Reddit may follow Twitter in letting users set their NFTs as profile photos
Reddit's NFT functionality is still early in internal testing.
Reddit has moved from hosting cryptocurrency forums to engaging with NFTs.
Reddit could be the next big internet platform that allows users to set their own nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as their profile pictures.
Last week, Twitter started letting users set their NFTs as profile photos, but only for paid subscribers of the platform's Twitter Blue service. Reddit's efforts are not nearly as far along, and have only progressed to a "small, internal test and no decisions have been made about expanding or rolling out the capability," Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told TechCrunch Wednesday.
The internal test was reportedly discovered by developer Nima Owji, who tweeted a screenshot of a banner promoting the feature. The banner appeared on Reddit's web app atop the main pages of Reddit communities, though typical Redditors wouldn't see it, Owji told TechCrunch.
Reddit has been trying out NFTs with its own dedicated page that lists tokens for sale, called CryptoSnoos, that are themed after the platform's alien mascot and buyable with Ethereum cryptocurrency.
While Reddit's users don't have access to this functionality yet, the feature would reportedly let them set their own NFTs beyond CryptoSnoos. While NFT ownership would be verified, it's not clear if Reddit's system would follow Twitter's example by setting special visual indicators like badges to signify use of an NFT as a profile photo. We've reached out to Reddit for clarification.
Whether Reddit users would embrace using NFTs as profile photos is up in the air. The NFT subreddit has over 352,000 members, but communities dedicated to collecting and selling the tokens are less populated with over 18,300 and over 7,400 members at the time of publication, respectively. The official Reddit post introducing the CryptoSnoos in June 2021 garnered a wide range of responses, from disbelief to serious interest to dismissal. "If you have one of these avatars I will not hesitate to insult you for it," Redditor Corzappy commented at the time.
Yet gauging by the discussion, some of the Reddit NFTs were being sold for 2 ether, a rate that for certain tokens created back then has ballooned up to 175 ether or over $435,000 today. That's more in the neighborhood of high-value NFTs sold from collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is selling image tokens at a minimum of 93 ether (or over $224,000 today), suggesting that Reddit might be a more NFT-friendly platform than Twitter or other online platforms. At least for those members who can afford such wildly expensive profile photos.