On July 7, 2022, Reddit introduced the launch of a brand new mission: Collectible Avatars. These limited-edition PFPs, created by impartial artists in partnership with the corporate (along with standard Reddit group creators), would confer distinctive platform advantages to their house owners. Backed by the Polygon blockchain and obtainable for buy at a hard and fast worth in fiat, it was Reddit’s first large-scale foray into the NFT area.
The announcement took many without warning. The social platform’s NFT subreddit had lengthy been a terrifying and cacophonous place the place you had been equally more likely to encounter both seething NFT hatred or annoying and malevolent NFT scams. Even Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian primarily suggested folks to steer clear of the poisonous part of the web site at one level. What was the corporate doing diving head first right into a technological development whose fame was battered even outdoors the partitions of its personal platform?
But, in a weird Web3 twist, simply three months after the corporate launched its NFT mission, 4 separate Reddit Collectible Avatar collections maintain spots on OpenSea’s Prime 10 listing for 24-hour buying and selling quantity, with one assortment knocking CryptoPunks out of the primary spot. On prime of that, it lately got here to gentle that Reddit customers have created 3 million Vault crypto wallets on the platform since July, surpassing even OpenSea within the variety of lively wallets on its platform.
All of which sounds a bit insane. So, how did Reddit, a Web2 social media platform, turn out to be the dark-horse hero of Web3 NFTs?
What are Reddit NFTs?
Reddit’s CryptoSnoos NFTs are digital, limited-edition collectibles primarily based on the social platform’s mascot, Snoo. They’re designed by impartial artists and Reddit creators from standard artistic communities like r/Comics that customers should buy with fiat forex. The avatars give customers platform advantages (like distinctive profile animations) and permit Redditors to make use of their avatars as they see match off the platform.
These NFTs emerged from the context and the success of Reddit’s then-recently-updated Avatar Builder, which the platform launched in 2020. Customers may use the Avatar Builder to customise their Snoo with hairstyles, jackets, jerseys, and different gear, permitting them to personalize their profile image.
The present Collectible Avatar NFTs are additionally a conceptual extension of Reddit’s first NFT collection, which it launched quietly again in June 2021 as a set of 4 creative interpretations of its Snoo avatar. Promoting for as excessive as 175 ETH ($234,000 on the time), their success undoubtedly inspired the corporate to proceed exploring the potential of the expertise.
The place to purchase Reddit NFTs
For those who’re trying to discover a Collectible Avatar in Reddit’s Collectible Avatar Market, you’re out of luck — they’ve all bought out. Yow will discover them on OpenSea, nevertheless, the place secondary gross sales are starting to skyrocket. Listed below are 4 of the preferred.
Widespread Reddit NFT Collections
Foustlings x Reddit Collectible Avatars is one in all Reddit’s best-selling collections, having achieved greater than 430 ETH in buying and selling quantity. Created by Reddit consumer Tyler Foust, the gathering options Snoos in his signature squiggly line fashion surrounded by vibrant colours.
Spooky Season: poieeeyee x Reddit Collectible Avatars and Spooky Season: Rojom x Reddit Collectible Avatars are two Halloween-themed collections of almost 2,000 Snoos created by Redditor poieeeyee and Rojom, respectively. Poieeeyee’s assortment at present holds the number-one spot on OpenSea’s Prime 10 listing by 24-hour buying and selling quantity, and has seen 514 ETH in buying and selling quantity (as of writing). The fourth assortment in that Prime 10 listing is The Senses x Reddit Collectible Avatars, one other Rojom creation.
How did Reddit pull this off?
Reddit is aware of its group nicely. It’s additionally conscious of the controversial standing NFTs maintain within the minds of the non-Web3 initiated. Earlier than the introduction of Collectible Avatars, the corporate launched a report referred to as The ABCs of NFTs by which they discovered that 70 p.c of Reddit customers had been open to purchasing an NFT from their favourite model, however 35 p.c thought that manufacturers may additionally “destroy the way forward for NFTs.” In different phrases, they knew they needed to execute their strategy to NFTs rigorously, minimizing dangerous optics related with expertise whereas making it simple to buy them.
And so they walked a really high quality line. The corporate employed impartial artists and acknowledged expertise inside its personal platform to make artistically distinctive digital avatars that grant house owners particular utility on Reddit, gave NFT house owners one thing akin to a CC0 license when it comes to mental property utilization, incentivized platform customers to get a cool, new PFP within the course of, and made them obtainable for buy utilizing fiat as an alternative of crypto. And so they did this all whereas consciously avoiding utilizing the time period “NFT.” The phrase doesn’t make a single look in Reddit’s July announcement.
This technique actually wasn’t misplaced on its consumer base, as evidenced by this current submit from a group member. However at this level, no quantity of the acerbic, intelligent, typically poisonous rhetoric that Reddit customers have earned an notorious fame for can do something to carry again Collectible Avatars’ monumental rise.
“Seeing [NFTs] take off received us considering — what would occur if we gave artists on Reddit license to make any fashion of avatar they wished?” the corporate contemplated in its July announcement.
For those who had stated the reply to that query was “get a number of Reddit Collectible Avatar collections into OpenSea’s Prime 10 listing, with one knocking the mighty CryptoPunks out of the number-one spot,” you the decentralized group could have checked out you with furrowed brows.
What Reddit has achieved right here is troublesome to overstate, and its technique of approaching NFTs with out even utilizing the time period is one which many extra Web2 corporations on the fence about NFTs will most likely implement, given this success story. For now, the Snoo has turned our heads.
