Why OddsRabbit Launched a Token

Hey everyone,

I want to be upfront about something that some of you may have noticed - OddsRabbit recently launched a token ($oddsrabbit) as part of this Hackathon competition. This has been tearing at me with guilt for the past couple of days, and got me googling things like “does the end really justify the means” (the answer is debatable btw). I’m now up at 3am writing this because it is the only way I can clear my conscience. The guilt is quite funny because I honestly think this is in the best interest of all (which is my personal approach to everything), so why am I feeling guilty? But I will touch upon that later.

I also really hate letting people down and not being transparent, so I want to share a full explanation of why, what it means, and what’s changing on the platform.

Before we get into it: Nothing is changing. The platform and what we’re doing have never deviated (and likely won’t) since the vision etc. has always been from my personal core values - being transparent, doing good, taking care of others, wanting to make an impact on the world for the better etc.

Why we did this

I've been self-funding OddsRabbit for over 15 months. I really believe in what we’re trying to build - a better social platform that does good, but unfortunately, it isn't sustainable long-term. We would’ve always needed outside funding, and the traditional route would be VCs, which have their own drawbacks. Entering and, if possible, winning the competition is probably the better route (sorry to the one or two VCs reading this).

The requirement for the hackathon was to create a token and build in public (which I have limited to X, and streaming on their platform itself). It was a really tough call, and I thought about it a lot before deciding to go for it. Ultimately, I felt it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

I found out about the competition ~4 days before the deadline, which is why there wasn't an advance notice. That's 100% on me, sorry about that.

What is NOT changing

This is the most important part of this post, so I want to be clear:

Regardless of the results, OddsRabbit is not becoming a crypto platform. The mission, the functionality, and the experience are staying exactly the same.

You will not see us promoting cryptocurrency or our coin, and you will not be asked to connect a wallet or do anything crypto-related. You will also not see or be part of any scandal because we do not own any of our coin. All of our coins were sent to be locked right away.

You will not notice anything different about how the platform works.

This was clearly stated in our hackathon submission as well, so even if we win, they know there will be no changes to the platform's direction.

What IS happening

We have a dedicated community at /c/cryptocurrency for users who are interested in that space. The token and any future crypto-related features will live exclusively within that community. They will be one community out of the hundreds on OddsRabbit.

To be honest, even before this hackathon, crypto was being considered as one of the features to be implemented for /c/cryptocurrency - not because of anything monetary, but because I view each community as being similar to a Discord server - where they all have their own fun and small customizations that make them unique and fun for the users.

And a crypto coin for the crypto community just made sense to me. The thought was that as long as we are not doing anything sketchy, then it’s simply a feature for the enthusiasts.

Honestly, I was inspired by $MOONS that lived on the cryptocurrency subreddit. It was their own little meme that existed and created a fun culture that existed only there and never anywhere else, before it was removed.

Over time, the plans for the token include things like tipping, airdrops for active contributors, charity donations, and community-only badges and flairs.

But even these features are designed so that if a crypto user tips someone in another community, the recipient does not need to know or care about crypto. It simply goes toward their chosen charity as an additional philanthropic contribution.

My vision on this is that it serves the crypto audience, while additionally contributing to one of our core causes of doing good.

Why I think this works for everyone

OddsRabbit was built on the idea that the internet world should be better, in general, but in our context - for creators, for communities, and for the causes we care about. We already donate meals per signup and commit a percentage of ad revenue to user-chosen charities. Adding a crypto token doesn't change any of that.

My train of thought was that it adds a fun feature for crypto-enthusiasts, while also giving another avenue for charitable giving and creator support, and not impacting non-crypto users at all.

Now to the funny part about guilt that I mentioned in the opening - if I think this is honestly a positive win-win-win for all, why am I feeling guilty? I think deep down, I know this will upset a few users, even if I really mean the best.

“Does the end justify the means?”

I’ve been asking myself this for 2 days now. If the "means" is launching a token specifically for our crypto-native community, and the "end" is a platform that makes a positive impact on the world, then for me, I realized the answer is a clear yes.

Final thoughts

I 100% understand why some of you might be skeptical and turned off. Crypto has had its fair share of bad actors, especially in recent times. I made this decision because I genuinely believe it's the right move for OddsRabbit, and made sure it doesn't impact anyone negatively. If we win the competition, we are probably set for the foreseeable future and can avoid the venture capital route. If we don’t, the exposure alone is worth it, and tokens as a feature to the crypto community were always a maybe in the plans (though probably pushed up in the timeline significantly).

The idea to do it was not to pivot, not to chase hype, and not to compromise the platform.

If you have questions or concerns, you know I am always reachable through chat, and I’m a pretty transparent person.

And if this is something that makes you want to step away, that is very fair. I hope you'll check back again after a while and see that I meant every word of this.

Thank you for being here and being part of the platform.