In a surprise disclosure at TechCrunch’s Disrupt Event, Reddit chief product officer Pali Bhat shared that 3 million Redditors have created crypto wallets through the company’s Vault-blockchain wallet service. 2.5 million of those Redditors have used their wallets to purchase avatars on the Reddit NFT marketplace.
The numbers, if correct, mean that Reddit now has more active NFT wallets than OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace. OpenSea had 2.3 million active wallets in September of 2022, according to Dune Analytics. Whether or not the owners of these crypto wallets know they have purchased “NFTs” as avatars is still up for debate.
Reddit has long experimented with including Web3 technology on its platform. In July and August of this year, it released 40,000 NFT avatars at varying price points. Although the NFT avatars sold out quickly, they are still available for purchase on secondary markets like OpenSea. There are 29 Reddit NFT avatar collections to date.
The number of created crypto wallets on Reddit show that adoption of NFTs has not slowed down, despite the larger crypto bear market. And major companies continue to move into the space. Meta recently announced that all U.S. Facebook and Instagram users would be able to share their NFTs on the platform. Starbucks is launching a rewards program on the blockchain.
Reddit based its NFT avatars on its popular “Snoo” character. The avatars have proven profitable, with a few of the Reddit collections trending among the top collections on OpenSea. A few individual avatars have even sold for thousands of dollars. The avatars trade on the Polygon blockchain, which is a Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum.
Reddit Has Been Busy in 2022
Reddit, one of the largest online communities, has had a busy year in Web3. In addition to its co-founder investing in a few Web3 startups, the company itself has been at the forefront of mainstream NFT adoption, as this article shows. Here are three stories involving it and Web3 from this year.
First, there is Reddit’s airdrop of NFT collectible avatars. Two months ago, the company started giving away its collectible avatars to its most die-hard users. Reddit used “karma points” to determine which users received the NFT avatars.
Second, there is the launch of Reddit’s avatar marketplace. Three months ago, the company launched its much-anticipated marketplace for NFT avatars, dropping 90 unique designs and 10s of thousands of NFTs.
Third and finally, there is Reddit’s experiment with NFT PFP verification. Nine months ago, the company tested a new feature that allowed users to set an NFT as a profile picture. Some speculated at the time that Reddit was following in the footsteps of Twitter, which permitted NFT PFP verification through its Twitter Blue subscription service.
The number of crypto wallets created through Reddit’s Vault is bullish news for the NFT space and shows adoption can still happen during a bear market. Here at Rarity Sniper, we’ll pay close attention for further developments in the story.