Reddit’s collectible avatars have blown up the NFT space
On July 7, 2022, Reddit announced the launch of a new project: collectible avatars. These limited-edition PFPs created by independent artists in partnership with the company (in addition to popular Reddit community creators) will provide unique platform benefits to their owners. Backed by the Polygon blockchain and available for purchase at a fixed price in fiat, this was Reddit’s first large-scale foray into the NFT space.
The announcement surprised many. The social platform’s NFT subreddit has long been a scary and confusing place where you’re equally likely to encounter NFT hate or annoying and brutal NFT scams. Even the founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian It is basically advised to stay away from the toxic part of the website at one time. What the company is doing is diving head first into a technological trend whose reputation has even been batteries outside Own platform walls?
Yet, in a bizarre Web3 twist, just three months after the company launched its NFT project, four separate Reddit collectible avatar collections hold positions in OpenSea’s top 10 list for 24-hour trading volume, with one collection knocking CryptoPunk from the number one spot. . . On top of that, it was recently revealed that Reddit users have created 3 million Vault crypto wallets on the platform since July, surpassing even OpenSea in the number of active wallets on its platform.
All of which sounds a little crazy. So, how did Reddit, a Web2 social media platform, become the dark-horse hero of Web3 NFTs?
What are Reddit NFTs?
Reddit’s CryptoSnoos NFTs are digital, limited-edition collectibles based on the social platform’s mascot, Snoo. They are designed by independent artists and Reddit creators from popular creative communities like r/comics that users can purchase with fiat currency. Avatars give users platform benefits (such as unique profile animations) and allow redditors to use their avatars as they fit outside of the platform.
These NFTs stem from the context and success of Reddit’s then-recently updated Avatar Builder, which the platform launched in 2020. Users can use the Avatar Builder to customize their snook with hairstyles, jackets, jerseys and other gear, so they can make them. Personalize their profile picture.
The current collectible Avatar NFTs are also a conceptual extension of Reddit First NFT collection, which it quietly released in June 2021 as a set of four artistic interpretations of its Snoo avatar. Selling for as much as 175 ETH ($234,000 at the time), their success no doubt encouraged the company to continue exploring the technology’s potential.
Where to buy Reddit NFTs
If you’re looking for a collectible avatar on Reddit’s collectible avatar marketplace, you’re out of luck – they’re all sold out. You can find them on OpenSea, however, where secondary sales are starting to skyrocket. Here are four of the most popular.
Popular Reddit NFT collection
Faustlings x Reddit Collectible Avatars is one of the best-selling collections on Reddit, generating over 430 ETH in trading volume. Created by Reddit user Tyler Faust, the collection features snus in his signature squiggly line style surrounded by vibrant colors.
Spooky Season: poieeeyee x Reddit Collectible Avatars and Spooky Season: Rojom x Reddit Collectible Avatars are two Halloween-themed collections of nearly 2,000 Snoos created by Redditors poieeeyee and Rojom, respectively. Poieeeyee’s collection currently holds the number one spot on OpenSea’s top 10 list by 24-hour trading volume, and has seen 514 ETH in trading volume (as of writing). The fourth collection on that top 10 list is The Senses x Reddit collectible avatar, another Rosem creation.
How did Reddit pull this off?
Reddit knows its community well. It is also aware of the controversial status of NFTs in the minds of non-Web 3 initiators. Ahead of the launch of the collectible avatar, the company released a report titled ABC of NFT Where they found that 70 percent of Reddit users were open to buying an NFT from their favorite brand, but 35 percent thought the brands could “destroy the future of NFTs.” In other words, they knew they had to carefully maneuver their approach to NFTs, minimizing the bad optics attached to the technology and making it easier to buy them.
And they walk a very fine line. The company employs independent artists and recognized talent within its platform to create artistically unique digital avatars that provide owners with specific utility on Reddit, NFT owners with something like a CC0 license to use their intellectual property, incentives for platform users, new PFPs in the process, and crypto. Instead they are made available for purchase using fiat. And they did all this while consciously avoiding using the term “NFT”. The word doesn’t make a single appearance in Reddit’s July announcement.
This trick certainly hasn’t lost its user base, as evidenced by a recent post by a community member. But at this point, the amount of acerbic, witty, sometimes venomous rhetoric that Reddit users have gained notoriety for can do little to hold back the monumental rise of collectible avatars.
“Seeing [NFTs] Takeoff got us thinking — what if we licensed artists on Reddit to create avatars in any style they wanted? The company contemplated its July announcement.
If you were to answer the question “Get multiple Reddit collectible avatars on OpenSea’s top 10 list, one of which knocks off the mighty cryptopunks from the number one spot,” you’d be frowned upon by the decentralized community.
It’s hard to overstate what Reddit has achieved here, and the strategy of approaching NFTs without even using the term is one that many other Web2 companies on the fence about NFTs will likely implement in the wake of this success story. For now, Snoo has turned our heads.
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