Reddit NFTs surpass $8.6 million in volume, massive uptick for polygon-based NFTs
Reddit’s digital collectibles have provoked an unprecedented surge of activity in the NFT sector despite the bear market. The cumulative trading volume for all Reddit NFT pools has surpassed $8.6 million, challenging NFT pools such as Bored Ape Yacht Club.
What are Reddit NFTs?
On July 7, Reddit launched its Polygon-based NFT marketplace, which allows users to purchase blockchain-based profile pictures based on the social network’s logo, Snoo. “Collectible avatars are powered by blockchain technology, giving buyers rights (a license) to use the art — on and off Reddit,” the company said in the announcement.
Users can manage and store their digital collectibles on their Vault, Reddit’s own blockchain wallet. Unlike other companies that attempted NFTs, Reddit did not mandate users to purchase NFTs with digital assets. Instead, it allowed users to pay by credit or debit card. Furthermore, the NFTs have a fixed listing price associated with $9.99, $24.99, $49.99, $74.99 and $99.99.
In particular, Reddit is digital collectibles created by independent artists, with the total number of NFTs sold in this early access phase being in the “tens of thousands,” Reddit said. The avatars were originally available to members of the invite-only r/CollectibleAvatars subreddit.
Last week, a Reddit leader revealed that users have created over 3 million Polygon wallets for them. While speaking at a Techcrunch Disrupt panel, Reddit’s Product Manager Pali Bhat said that 2.5 million of these wallets were created to purchase NFT avatars.
Reddit launches second series of NFTs, Polygon NFT Volume Surges
On October 20, Reddit launched its second series of NFTs called Spooky Season. According to OpenSea data, Spooky Season saw its highest trading volume of $1.8 million on Monday. Also, the cumulative trade volume for all collections within Spooky Season has exceeded $3.7 million in the past week.
Cumulative sales of all Reddit NFTs have exceeded $8.6 million, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard. According to the dashboard, there are currently 2,865,728 collectibles, 2,840,786 single collectible avatars, and 2,953,002 avatars.
The growing interest in Reddit NFTs has also created an increase in demand for Polygon NFTs. More specifically, OpenSea Polygon volume hit an all-time high of around $3 million on Monday.
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Why have Reddit NFTs seen more success?
The meteoric rise of the Reddit collectible is nothing short of extraordinary considering the generally sour market conditions. According to Coinbase, part of its success is attributed to the fact that Reddit “makes it a direct participant.”
In a Wednesday blog post, Coinbase said this is in contrast to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter’s approaches, which primarily focus on “showcasing” NFTs purchased from marketplaces and adding your favorite as a profile picture.
“Reddit’s strategy also focuses on the community by providing additional features to NFT owners and supporting creators – many of the artists behind the designs of the avatars were found directly on popular subreddits, such as r/Comics and r/AdobeIllustrator. The company also sends free NFTs to some of the most active users on the platform.”
Coinbase also noted that Polygon played a key role in the success of Reddit NFTs. Polygon is a layer-2 blockchain compatible with Ethereum, allowing users to transact faster and cheaper, thereby addressing two major barriers to crypto adoption.
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Do you think Reddit NFTs will be able to compete with blue-chip pools like BAYC in the long run? Let us know in the comments below.
About the author
Ruholamin Haqshanas is an accomplished crypto and financial journalist with over two years of experience writing in the field. He has a solid grasp of various segments of the FinTech space, including the decentralized iteration of financial systems (DeFi), and the emerging market for non-fungible tokens (NFT). He is an active user of digital assets for money transfers.
