MOON: Reddit coin plunges - what happened?

The price of Moon, the cryptocurrency of the subreddit r/CryptoCurrency, has plunged more than 85 percent in the past 24 hours. Here's why.

Not a good morning for investors in Reddit MOON. The MOON price plunged in the evening hours of Oct. 17 and has since been between US$0.024 and US$0.031. This means the cryptocurrency has fallen 86 percent in the past 24 hours. Over the past seven days, this results in a loss of 83 percent, and over the course of 30 days, even close to 90 percent.

MOON: This is why the Reddit coin crashed

MOON is designed as a community token for a Reddit community of 6.5 million people. It specifically targets the subforum ("subreddit") /r/CryptoCurrencies, a community known for its penchant for highly speculative investments.

The original idea was that anyone who contributed to the community could get MOON tokens ("community points") in exchange. For example, you could use them to unlock premium features or reward other users for meaningful contributions. The concept worked initially and the MOON course had a successful six months. The Reddit cryptocurrency managed to reach its all-time high of US$0.65 on July 19.

But yesterday came the shock for Redditors: Reddit announced that Community Points would be discontinued as of Nov. 8. This means the cryptocurrency will lose its function on the social network. The reasoning:

'While we saw some opportunities for the future of Community Points, we didn't see a [meaningful] way to scale it across the platform.'

/u/cozy_sheets, Reddit moderator

Reddit community outraged

Community reactions to the decision have been correspondingly negative. Some complain that the community was not involved in the decision. Others complain about the top-down mentality and toy with the idea of turning their backs on the community.

'What a joke of a decision. The Bear market continues and I think it's going to get pretty quiet around here.'

Reddit user /u/Noremacmate

Even the moderators of the subreddit let it be known that they are not happy with management's decision. So they plan to continue using the cryptocurrency and possibly in a different context:

'We plan to continue with Moons independently, either by adopting smart contracts (if possible) or by dropping a new token 1:1 with the current credits'. What the solution will look like is currently up in the air and depends on an internal Reddit decision, but we are happy to discuss this with the community and make a decision together on how to proceed.'

Moderators of the subreddit /r/CryptoCurrency

Some Redditors find even clearer words and even accuse Reddit of a RugPull - an opinion also echoed on X.

Whether Reddit will run off with investors' money, as is common with RugPulls, does not appear to be the case at this time. Still, it is doubtful that the MOON share price will recover from current events.