r/Cryptocurrency Takeover

[MeLLoN98]

Abstract

Proposal to takeover r/Cryptocurrency, starting with advertising, and moving on to aquire MOONs, the subreddit native governance token on Nova - allowing
favorable ruling on r/Cryptocurrency for Arbitrum.

Motivation

r/Cryptocurrency is the biggest crypto community since 2013, this proposal allow maintaining Arbitrum dominance by sponsoring the subreddit, and implement Arbitrum into the community (Ads, discussion, favorable governance).

Moons are the biggest token on Nova, this operation will help Arbitrum Nova grow by TVL, activity and brand awareness.

Specifications

• r/Cryptocurrency Banner - Arbitrum Logo

• Automatic Sponsored Post - Automatic post explaining and introducing Arbitrum - posted in 6hours intervals.

• Aquire 2M Moons for Arbitrum Treasury - Use in case of emergency or unfavorable governance polls that can hurt Arbitrum directly or indirectly.

Steps to Implement

1. Contact r/Cryptocurrency Mods and settle the dates and prices.

2. Aquire Moons For Advertising Until EOY:

Banner:
Price per day ~6,000 Moons
Price per month ~180,000 Moons

Price Until EOY (June-December) ~2,160,000 Moons

Sponsored Post:
Price per day ~1,800 Moons
Price per month ~54,000 Moons

Price Until EOY (June-December) ~378,000 Moons

3. Send Moons to burn address and start the takeover.

4. Aquire another 2M Moons for Arbitrum Treasury.

Approximate Total - 4,538,000 Moons

Timeline

Takeover Will be in June until December 2024.
Dates of the anticipated bull run cycle.
Acquiring Moons for goverance can start after the approval immediately.

Overall Cost

The approximate cost for the whole operation is around 450,000 ARB at today’s rate.

FAQ

Q - In what situations the acquired Moons can be used in goverance?

A - in situations where there’s threat to Arbitrum influence on the subreddit and Moons, for example other L2 posting proposal to move Moons to their chain, take APE Coin incident as similar example

Q - What’s the benefits for acquiring 2M Moons for governance?

A - Crypto is about community, making sure r/CC is always pro Arbitrum is critical for Arbitrum Dominance.
Some other Layer2 can offer r/CC to move Moons from Arbitrum to their Chain for some incentives, or create governance poll that makes their own takeover like this proposal and diminishes Arbitrum influence on the subreddit.

Q - What’s the current impact of 2M Moons on governance polls?

A - Currently the Qourom is 6M Moons so 2M is 33%

Q - What’s the importance of the Takeover?

A - r/Cryptocurrency is the biggest Crypto community on the internet since 13’, in year of bullrun, there’s massive influx of retail and new investors to this subreddit, they come to learn and begin their crypto journey.

The best Arbitrum can get is making their first crypto experience to be Arbitrum!
Arbitrum Banner - the first thing they see when entering the subreddit, Arbitrum Sponsored Post Every 6 hours that helps them learn about Arbitrum.
And of course, Moons which is distributed to new users based on their activity- is on Arbitrum.

Q: Moons?

A: Goverance tokens of r/Cryptocurrency, deployed by Reddit Inc in 2022 on Arbitrum Nova, in late 2023 Reddit renounced Moons contract and burned their 40M Moons which made Moons completely decentralized runned by the community.

Moons are distributed to the active members of the subreddit, can be used for tipping, governance voting and shaping the subreddit, buying membership and key to advertising on the subreddit - advertisers burn Moons to advertise.

Moons are live on Arbitrum Nova, they’re coming to Arbitrum ONE this month.
Currently the mods are working on Moons DAO legal entity which will go live in the upcoming weeks.

Disclaimer:

I’m core contributor on r/Cryptocurrency since 2020 (volunteer - not paid), founder of RCPswap (Nova) and holder of MOON and ARB.

[dk3]

idk Reddit Co abandoned their Nova DAC responsibilities. I know Reddit Co is not the same as the subreddit community, but still it was sad to see.

[MeLLoN98]

That’s very true, they even stopped the Community Points program.
You can say Reddit “betrayed” their own users by this move, after that, the community united to keep the project going- decentralized this time.
But that’s got nothing to do with this proposal, Moons is the native token of r/Cryptocurrency which is the “leading” token on Nova.

Well because Reddit did that, I believe the DAO should jump in and help it grow, not the other way.

I believe that Moons is the prime example of Social Apps that can live on Nova, pushing Moons can bring big attention to Nova and possibly onboard more similar projects to launch on Nova.

[the_drake]

I am very split on this.

1. Reddit is full of casual investors who may need more education to prompt exploring of Arbitrum

2. 450k ARB is a lot of money that can be used for many other initiatives

3. Upside is that there is mass traffic on Reddit and it is arguably one of the better funnels for new users to Arbitrum

[MeLLoN98]

“450k ARB is a lot of money”

I strongly disagree here, check this example

r/Cryptocurrency is the biggest crypto community since 2013 with over 7m subscribers and thousands of online users at any moment, in bull markets, the activity grow exponentially there since there’s massive influx of users subscribing to learn and invest in Crypto.
In return, Moons and the price to advertise will probably grow as well.

