Whoever says Reddit says online communities and groups. With millions of users worldwide and thousands of communities, known as subreddits, the platform is interesting for everyone. Follow the latest news, post your favorite image/video yourself and contribute to various communities.

While the whole world is waiting for the big adoption of Web3 and the use of digital ownership, Reddit is taking a completely different tack. Terms like “crypto” and NFTs are completely redundant to Reddit. Still, they use blockchain technology to introduce its millions of users to the world of Collectible Avatars and Community Points. No marketing or hype, but immediately everything applied in practice. How? Find out all about Reddit’s Collectible Avatars here.

What is Reddit? #

Reddit is a social media platform with over 330 million monthly active users worldwide. Post messages, photos, videos and contribute to the community. It’s not for nothing that Reddit calls itself ‘The Front of the Page’; the best of the internet in one place. They do this through reddits, but also subreddits. Dive into anything.

Community users can rate your contribution. They can “downvote” or “upvote” your post or video. Do you get a lot of upvotes? Then you will be rewarded with karma points. These karma points determine how visible your post becomes in the community. Similar to other platforms such as Facebook that will promote or reward popular posts with better visibility.

Unique Features Reddit #

Of course, we know different social media, but what makes Reddit unique? On Facebook and Instagram, you can be a member of different groups or follow certain people, but what makes Reddit unique is the use of communities.

Communities #

Reddit consists of thousands of different communities. These are all classified into different categories. Right now, Reddit has over 30 different categories including:

• Gaming
• Memes
• Tech
• Fashion
• Finance
• Science
• Parenting

Each of these categories in turn has thousands of different communities. Everyone can create their own community or of course join. And do you think these subreddits are small groups? Think again, these too often have millions of members. As you can see, the purpose of Reddit is to build communities. Bringing people together, connecting with each other to talk about their favorite subject.

Web3 Communities #

While we wait en masse for “the big change” that launches us to Web3, a lot of things are happening in the background. Web3 is more than digital ownership. The world focuses on the Metaverse, while NFTs are increasingly questioned. After all, what do you do with digital images that are sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Reddit, on the other hand, has its own strategy.

Reddit does not use the word “NFT” anywhere. In recent years, these Non-Fungible Tokens have been increasingly questioned, giving them a bad connotation. Pain point here is the lack of utility. There are more and more NFT collections that serve as digital art, without any application. Users who have no experience with Web3 and/or crypto may be shocked by the word ‘NFT’. The solution? Just use a different name, like Reddit.

Reddit Collectible Avatars #

On July 7, 2022, Reddit launched their new project: Collectible Avatars, also known as digital collectibles. Users can create their first personalized avatar representing their digital identity on the platform. Reddit already has an avatar in its logo, so why not give users their own identity as well? Reddit has already launched several collections built on Polygon’s blockchain.

Reddit partners with several independent artists to launch new collections. Earlier in 2022, four collections were already launched to reward users with a lot of karma points. They could choose between one of the following collections:

• Aww Friends
• Drip Squad
• Meme Team
• The Singularity

A term that comes up more often is PFP NFTs. This stands for Profile Picture NFTs. Not only do we see this with popular collections such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club, but in the development of Web3 Communities, these profile pictures are also popular with Reddit NFTs.

Community points #

There is more. Each community can use their own ‘points’. This allows you to own part of the community and has other benefits such as governance function, access to premium features and even use these community points for tools outside of Reddit. They each have their own launch and rules. This way they can determine the points classification themselves, including:

• Name
• Symbol
• Distribution Rules

Does your points system remind you of anything? Correct. In fact, community points are one cryptocurrency per community. Users can earn points. These points are a measure of your reputation in the community. The points are visible next to your username, so that other users can immediately see your reputation score.

In fact, these community points are completely decentralized on the blockchain, which means that they can also serve outside of Reddit. So, users can not only show their reputation on other websites or apps, but they can also use these points for other dApps.

Utility #

What can you do with these community points? Users can emphasize their digital identity even more by using these points. They have earned this through their contribution, or users can also purchase it.

