Reddit’s Gen 4 NFT drop blemished by Pricing Bug
Reddit released its Gen 4 Collectible Avatar series, the largest drop to date, yesterday. However, the rollout wasn’t as smooth as anticipated due to a technical glitch that led to an unequal pricing strategy for Android and Apple users.
Reddit minted over 18 million NFT Avatars in the past year
The new collection, titled “Retro Reimagined”, showcases a colorful reinterpretation of Reddit’s iconic “Snoo” character and is meant to stir up feelings of warm nostalgia in the minds of Reddit users.
The creative work of 100 independent artists and popular NFT collections like Cool Cats has been incorporated into the latest series. The NFTs, based on the Polygon platform, are priced between $2.49 and $199.99. Notably, only fiat currencies are accepted for transactions, as Reddit decided early on to exclude cryptocurrencies from its marketplace.
Glitch spoils the party
The Gen 4 series launch was not without hiccups. Unlike the previous release, Gen 3, which was marred by bot infiltration, this launch faced a distinct problem: a minor bug that caused disparity in pricing for users across different platforms.
Android users, due to this bug, were able to buy Avatars at significantly lower prices than their Apple counterparts. This glitch unintentionally created a huge divide between buyers and led to an imbalance in the post-launch secondary market.
Android users laughing all the way to the bank
For example, the $100 avatar “Rojom The Eye Eater” was being sold for merely $10 to Android users, who turned a massive profit by reselling these avatars for $50-$60 just minutes after the launch. This price disparity resulted in a 40% loss for Apple and Desktop buyers, while Android users enjoyed a 5-6x profit.
This discrepancy wasn’t a singular occurrence but rather a recurring one, impacting all $100 avatars. The differential in price prompted frustration among buyers who didn’t make their purchases on Android. As Reddit user u/GabeSter satirically stated, the Gen 4 Avatars release inadvertently redefined the term “Apple Tax” as it automatically devalued the $100 avatars for everyone who didn’t buy on an Android device.
Despite the pricing bug and subsequent market anomalies, Reddit’s expanding presence in the NFT market remains undeniable. However, the company may need to iron out these technical glitches to ensure a fair and equitable marketplace for all users in future releases.