Preparing the ground now can save on cost + make sure no other party book it - the banner for example is already booked until June.

Polygon for example bought $10m of APE Coin just to make them use Polygon technology.

So no, 450k ARB to book r/Cryptocurrency for 6 months in the upcoming bull + having Moons in treasury to keep r/CC governance in check is not a lot, it’s quite the opposite.

[jomahe]

Do you have any examples of other L2s or protocols doing this that led to a material increase in traffic or other KPIs? Would be interested to see how effective something like this is at increasing Arbitrum traffic. To be honest, right now there is a significant barrier to entry for retail into L2s like Arbitrum. I could see an initiative like this boosting traffic for the demographic that already frequents sites like Reddit, but something bigger is likely needed to onboard most of the rest of retail.

[the_drake]

Do we have a list of other ways we could spend half a million in ARB so that we can increase reach?

My main pushback is that we literally do not have any strategic understanding of how else we can spend capital. Reddit has always seemed like an expensive place to advertise.

Why not start with 100k ARB and experiment?

[MeLLoN98]

I don’t have the metrics but I got many examples of known companies advertising on r/Cryptocurrency.
Advertising on r/cc is quite new, and little bit unknown.
Binance, Kraken, Coingecko, Geckoterminal, 1inch, Bitget any many more.

Example:

What’s unique about advertising on r/Cryptocurrency:

1. Looks organic and can’t be blocked by ADs Blocker, each user entering the subreddit will see big Arbitrum banner, many will have Arbitrum as being the first project they get exposed to.
   And when scrolling on the subreddit, they will see Arbitrum Intro post that looks exactly like other posts but it’s sponsored. Then they will learn about Moons which is again Arbitrum Native.

2. It’s actually embracing web3 and Arbitrum. The payment for the ad is by burning Moons which is token on Arbitrum Nova (Tomorrow on One).

3. Since Moons are already on Arbitrum, and subreddit users already need to use Arbitrum to earn/send/swap Moons, it makes the most sense to complete this package by advertising Arbitrum on r/CC - it’s like circular economy. It’s actually against Arbitrum Interests for other Layer 2 to take the Banner spot in the upcoming bull market.

[MeLLoN98]

I think you missed the point I’m trying to make here.
It’s not just random marketing campaign on Reddit.

First, 30-40% of the ARB amount in this proposal is meant to purchase Moons for Governance. This will make sure no other Layer 2 or even Layer 1 can move Moons from Arbitrum - remember that situation where Layer 2 bought $10m worth of token just to use it for governance and make the project launch on their Layer 2?

Now for the advertisements, think about this scenario:
We’re at the middle of the bull market, user go to r/Cryptocurrency to learn about this new crypto thing.
First thing he sees is big Arbitrum banner.
He scrolls and reads posts, he get into Arbitrum intro post (sponsored). He spends more time on the subreddit and now learn about Moons the native token of r/CC. Moons are on Arbitrum, he get rewarded for his engagement on the subreddit with Moons, he swap or Defi Moons on Arbitrum.

All the dots are now connected, he understands what Arbitrum is and it’s the first or one of the first crypto projects he learned about. He will continue to use and explore it as users tend to keep using what they’re familiar with.

Main reason I’m “against” doing experiment with 100k ARB is:

1. I don’t think 450k ARB is a lot for such initiative, it’s literally taking over the biggest crypto community, can be even considered cheap compared to what other projects are spending on marketing.

2. Availability- the banner will probably be booked and need to book it in advance.

[the_drake]

Can you share any links that point to long term support for Moons on the subreddit?

Do you foresee any risks?

[MeLLoN98]

I’ll explain Moons story:

May 2020, Reddit announced Reddit Community Points program, stepping into web3 and giving tokens to some qualified subreddits - r/Cryptocurrency (MOON) and r/FortniteBR (BRICK) .

Later that year, Reddit announced Bake Off - program to scale these points, out of 20+ applications- Arbiturm won with Arbitrum Anytrust / Nova solution.

Late 2022, Moons launched on Mainnet - Arbiturm Nova.

Late 2023, Reddit announced they are stopping the Points program (before their IPO) but they didn’t kill Moons, they renounced Moons contract, burned their 40m Moons and have the logo copyrights to the community, since that moment, Moons were completely decentralized and the subreddit mods announced that Moons will continue to be supported unlike the other subreddit r/FortniteBR which made it clear they won’t support Bricks.

[MeLLoN98]

Some links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/17fraht/mod_team_update/?rdt=49753

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/17un84c/update_regarding_moons_contract_community_tanks/

Governance got restored (Live already on Snapshot.org), Moons distributions will be back very soon with tipping.
Advertising is the main use case after governance and it didn’t stop after Reddit announcement.

[Smiling_Jack]

Thing is, the /r/cc mods were the ones doing 95% of the work around MOONs in the first place, not the Reddit admins.

Honestly Reddit admins washing their hands of MOONs and burning the contract was the best thing that could happen to MOONs and the various subreddit communities that use it.
They are no longer at the mercy of the whims of a corporate entity that controls the contract.

