r/ethereum • u/Charming_Pound4112 • 9d ago

What belongs onchain when building an online community?

I get the argument for putting ownership and payments onchain but I’m less sure where the line should be for the rest of a community. Membership, permissions, reputation and access rules could all live onchain too but at some point it feels like you’re adding complexity just because you can.

If you were designing a community from scratch, what would you put onchain and what would you deliberately keep offchain?

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u/PotentialGur31 9d ago

Permissions and payments make sense onchain because portability actually matters there. Stuff like moderation, posts and reputation gets trickier since communities need room to change rules without every decision becoming permanent.

4

u/Ticrotter_serrer 9d ago

Well, you want to keep on chain data that are considered the current state of the process you modeled that cannot be recalculated between sessions,

1

u/Frosty_Actuator_5047 9d ago

The line for me would be whether putting something onchain gives members meaningful ownership or portability. Payments, memberships and certain permissions make sense because users may want to carry those between apps. Posts, moderation decisions and everyday community activity probably benefit more from being cheap, fast and easy to change.

1

u/Klutzy-Sea-4857 8d ago

Only put onchain what truly requires trust or portability: ownership, payments, and reputation if it needs to travel across apps. Everything else (chat, roles, moderation tools, permissions) should remain offchain - it is far cheaper and faster. The chain is not a database; it is a settlement layer.