The trade volume of Reddit NFT (nonfungible token) avatars has surpassed US$1.5 million, as per reports from Polygon and Dune Analytics. This surge accounts for more than one-third of the collection’s total trading volume of US$4.1 million since its inception. At the same time, 3,780 digital collectibles reached a new all-time high in the daily sales volume of Reddit NFTs.
Reddit avatars are designed by independent artists, and creators from popular creative subreddit communities and are minted on the Polygon blockchain. Such collectibles are available for purchase on Vault, Reddit’s cryptocurrency wallet. These avatars can be shown as profile images by Reddit users.
The NFTs can be purchased and traded on secondary marketplaces like OpenSea after being purchased. OpenSea provides cross-chain operability, enabling them to be bridged onto Ethereum, Klaytn, and Solana.
Some of the avatars were premium NFTs, which users bought from the website for fixed prices starting at US$10 to US$100 each. According to Reddit Floor figures, approximately 86,000 NFTs were sold to users, giving them a market cap of about US$100 million as of right now.
A few collections have little to no bids, while others have floor values above US$2,000 in certain collections. A Spooky Season avatar created by anonymous artist poieeeyeee that sold for 18 ETH, was the most expensive Reddit NFT ever.
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Many more Reddit NFTs, on the other hand, were given out or airdropped for free to some of the site’s users who had earned an especially high level of karma, across over 100,000 active communities (or subreddits), introducing many individuals to NFTs for the first time. Some of these NFTs include the Meme Team, The Singularity, Aww Friends, and Drip Squad collections.
Many others were caught off guard by the news. This is because NFT subreddit on the social network had long been a medium inundated with either hate for NFTs or rants about malicious NFT frauds.
So how did Reddit pave the way for the mass adoption of NFTs?
Industry experts believe that Reddit’s deliberate decision to refrain from using any forward-looking keywords like “NFTs” or “Crypto” is to be credited for helping new technologies become more widely accepted. Under the pretense of “Collectible Avatars,” an expansion of their already-existing function of “Avatar Builder,” it was able to offer what are technically NFTs.
The “Avatar Builder” feature, which allowed users to customize their look on the network, was introduced by Reddit in 2020. Redditors could build an avatar from a selection of endless accessories, clothing, and hairstyles. The introduction enhanced the Reddit Premium program by making unique accessories only accessible to those who were a member of it. Both the profile page and profile card for the user displayed the avatar. To further encourage the adoption of NFT avatars, Reddit teamed with Netflix, Riot Games, and the Australian Football League (AFL) to provide its users with unique avatars.
It will be interesting to see how Reddit continues to dominate the NFT industry amid the criticism and environmental concerns against NFTs.