[Soggybiscuit]

I find this incredibly problematic, you can’t prevent other L2s from building bridges, and generally it’s not in the spirit of decentralisation to lock people in.

Secondly if you want to keep people confined to ARB what’s the incentive? On paper none of this is guaranteed it’s all speculative. If you want to run with this I think you should award moon holders ARB on a monthly basis if they choose to stay in this network.

[MeLLoN98]

That’s playing by the rules. There’s governance token that holders can use to control the faith of r/Cryptocurrency and the token itself- Moons.

This proposal is not locking users, it prevents others Layer 2 to come and legally move Moons base from Arbitrum to other chain. Bridging Moons to be cross chain is not the issue, the issue is moving the base of Moons - where all the activity happens, things like Moons Distributions to users, tipping on r/cc and its derivatives, governance and voting, buying special membership and items, DAPPs like MoonPlace.io and others- that’s the base and its currently on Arbitrum.

Prime example

Now that didn’t happen to Moons yet, I believe due to lack of awareness, not many are aware that Moons is the governance token of r/CC, and you can technically control the future of both r/CC and Moons with it.
Not many are aware that you can advertise on r/CC by burning Moons, example:

For incentives, this proposal is like giving incentives to Moons holders- Arbitrum DAO doesn’t have to pay them directly but by supporting Moons and its use case - Advertising and Governance.

[9two5]

Do you singularly control /CryptoCurrency? How do you plan on using ARB treasury funding to “take it over” otherwise?

Does your proposal not go directly against r/CryptoCurrency’s premise? As in, won’t this “take over” be seen as highly contentious in their eyes?

The overall goal of r/cryptocurrency is to give a fair voice to all crypto projects, as we believe in the space entirely. We do not support the “one coin above others” mentality.

Maximalists, “one superior coin”, and “our coin is best” folks should head to their own coin specific subreddits

Behavior such as constantly promoting one coin, attacking another, or general negativity will not be tolerated

Has this already passed CC governance? If so could you link to the proposal to expand on this discussion?

If this fails CC governance but passes ARB governance, and CC censors the banner, what comes of the 400K ARB?

I honestly don’t see the point in this. I think a crypto subreddit is the one place we don’t need to advertise, Arbitrum is already mentioned there countless times for free every day. It’d be like putting an $800K banner over top of Uniswap.

Maybe you should mention a disclaimer that you’re the largest MOON holder in your proposal because it really gives a lot of context.

[MeLLoN98]

I think you misunderstood the whole concept of the proposal and what it’s trying to achieve.
It’s not really Takeover, Moons already on Arbitrum Nova and One, many guides and tutorials on how to use Moons on Arbitrum / Arb discussions on the subreddit.

First I don’t want the ARB to myself, the ARB will simply swapped to Moons & burned for advertising and sent to ARB DAO Treasury for emergency governance usage.

In this proposal I’m asking for 2 things;

1. Advertising Arbitrum on r/Cryptocurrency, Banner and sponsored post that introduces users to Arbitrum and mentions that Moons, the subreddit native token is on Arbitrum - this has few goals:
   • Arbitrum DAO supporting Moons and the subreddit while getting advertising in return.
   • if there’s going to be an ADs anyway, I prefer it to be Arbitrum and not other Layer 2.

2. The governance part is not shifting or making Arbitrum favorable in the discussions or posts.
   No. The subreddit will always stays neutral in this context.
   I’m talking specifically on things that can harm Arbitrum’s relation with the subreddit- I gave example of other layer 2 comming and proposing to move Moons to their chain - in this case, Arbitrum DAO can use the Moons to vote against.

So for summary, it’s giving back to r/cc community and Moons by using Moons main usecases - Advertising and Governance.

I added that I’m core contributor on r/Cryptocurrency since 2020 (volunteer - not paid), founder of RCPswap (Nova) and holder of MOON and ARB.

[dk3]

okay here me out, how can we turn this into an opportunity to directly onboard users to arbitrum? Rolling it into an effective campaign for reddit users to migrate some capital to arbitrum and test out the waters I think would be pretty cool. Maybe something where we can link reddit accounts from a snapshot or something to track successful new onboards.

i will note in the past we (premia) have purchased donuts and used that to bid reddit advertising space in the past and it was pretty effective.

450k ARB to market buy moons will probably not fly, but a comprehensive marketing campaign with tracking in place to gauge effectiveness with a smaller amount is probably more palatable.

[MeLLoN98]

That’s the whole point of Moons (from Arbitrum perspective), Moons distributions onboard Redditors to Arbitrum each month. And Moons usecase makes Redditors interact and be active on Arbitrum, for example user A tipping user B or his post, users burning Moons for special membership, advertisers buying and burning Moons to advertise- it’s all on Arbitrum and that was the main partnership between Reddit and Arbitrum.

Now since Reddit “betrayed” both the users and Arbitrum while the community is still running Moons even way better than before, I think Arbitrum DAO should replace Reddit place and help Moons grow even further.

Maybe even something symbolic like getting some Moons to ARB Treasury like I proposed can help grow Moons and indirectly grow Arbitrum.