your title should look like this "CCIP-000 - Example Poll Title"
- Type out your proposal in as much detail as necessary. It is recommended that you include a link to your pre-proposal you created in step 1.
- Fill out the poll options in a descriptive way such as "Yes, implement idea X". Your second option must be "No Change". Tip: Try to keep your options to a minimum, ideally 2. Reddit polls currently use plurality voting which means each additional option makes it more unlikely that any options will reach the decision threshold.
- Observe the "decision threshold". In order for your proposal to pass, your poll must have the support of at least this number of moons and a majority of participating moons. Your poll's progress towards this threshold will be indicated by a pie chart in the top right corner of your poll after voting has begun.
- Set your poll duration to 7 days so there is as much opportunity for voting and discussion as possible
- Submit your poll. You should check to make sure there is a circle or pie chart in the top left, which indicates that it is a governance poll. If it is not there, you should ping the mods immediately to double check it. Sometimes it is a missed step or glitch on reddit's side, or only shows on desktop or only on mobile.
Be aware that automod should automatically filter your thread and ping the mods so we can make sure everything is set properly before voting begins.
Proposals
Please see the full list here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/wiki/ccip
Moons Event Schedule
Moon snapshots happen every 4 weeks on Wednesday, followed by the distribution on the following Wednesday. You can view posts by u/communitypoints to see the history of these events and this community created moon calendar to see the future events schedule.
Per the Moon Week proposal, each 4 weeks the snapshot is posted and considered Day 1 of Moon Week. The day prior a reminder will be posted to submit all governance polls for the month by Thursday. Days 2-7 of Moon Week will have a sticky post at the top of the subreddit highlighting that month's polls. On Day 8, the distribution happens.
You may also view the schedule for Moons and other r/CryptoCurrency events here or in the subreddit's sidebar calendar widget.