Over three million users have opened crypto wallets to grab one of Reddit’s Collectible Avatar NFTs, claimed its chief product officer, Pali Bhat. In August 2022, the social media/community app airdropped free NFTs to its most loyal users. To buy, trade, and store NFTs, Reddit users must set up Reddit Vault wallets. Based on the current figures, Reddit potentially has more active wallets than OpenSea with 2.3 million active wallets.
Here’s all you need to know about Reddit’s NFT initiatives:
About Reddit NFT wallet users
Speaking during a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt, Bhat noted that over three million Reddit users have set up Vault wallets. Notably, 2.5 million of these were created to purchase NFT avatars, which users can use as their Reddit PFPs. Despite a market crash, the latest Reddit announcement shows that there is renewed interest in PFPs.
To put things into perspective, the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea has 2.3 million users. While the top Solana marketplace, Magic Eden has 1.17 million, LooksRare has a little over 106,000, according to DappRadar data.
Reddit’s NFT initiatives
Interestingly, Reddit was one of the first social media giants to hop on the NFT bandwagon. In June 2021, the company released CryptoSnoo, an NFT collection based on its Snoo mascot (aka, the Reddit alien). Early this year, it started testing a feature to allow users to set any Ethereum NFTs as their PFP.
Later, in July, it launched its NFT marketplace with the Collectible Avatar drop (more on that later). The marketplace allows users to buy, sell, and trade avatar NFTs. While users can utilise credit or debit cards to buy the NFTs, they can store their assets in Reddit’s Vault wallet.
“In the future, we see blockchain as one way to bring more empowerment and independence to communities on Reddit,” the company said in a statement at the time.
What are Collectible Avatars?
The Reddit Collectibe Avatars NFT collection features around 40,000 limited-edition, Polygon blockchain-based avatar NFTs. For the first release, the company partnered with Reddit artists to create around 90 designs. These were then available for sale at prices ranging from $9.99 to $99.99. Additionally, members of the invite-only subreddit, r/CollectibleAvatars had early access to the collection.
Then, in August, the popular social media company decided to airdrop the avatars to its top community builders. Only those with a minimum amount of “karma” was eligible to receive the airdrop. To explain, karma is Reddit’s way of measuring a user’s contribution to the community.
All things considered, if Reddit’s claims are true, its latest update signals the adoption of PFP NFTs. Moreover, the company raked in over $350 million in revenue last year. Amid this, its NFT ventures are likely to bring in more earnings to the platform.