Avatars on Reddit
About two years ago, we launched a new and improved Avatar Builder, allowing anyone to generate and customize their own personal avatar – a unique way to display identity on Reddit.
Shortly thereafter, we made countless accessories, outfits, and hairstyles available to allow for even more expression. We also brought redditors custom avatars in collaboration with partners like Netflix, Riot Games, and the Australian Football League (AFL).
Seeing avatars take off got us thinking - what would happen if we gave artists on Reddit license to make any style of avatar they wanted? And what if we could help these artists showcase their art to the entire Reddit community and make it easy for them to earn money for their work? Our new Collectible Avatars storefront does just that.
Collectible Avatars
In this series, Collectible Avatars are limited-edition avatars made by independent artists, in partnership with Reddit, and provide owners with unique benefits on the Reddit platform. If someone sets their Collectible Avatar as their avatar on Reddit, they can mix-and-match the avatar gear with other Reddit avatar gear and accessories, and their profile image in comments sections will have a glow-like effect.
Collectible Avatars differ from other avatars on Reddit in a few ways:
They are available for purchase (vs. being free or available via Reddit Premium), and artists will be paid for each Collectible Avatar sold.
Collectible Avatars are backed by blockchain technology, giving purchasers rights (a license) to use the art – on and off Reddit.
You do not need cryptocurrency to purchase these avatars, nor are they being put up for auction. Each avatar has been priced at a fixed amount and is purchasable with fiat (government-issued) currencies.
More on blockchain
Right now, blockchain technology provides purchasers with ownership and portability of their Collectible Avatar, and provides artists with a way to have their work live beyond the virtual walls of Reddit (and be compensated for future sales of their art).
Collectible Avatars are currently stored on Polygon, a general-purpose, Ethereum-compatible blockchain. We chose Polygon for its low cost transactions and sustainability commitments.
In the future, we see blockchain as one way to bring more empowerment and independence to communities on Reddit. Reddit has always been a model for what decentralization could look like online; our communities are self-built and run, and as part of our mission to better empower our communities, we are exploring tools to help them be even more self-sustaining and self-governed.
Blockchain-backed Collectible Avatars are one of the early steps we’re taking to test out the potential benefits of this concept on Reddit.
How redditors can purchase Collectible Avatars
Collectible Avatars will be available to everyone in the coming weeks, but today we’re allowing first-look early access to a limited number of redditors who join the r/CollectibleAvatars community. In that community, people can learn more about how to purchase Collectible Avatars, set up wallets to store them, and get to know our artists with behind-the-scenes posts, AMAs, and more.
When available, people can purchase Collectible Avatars where they normally build avatars on Reddit, using local currencies, such as dollars in the U.S. As soon as someone completes a purchase, they’ll be able to use their avatar on Reddit.
To store and manage Collectible Avatars, redditors will use their Vault – a blockchain-powered wallet on Reddit. A Vault gives users a specific digital wallet address that works across Ethereum-compatible blockchains; it’s the same Vault where redditors currently store Community Points.
Empowering artists on Reddit
Many of the artists we worked with for this first series came from popular creative communities like r/Comics. Some have cultivated the skills they utilized for this program in subreddits like r/ProCreate or r/AdobeIllustrator. We also worked with artists from our networks who are bringing their work to Reddit for the first time. From the start, our goal has been to empower artists to create and sell their work. Artists will get paid for every Collectible Avatar that sells on Reddit, less any fees, and are also entitled to receive royalties from secondary sales of their Collectible Avatars on open marketplaces.
Aspiring artists interested in being featured in an upcoming release are encouraged to join our creator waitlist and keep sharing their skills and work with other redditors.
To learn more about Collectible Avatars, visit our Help Center.