I think part of it is about retention .... retaining all those users, especially those with high karma levels (or at least users who believe they have high karma) from abandoning the site and ending their accounts.
I'm currently in the process of ending my four accounts I have on reddit. Two of them are over 100,000 in karma and when I read this post, the very first thing that popped into my mind was .... HOW MUCH WILL MY ACCOUNTS BE WORTH?
So it's now making me think ... if I can just keep up my account for another while, maybe I can cash in on all that karma I accumulated.
I am sure that many other redditors are thinking the same. The way this reddit admin posted the info is really weird too ... it sounded like some salesman just enticing people into an idea but not fully being able to say much about it and instead making vague suggestions that something big is coming in the future.
I know a sales job when I see one .... and this is a sales job. Many people will fall for it ... if not just to hang on to see if they can at least cash in our something ... anything when the announcement happens.
Say or think what you want about me ... but I'm ending this relationship and deleting my accounts ... I don't trust big corporations to say or do anything that might give me a chance at anything. Any action they elicit from me or any user will be gamed to only benefit them. If not enough people figure that out ... reddit will make bank in the short term and that is all they are counting on.