Reddit users should hurry up if they want to cash out MOON tokens, price is falling

Reddit's crypto community has worked out a way to sell its native token MOON for cash. The coin that was initially hosted on an Ethereum testnet and intended for internal use only is now converted to a mainnet currency and traded on DeFi-protocols.

What is MOON

$MOON is a native token or Reddit's cryptocurrency community launched in May 2020 together with the Vault feature.  Vault is a cryptocurrency wallet integrated into Reddit users' accounts, where they can store subreddit-based community tokens. 

r/Cryptocurrency was the first to get its coin, known as MOON. The first 50 million MOONs were airdropped to users' wallets based on their karma points. Now the system distributes the tokens every four weeks, each time reducing the amount of the airdrop by 2.5%. All in all, there will be 250 million coins in circulation that will be fully distributed by 2040.

Distribution schedule

Source: Reddit

The token was supposed to incentivize the members of r/CryptoCurrency to contribute high-quality content. The better content you post, the more Moons you have. The new coin could only be spent on Reddit for purchasing badges and other trinkets.

Moons are a new way for people to be rewarded for their contributions to r/CryptoCurrency. Claim your Moons in the new Vault section of the Reddit iOS or Android app! They represent ownership in the subreddit, they are tokens on the Ethereum blockchain controlled entirely by you, and they can be freely transferred, tipped, and spent in r/CryptoCurrency.

Not for sale

The tokens are ERC-20 tokens based on the Ethereum blockchain, but they are not intended for monetization. Thus, naturally, holders cannot change them for ETH or any other coin as they are hosted on a testnet called Rinkeby.

However, Ethereum developer Austin Griffith discovered a leeway on how to turn Moons into cash. He created a way to move the tokens from Rinkeby to an Ethereum sidechain, xDai, and the rest is history. Tech-savvy Redditors quickly figured out how to covert their Moons into Cash using Ethereum wallet MetaMask and the decentralized finance (DeFi) token, Dai.  

The process is complicated and requires many steps and some resources to pay fees, but the fact is: the token that has never been intended for sale has its own markets on DeFi protocols. Users on Twitter and Reddit share the tips and tricks on bypassing the limitations and cash out on their reputation. 

According to the crypto twitter analyst Jason Fernandes (@TokenJay), currently, there are only 7,721 MOON holders, and the top-100 possess over 69% of the total amount of coins in the circulation.

The same is confirmed by Etherscan data, also showing that the top two addresses contain over 36% of all coins:

Moon tokens statistics

Source: Etherscan

How much for the Moon

At the time of writing, $MOON is changing hands at $0.072 on the cryptocurrency exchange Honeyswap. According to the trading platform statistics, the price peaked at $0.35 on September 26 and has decreasing quickly ever since. An average daily trading volume reduced $232,738 from over $400,00 on Monday, September 28, meaning that the buying interest in the coin is fading away. 

$MOON price chart

Source: Honeymoon

Meanwhile, Reddit users seem to be eager to cash out their tokens. One of them said that selling Moons was like winning a lottery. However, it is still not clear, who's buying them.