Reddit removes moderators involved in insider trading in MOON tokens

Reddit's R/CryptoCurrency community has fired two moderators for engaging in insider trading in the Moons (MOON) token, Cointelegraph has confirmed.

Cointelegraph reported on October 20 that at least three wallets linked to Reddit group moderators dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of MOON tokens on October 18, minutes before the blockchain-based points program was announced to be closed using specific cryptocurrencies native to each community. The market scrap of the three wallets has been highlighted by X (formerly Twitter) on-chain analysis accounts such as Lookonchain.

1/ Three @CCMOD_ moderators dropped $MOON early on #inside info from @Reddit admins. pic.twitter.com/ucrPkh6siX

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 19, 2023

Reddit moderators were notified that the blockchain-based points program was shutting down an hour before the official announcement. Reddit's announcement sent the token down 85% to $0.0198, but two moderators managed to sell at the time to make more profit than the rest of the uninitiated community.

Related: Reddit Community Tokens Added to Kraken List

Cointelegraph reached out to r/CryptoCurrency to learn about the insider trading allegations and how the investigation went. Main contributor and founder of MoonDust, U/Mellon, told Cointelegraph that two moderators have been removed and three others are being investigated:

“2 mods removed for selling their moon before reddit's official announcement: u/rider_of_the_strom u/ McGillby.”

The program allowed participants on the platform to earn points and spend them using community-based crypto tokens such as MOON. Users who post or leave comments in the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit are awarded the ERC-20 token MOON, which they can freely exchange, tip, or use for other uses within the community.

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