On April 11, Reddit rolled out its third generation (Gen 3) NFT collection, expanding the number of artists from 32 to almost 100. The new release was centered on futuristic themes. Artists who participated in the Gen 3 release had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent them from giving details of the avatars before the launch however, leaked images of the avatars have been circulating online weeks before the launch.
According to the data on Dune Analytics, this Reddit avatar edition has been thriving so far. They have recorded a total of 576K mints by 479K minters, with a trading volume of $2.7 million from 20k sales. The top-selling Gen 3 avatar was a part of the prguitarman collection, which sold for almost $7k.
The new project utilised a tiered system giving priority to popular artists. Chris Taylor, the creator of the popular Nyan Cat meme, could create one avatar style with a supply of 1,000 NFTs, while some other artists created up to three characters each at varying supply levels of 75 or 100 NFTs.
The first generation of collectible avatars was launched in June 2022 on the Ethereum layer 2 network Polygon and depicted the platform’s mascot Snoo in various styles. In December 2022 Reddit’s collectible avatar minting reached a new all-time high with a record 255,000 avatars minted in a day. And by February 2023 the total market cap of Reddit NFTs exceeded $36 million. At the time of writing, the combined market cap of the whole collection exceeds $58 million.
Some members of the NFT community have suggested that Reddit’s decision to expand the number of artists will lead to an oversaturation of quantity, and potentially dilute the commercial value of the upcoming collection. However, the move clearly matches Reddit’s goal to attract a wider base of collectors. We continue to observe the Reddit NFT wonder.
