Reddit is launching it’s third generation soon — the week of April 10th: are you ready? :)
Note — none of the information in this article should be taken as financial advice. Reddit Avatars are an art-based digital collectible intended to be fun pieces for collecting and customizing. Please make your decisions to mint according to your own circumstances and interests!
I. Reddit Avatars: A Brief Overview/Background
Before diving in to the latest generation, it can be helpful to have an idea of the overall collection concept and the history thus far.
In essence, Reddit collectible avatars are designed to be a customizable avatar system — in fact, you can go on the Reddit social media website today and start playing around with the customization options, which center around the cute alien snoo Reddit mascot, without any interaction with blockchain whatsoever. These customized avatars can show up next to user’s comments and on their user profiles, giving users a way to express themselves and share their personality on the platform in subreddit communities they enjoy chatting and posting in (or lurking, however the case may be).
After creating an account, simply click on your username in the upper righthand corner and go to “Style Avatar” to start exploring the customization options!
Within the “Style Avatars” section, you’ll find “Explore” with different outfits to try out (and occasionally free mints, like the Endangered Animals at the top), “Style” which lets you change out individual shirts/pants/hats/accessories/etc., “You” for changing hair/skin tone/face/etc. and seeing your collection of wearables/avatars collected, and “Shop” for seeing the collectible avatar shop (where new mints happen!)
Reddit’s digital collectibles artist collections fall within this broader avatar customization system, with premium designs created in collaboration with Reddit-native artist community members (ps- as an aside, if you are an artist interested in creating with reddit, you can find their featured creator application form linked at the bottom of the shop page!). Users purchase these collectibles, which in the past have been offered for prices ranging $10-$100 through the Reddit store. The first drop took a few months to sell out (Jul-Oct 2022), the second drop took about a day to sell out (in Oct 2022).
While they can be used natively on the reddit website for customization and display without any blockchain interaction, for those interested they can also be transferred out of your vault wallet to other wallets or traded on secondary trading platforms such as OpenSea. While reddit avoids using NFT terminology, each collectible avatar is technically a polygon nft — to freely send them around between accounts you will need MATIC (though for a limited time, reddit may cover the transfer fees once per avatar), and to trade/buy/sell on OS you will need wETH.
Beyond these artist-focused paid collections, there have also been a variety of free mints distributed to different high activity reddit users, to users of specific subreddits (like r/wallstreetbets), around various events (FIFA World Cup, End of Year Reddit Recap, Superbowl) and around various topics/criteria (Endangered Species, new accounts). All of these different avatars can be mixed and matched with each other. Each collectible avatar is actually really just a joint series of wearables collected together — so you can create the perfect combination for your digital identity!
Here are some other articles/timelines/etc. that might be interesting for some background reading:
Timeline of Avatars: https://www.reddit.com/r/avatartrading/comments/10etqbg/a_historical_timeline_of_all_reddit_avatar/
Another Overview of Avatars: https://ancient8.gg/research/en/articles/reddit-collectible-avatars
II. Okay cool — What do I need to know for mint?
- First, make sure you have a Reddit account and ensure your vault/wallet is setup and secured. It’s easy and free to sign up for an account on www.reddit.com — make one and start playing around!
You will likely be prompted to provide a password for your vault — if you lose your password and need to restore your account, you won’t be able to access your avatars again, so please keep track of this! Would recommend setting up your account on a mobile device as opposed to desktop, where you should also have options to backup your vault (with traditional wallet secret recovery phrases) manually.
Best practices in general for secret recovery phrases are to write them physically down and store them in a secure IRL location (if you want to be extra secure, ideally in a fireproof/waterproof way) — not stored on a digital device or online (where it could potentially be hacked). These are your keys to your assets, so you do not want to share them with others, nor do you want to lose them.
2. Figure out your Payment Methods/Strategy: While the exact minting flow for gen 3 is unknown, we can guess or anticipate what the experience might look like based upon previous generations.
In the past, avatars minted for $10-$100 each varying in price based upon rarity, with a limit on the number of each avatar that could be minted per person — though exact prices and quantities for avatars in this next generation have been speculated to potentially have some variation.
Interested collectors buy the digital collectibles in fiat (aka traditional non-crypto money) via credit card, Google Pay or Apple Pay.
If using credit card, there is a possibility your bank may be suspicious of large numbers or high values of transactions going through at one time. Depending on your anticipated mint plans, it may make sense to call them ahead of time (or plan ahead so any potential account freezing that could occur doesn’t impact you).
