Reddit users have minted more than 5 million NFT avatars on Polygon

Reddit’s push in tokenized avatars has been a rare bright spot in the middle falling NFT sales and a broader crypto market in turmoil, and now Polygon-based initiative has marked a new milestone with more than 5 million of the collectibles minted to date.

Reddit collectible avatars NFT initiative crossed the 5 million mark in the last 24 hours, according to blockchain data curated on a Dune dashboard. They are also not heavily concentrated among high-value NFT collectors (or whales), as the project has more than 4.25 million unique wallets in total. About 3.95 million of these wallets hold a single Reddit NFT.

Reddit, the popular online discussion platform, announced plans to launch NFT avatars in July, bottling Ethereum side chain network polygon to offer both free and premium avatars. The vast majority of minted NFTs to date have been free avatars offered to heavy users of the site, which spans millions of separate communities (or subreddits).

In October, Reddit Chief Product Officer Pali Bhat announced that more than three million Polygon wallets had been created by users to collect NFTs. The announcement spurred an increase in prices and trade for the premium avatars in the collection, generating millions of dollars worth of sales on the secondary market within days.

The speculative bubble surrounding Reddit’s premium NFTs was short-lived, with only $700,000 worth of sales in the past month. All told, the Reddit NFTs have yielded about $11.85 million in secondary trades to date – well below top-traded projects like Bored Ape Yacht Clubwhich 61.6 million dollars just the last 30 days.

However, Reddit’s NFT program remains a notable example of how Web2 platforms can stimulate potentially massive use of Web3 technology through giveaways.

In fact, the amount of NFTs minted through the initiative has only accelerated recently. On December 3, more than 250,000 of the Polygon NFTs were minted, setting a new daily record and breaking a previous single-day high from August.

Reddit is one of several major brands building on Polygon, joining the likes of Meta with its Instagram NFT minting initiativeStarbucks with its just launched Web3 rewards programand Nike with theirs upcoming digital clothing platform.