• Earn something unique and valuable for your contribution to the community
• Buy community features such as special memberships
• Use polls in your community
• Use these Community Points as prize money for events and competitions

The target? Stand out in your own community. The more active you are, the more community points you have, the more you become part of your favorite community. You own, as it were, part of your own community. By using your personalized avatar and badges you can also show others in your community how active you are. But these Community Points can also be interesting outside of Reddit!

dApps #

Reddit calls it “community points,” but in fact it’s just their own token within their community or subreddit. And just like any other cryptocurrency, the possibilities are endless. Building decentralized communities knows no boundaries.

Example: you are a member of a community that deals with traveling within Europe. Members within this community can earn or buy community points, but what can they do with them? One possibility is that decentralized applications are built for booking accommodations. Users would use these community points as a means of payment, for example to get a discount and/or extra benefits. Users receive a privilege through their contribution to their community. Consider, for example, benefits for merchandise, ticket sales for certain concerts, etc. The more you actively build your community, the more benefits you will receive. Do you see the link with Web3 and building communities where users get digital ownership?

The Vault #

Like NFTs, do you also own your own Collectible Avatar or Community Points? Reddit uses ‘The Vault’. This is your own digital wallet on Reddit’s own platform. No chrome extensions, but a built-in wallet. It helps users preserve their blockchain-based assets. When you create your own wallet, you will receive a public address. This is the address on the blockchain that you manage yourself.

On chain assets #

The Vault is therefore a native wallet from Reddit, but all assets are on-chain. In this case, they exist on Polygon’s blockchain. Reddit deliberately chose Polygon during the launch, at the time for The Merge of Ethereum. Why? Scalability, cost-effective and efficient.

The Collectible Avatars therefore all exist on the Polygon blockchain. This means that you can send it from your Reddit wallet to, for example, your MetaMask wallet. Why is this important to know? In addition to the popularity of Reddit and the collectibles, the hunt is also open for merchants. Investing in these collectibles and then selling them on the secondary market such as OpenSea. And the statistics don’t lie.

OpenSea statistics #

Reddit NFTs are a success, which can be seen in trading volume, among other things. With over $2.54 million in sales over the past few days, the world is watching in amazement at this new development. At the time of writing, the counter is at about +8 million dollars, with 28,000 sales.

Since its launch on Reddit, some 3 million wallets have been created and more than 86,000 Collectible Avatars have been minted. According to DappRadar, OpenSea has 2.3 million users. With this, Reddit not only competes with OpenSea, but also with popular NFT marketplaces such as Magic Eden and LooksRare.

CryptoSnoos #

These Collectible Avatars are selling for record amounts in just a few months. The Reddit collection of CryptoSnoos immediately received the necessary attention. None other than the CO-founder and CEO of Kraken paid no less than 115 Ethereum for a ‘Snooprematic’. To date, this is the most expensive Reddit NFT ever sold.

Footnote #

NFT’s Collectible Avatars are a new and important step in the development of Web3 and community digital ownership. But despite the fact that the statistics do not lie and the trading volume is increasing enormously, we must also take a critical look at this event.

Reddit introduces millions of users worldwide to the world of NFTs and crypto, but traders do not miss that either. Traders look for the best buying opportunities to buy one of these Collectible Avatars, with only one goal: to sell it at a higher price. This naturally increases the trading volume.

Instead of using these avatars for the community they initially serve, these Reddit NFTs are a new way for traders to make money. Nevertheless, the objective is that these Collectibles will serve their communities. Time will tell whether this will succeed.

Conclusion #

Metaverse, blockchain games and numerous dApps. We are all eagerly awaiting the worldwide adoption of Web2 to Web3. This development goes by trial and error. With the arrival of NFTs, the world was ready to finally discover Web3, but just as quickly criticism of the development of NFTs came. In addition to allowing users to own digital items for the first time ever, questions were raised about the user application. What can you actually do with digital art? As a result, NFTs recently got a bad reputation, unjustly. The idea of ​​digital ownership is still revolutionary and will be part of our future.

Reddit is aware of this. They therefore do not use ‘cryptocurrency’ or ‘NFTs’ anywhere, but use terms such as Collectible Avatars and Community Points. In this way they introduce millions of users worldwide to the world of crypto, without them even realizing it. They immediately focus on the utility. What can you do with it, how does it support the community, what are the benefits? Instead of the hype and marketing of certain NFTs or cryptocurrencies, all benefits and applications are immediately applied in practice. Is the general public finally ready for this revolution?