RA vs the World

Reddit, the social media and discussion website, released their non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called Collectible Avatars July this year. What Reddit essentially did was to make a use case for NFTs outside the gaming industry. Before the Collectible Avatars, NFTs were used for collecting art (like Mike Shinoda’s tokenized art and music collection called Ziggurats) or games liked Axie Infinity.

So here, let me explain what the Reddit Collectible Avatars are and how it’s changing NFT collections.

But first, let me direct you to the main page for my discussions of everything blockchain and crypto. You will find them all here.

NFTs are digital assets given identities on the blockchain. In the case of the Reddit Collectible Avatars, they are on the blockchain network called Polygon Network, which is gaining more popularity within the NFT community because of the low gas fees. I’ll talk about gas fees in another post, but to keep it simple, think of gas fees as your transaction fees. Kinda like the fees you pay to your bank account or digital wallet when you pay a biller. The only difference is that there is no centralized entity who gets all the transaction fees.

Since NFTs are on the blockchain, this means it’s easy to prove that its supply is limited, that you actually own the asset, and that it exists. This also means that it’s easy to interact with it through something called “smart contracts,” which is a misnomer because it’s not actually “smart” nor is it a “contract.” They’re just codes that automate anything you want to do when interacting with assets. An example would be if you want to sell your Reddit Collectible Avatar, you can just set a price via an online marketplace and when someone wants to buy your asset, you don’t actually have to be only to receive the payment or send the NFT to your buyer.

Let me discuss these six one by one. The last two are actually more important than the first three, so bear with me.

Standing Out in the Comments

When a user comments on a Reddit post, free avatars are shown inside a circle like the sample shown above. Meanwhile, paid or free Avatars (there are actually free Reddit Collectible Avatars) show up like this comment from one of the Avatar artists r/dubbl3bee.)

This is an interesting experiment for a use case for these NFTs. Reddit has proven that a large website like theirs can integrate digital assets. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter will someday do the same, if they’re thinking straight.

The Owners Can Add A Card on Their Profile

Like the the promise above, this is actually just for vanity. Instead of profiles that look like this

holders get profiles that look like this

This is as long as the user is wearing the avatar. Simply owning it won’t do.

Mixing with the Other Gears from Other Avatars

This is one way of making this all fun. This avatar below

is a combination of these three avatars.

This makes for a fun way of making your Avatar really unique because there’s an infinite possibility.

They are Collectible

And now for a more serious discussion on why this matters. Other collections outside NFTs go up in value because they are original or because they are the first.

The first and second drop of the Reddit Collectible Avatars were made by the same artists. Reddit has been accepting applications for artists who want to join the roster of new artists for their upcoming drops. Since each drop will feature a collection from a real artist, I’m guessing each new one will be special and differently themed compared to the previous ones. Reddit is also asking applicants to share links to their portfolio, maybe so that they can carefully choose who’s worthy to be featured.

The second paid Reddit Collectible Avatars dropped a week before October 31 and was therefore themed Halloween.

The Owners Actually Own the Avatars

For some, this might not sound like a big deal, but think of this for a second: I play “Call of Duty: Mobile.” I actually post some of my unedited games here. When playing the game, sometimes, there are cool operator skins and weapon skins.

If Call of Duty: Mobile spots on social media that I try to sell my account, they can suspend my account for ten years, just like what they did with Filipino pro-player Jerrold Ragay in 2021. When this happens, I actually won’t have access to my skins anymore. This means that the skins that I paid for are not actually mine.

Now, back to my Reddit Collectible Avatars. I have three accounts on Reddit that were banned permanently for vote manipulation.

I just posted on r/Philippines that Cinemalaya should consider giving discounts to students especially in the provinces so more can be exposed to independent films. And then I, the idiot, upvoted my post using another account I own, so they permanently suspended all of my accounts, even the ones that I didn’t use for upvoting the post. They know which ones I own because they know I used the same device to open those accounts.

Despite my permanent suspension on Reddit, I still own my Reddit Collectible Avatars because they are not actually on Reddit. They are on the blockchain. In fact, even after the suspension, I was still able to sell some of my duplicate Avatars. Once I have a new device (new phone), I can create a new account and then send all my Reddit Collectible Avatars to the crypto wallet linked to that account. (I will write about crypto wallets here soon.)

They are Transferrable

This is actually very important as well. But you already have an idea what I mean here because of what I said above. This just means that you are able to sell your NFTs via a smart contract, or transfer them to another account manually.

If you want to know more about the Reddit NFTs, I recommend that you visit the official Reddit Collectible Avatars subreddit or Reddit Help. There’s also a subreddit for Avatar Trading, where members are happy to answer questions for newbies who are scratching their heads about trading.

That’s it for now. If you have questions about this topic, please feel free to email me at ra@ravstheworld.com so I can answer them in future posts.

TRANSPARENCY NOTE: I own a few Reddit Collectible Avatars.

If this was somehow helpful, feel free to send $MATIC donations to my wallet 0x7d442374cBc29FEa773a5D816777eEF0b94d2B74. LOL. Thank you!