DappRadar believes Reddit’s plan for NFT launches “one of the biggest events for Web3” in 2022
Reddit may have cracked the formula for bringing new users into the web3, according to a new report released by DappRadar on the behavior of the blockchain industry.
Furthermore, 94% of adults with “household money discretion” are now aware of cryptocurrencies. The report said:
“The ease of bringing new users to the NFT world by Reddit can be seen as one of the biggest events for Web3 this year.”
Reddit’s new digital collectible avatars are NFTs based on the Polygon network, but very little educational or marketing material was released by Reddit that referenced the blockchain technology behind the products.
Reddit also avoided the term ‘wallet’ which DappRadar defined as a “potentially deterring term.” Instead, the social platform is using the term “vault” to lure users into its new digital initiative.
DappRadar’s head of research, Pedro Herrera, told exclusively CryptoSlate.
“On these social platforms you see a lot of opposition to NFTs. So it was very exciting to see the way they approached this. They didn’t mention the word NFTs and they claim the process was very smooth as users didn’t have to cash out MetaMask or setting it up and so on.”
The DappRadar report said, “Reddit’s achievements in this case cannot be overstated.” Given its success, the plan could become a catalyst for web2 companies to enter web3 with a solid strategy to engage audiences, who may not be native to crypto products and terminology.
The rise in popularity of Reddit NFTs has been linked to a general excitement in blockchain technology in the developer community. Amidst the slowdown in crypto price action, development and activity on the chain has never been higher.
The report obtained data to confirm that “smart contract deployment was up 40% compared to the first quarter of the year, and every month in the third quarter hit a new all-time high.” Another spike was also seen after the Ethereum merger when there was a 14% spike in smart contracts distributed to the chain.
“Nearly 36% of all smart contracts ever published and verified on the blockchain were executed in 2022. That’s a total of nearly 118,000 smart contracts compared to the over 323,700 contracts ever executed.”
Conversely, after the 2018 crypto crash, there was a 45% drop in smart contract installations. The compilation of the data indicates that the current bear market is a very different beast than those that have gone before.
Other aspects of blockchain development, such as web3 gaming, were also covered in the report. It highlighted problems with web3 game adoption, including a lack of awareness among traditional players and reduced Twitter mentions for web3 metaverse terms.
As for web3 games, Herrera commented that
“There is still a lot of work to be done when we think about game economies. It still needs to be a project that cracks the code to achieve long-term sustainability rather than short-term growth.”
However, Herrera is positive about the future of games in web3 from projects that “have a plan” and “think long-term”. Games that are for people to “play for fun as opposed to farming a token” are the ones he’s most excited about.
The report also touched on the increase of women within the web3 area, with an increase of 6.16% compared to 2021. However, the distribution is still roughly 75/25 in favor of men in the area. The US still dominates the industry, followed by India, Indonesia, Russia and Ukraine.
DappRadar’s report concluded that the industry appears to be “on an upward trend in terms of regulation”, but that “new legislation and enforcement of pre-existing regulations will most likely have a positive impact on the industry.” DappRadar claimed that regulation will “give more legitimacy to cryptocurrencies and promote their adoption.”
The full report from DappRadar can be found in their research section and is available to all users from 12:00 UTC on October 28.