If using Google Pay or Apple pay on mobile, you might be able to stock up your balance ahead of time by buying gift cards, which some have recommended as a way to be extra speedy and prepared during a mint event. It is worth noting that when using either of these two third party options, the payment processor takes a 30% cut out of the sale proceeds which would otherwise go to the avatar artist.
Unfortunately, ETH/MATIC and other cryptocurrencies have not been supported as a way to purchase these digital collectibles. If you do happen to have only crypto, some have recommended potentially looking into websites which can convert crypto into Google Pay/Apple Pay gift cards, which could then be used on the reddit site (bitrefill or other options?) Please do your own research and avoid scam sites, but this could also be an option worth exploring. Some have also recommended looking into coinbase/crypto.com credit cards if you want to spend crypto and have such a card.
Which payment method is best? Entirely up to the collector! If looking to maximize artist support, using a credit card and minting on desktop may be strongly worth considering given the additional funding and support it lends to the artist behind the avatar. However if time is of the essence and you have another mobile workflow that works better for you to snag a low mint number, go for it! Being ready and prepared for multiple methods may be your best bet, in order to have back ups and options when the time comes.
III. Figure out wen mint! Connect with the community.
We don’t currently know when the mint date for the gen3 release will be. (Although we just found out it will happen during the week of April 10th!) During the gen2 drop, reddit released info on the shop launch about a day in advance so the community could be ready. However, its always possible that we don’t get a specific drop day/time, in order to mitigate bots or for any number of other reasons.
In either case, check out the r/avatartrading subreddit community, which has also branched out to both twitter (https://twitter.com/r_avatartrading) and discord (https://discord.gg/avatartrading). If you join the discord, there is an active unofficial but dedicated community that will try to ping when the mint is live! People also try to keep tabs on all the latest ‘alpha’ and might be the best place to check for launch date speculation and tips.
Just be sure to be cautious (as with all discords), since scammers are everywhere and no mods are immune. Since all reddit minting happens on the official reddit website, you can always use the discord for timely updates and nudges to go check on the main site (rather than click any links) — and check the official reddit shop!
IV. Decide on a minting strategy that is right for you
Everything in this article has tried to be relatively objective thus far, but its worth a quick note that buying and collecting avatars is a very subjective decision.
You might like certain artists, or certain styles, or simply take an interest to specific traits on some of the pieces! If you are interested in browsing the anticipated gen3 artists ahead of time, you can find a (still updating) list on twitter: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1585161345149845505/members
All avatars are functional customizable art pieces that mix and match on the reddit avatar system — the utility is inherent and provided at purchase, rather than being a promise for future utility or function. Occasionally some of the artists may enjoy airdropping additional art or creating tangential collections — definitely worth checking around artist’s twitters and individual discords if interested in such projects, but avatars as they are remain standalone pieces with all promised utility as delivered.
Some folks may enjoy looking at the speculation aspect of the game, and there is never anything wrong with selling any digital collectible that might be in your collection, for any price that is worth it to you! However, whenever trading digital collectibles, its certainly worth being careful to only spend what you can afford to lose or that you appreciate for the intrinsic worth— because at the end of the day it is intended to be a fun customizable avatar wearable and/or collectible art piece on reddit.
No one can predict the future of the program or what reddit avatars may look like in the future (while previous mints have done well and the program seems to be growing, new generations with larger cohorts of artists could very well fall below mint prices, and/or there is always the possibility that reddit will not necessarily support the program “forever” — or that future mints will be intended to be less ‘collectible’), so do always be sure to plan and “do your own research” according to what makes sense for you- and buy what you enjoy!
V. Collecting/Trading/Resources for Secondary & Post-Mint
Made it past the mint? There is a thriving community that enjoys both customizing with the avatar pieces (with fan-favorite “mashups” of different avatars!) as well as trading to build the perfect collection for each individual collector.
Some resources you might want to check out along your collecting journey include:
A list of tons of really helpful avatar collecting resources/tools/Dune analytics/stats/etc. from the Reddit community: https://www.reddit.com/r/avatartrading/comments/z7csot/the_complete_list_of_reddit_avatar_websites_and/
Top 10 Qs FAQ: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/xwepjp/i_made_a_top_10_faq_about_selling_buying_or_using/
VI. Closing Thoughts
Good luck, have fun! Again — none of this is financial advice, and please do your own research! This was a super quick article I wrote just to help people get started with poking around the system, and will probably iterate on. :)
Full disclosure I will be an artist in gen3, but none of the views written here should be associated with Reddit.
Please feel free to reach out and chat with me, always happy to meet new people! If you enjoyed the article feel free to give me a follow on twitter (I’ll be posting some reddit art sneaks as well ;)) ~@jascolors