Members of the now-infamous “meme stock” vigilante subreddit r/WallStreetBets could have discovered their final goal—the mothership itself. The subreddit has been filled with customers discussing the prospect of deploying a number of the identical profitable techniques used to pump the shares of GameStop and AMC earlier this yr and apply them to Reddit itself, which simply announced its intention to go public.

Reactions to the IPO information weren’t all optimistic although.

“You either die a hero, or live long enough to become a public company that will monetize the shit out of us,” Reddit consumer renameCorei said. That basic query of whether or not or not r/WallStreetWager would basically be monetized from the IPO got here up time and again. Users additionally voiced considerations Reddit’s IPO may welcome a brand new wave of content material censorship on the platform. Meanwhile, others asked the equally vital query of whether or not or not they might have the ability to purchase shares with Reddit karma factors

Let’s again up for a second. Reddit announced it had confidentiality filed an S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week but it surely has but to resolve the variety of shares that will be supplied or the worth vary for the providing. This comes lower than six months after Reddit reached a valuation of round 10 billion {dollars}, a hefty price ticket pushed largely by the eye the corporate gained from every day information headlines generated largely by r/WallStreetBets, the Wall Street Journal notes.

Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman have beforehand credited the r/WallStreetBets crew for serving to herald thousands and thousands of recent customers and new promoting cash to the platform. In August, the corporate revealed that it had made $100 million in promoting income within the second quarter of 2021, an enormous achieve representing a 192% improve from the identical time a yr earlier than.

“This whole event is showing the power of large communities of everyday people,” Huffman told the Journal on the time. “Not just massive institutional and professional investors get to participate in the stock market.”

Reddit is bulking up as effectively. Earlier this yr the corporate stated it deliberate to double its employees to round 1,400 workers by the tip of 2021, according to The Verge. The IPO will mark a pivotal second for the corporate based in 2005. Reddit was bought to Condé Nast in 2006 for around $10 million after which spun off in 2011.

For anybody who forgot, r/WallStreetBets rattled the funding world earlier this yr when its members pumped up online game retailer GameStop’s inventory, bleeding out some hedge funds alongside the way in which. (One of these hedge funds, Square Capital, was pressured to close down earlier this yr). Though GameStop was probably the most memorable case, r/WallStreetBets additionally had a hand in boosting the shares of AMC and Blackberry as effectively.

One factor r/WallStreetBets customers are undoubtedly proper about is the truth that their fights with hedge funds doubtless helped drive up Reddit’s valuation. While it could be becoming for these customers to make use of the identical techniques to pump up their host’s worth, Reddit differs from the likes of Game Stop or Blackberry in that almost everybody else sees its worth.