NFTs
Reddit is discontinuing animated collectible expressions for polygon NFTs
Social media site Reddit is ditching its Collectible Expressions feature, which created animations based on users’ collectible avatar NFTs.
The news was revealed in a Reddit Help Pagewhich brings up a message stating that “As of August 5, 2024, Collectible Emotes will no longer be supported on Reddit. In some cases, you may be able to view them in previous comments, but they will not be able to be used in future comments.”
Collectible Expressions are based on Reddit’s Collectible Avatars, a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) at the Polygon blockchain. NFTs were hugely popular when they first launched. Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal even claimed that they were evidence that Reddit had “cracked the NFT code.”
Collectible Expressions introduced a selection of animated expressions that “bring your avatar to life by using the animated expression as a comment” and are available on a limited selection of subreddits at the discretion of community moderators.
According to a Dune Analytics DashboardOver 33 million Collectible Avatars have been minted to date, with a market cap of $43 million. Collectible Avatars come in free and premium varieties, with the free variety accounting for the bulk of those minted.
At the same time, a new leader of Collectible Avatars announced that the r/CollectibleAvatars community would be restricted and become an official announcement channel, teasing “new updates and exciting plans to share.”
Promised plans include “new community partnerships” and “even more events and activities,” while the Collectible Avatars team emphasized that “the collectible ecosystem is still going strong.”
Reddit has previously controlled some of its cryptocurrency-related projects, phase out your “Community Points” reward tokens on Arbitrum Nova scale network in October 2023. At the time, Reddit cited concerns around resources and the “regulatory environment” as reasons for shutting down the project, which was later assumed by a decentralized group of Reddit users.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.