From deciding on your artwork to selecting a marketplace, here is everything you need to know about minting an NFT

NFTs and the NFT marketplace have grown drastically in popularity over the past few years. If you haven’t heard of them you must be a hermit who’s decided to live off the grid where there is no internet connection or newspaper delivery (which is totally cool, btw). In particular NFTs have become popular among digital art enthusiasts, video game developers, content producers, and many a digital entrepreneur.

Non fungible tokens or NFT refers to a digital asset that have been known to sell for millions. As a result, the NFT marketplaces and their audiences have only grown in size. Speculators and hopefuls have been quickly creating, buying and selling NFTs in the hopes of gaining quick fortunes (sometimes successfully), while others have simply wanted a way to monetise an already existing digital art portfolio.

NFTs have proven to offer a very attractive future for artists and creators, and although many think the time has passed to be a self-proclaimed ‘early adopter’, the online marketplace is still young and reeks of opportunity. So, you might be wondering how you can mint an NFT.

Reckon you have digital assets to sell?

You’re not the only one, which is why we’ve been overwhelmed with the question – how do I turn it into an NFT and sell it on NFT marketplaces? Well, minting an NFT follows a simple minting process. Okay, we’ll pause there because at this point you might be wondering what the hell we’re talking about when we say ‘minting’ an NFT (especially if you’re one of those hermits).

What is minting an NFT?

Okay before you go and mint NFTs you need to understand what that means. Creating or buying NFTs is often termed ‘minting’ in English. To mint an NFT typically refers to when an NFT token is published on your NFT account and therefore is the action of placing digital files on the blockchain.

Minting an NFT requires a few steps and trust us, you want to get it right the first time round. Don’t fall victim to ‘lazy’ minting an NFT the first time you start an NFT project.

Factors to consider before minting a digital file into an NFT

Despite the fact we’ve said the process is fairly straightforward to mint an NFT, there are certain things to be considered prior to jumping in. Like we said, we’re not into lazy minting so consider the below. It’ll guarantee the ability to sell your digital artwork or other digital files more easily.

An NFT platform

All minters have needed to choose a platform to mint and sell their NFTs on. There are many NFT marketplaces all competing for top spot. Many of these offer different services or have different fees.

Fees related to minting NFT collections are usually referred to as GAS fees. Consider these akin to paying a service fee for the printing of t-shirts before you place them on your online store, for example. Some platforms offer free minting but GAS fees are typically unavoidable at some point if you get into the world of creating NFTs and NFT sales.

We encourage you to carefully consider your NFT marketplace of choice, especially if you’re trying to save money on GAS fees or wanting to start at a lower price. But, if you want it to be straightforward, you could go with the Opensea marketplace. We’ll use them as our running example for minting NFTs.

What are you minting?

Before you go and mint an NFT, consider what it is you’re minting. Is it an artwork? Is it an audio file? Is it for financial gain or to spread brand awareness? Is it as a business asset or an individual endeavour?

Whatever it is, consider the quality of your new NFT. We’re not saying make sure it’s some complicated and intricate piece before it’s worthy of the interplanetary file system, but it does need to be decent quality and eye catching. Some of the best NFTs are simple, but they’re well considered before minting.

Also consider the image source. The image source needs to be original so you don’t break copyright laws.

How to mint a digital asset into an NFT?

Okay, OpenSea is our running example for explaining how to mint an NFT, so get onto the site and create a profile as a little first step in the right direction. We didn’t just choose this platform at random. For NFT minting, buying and selling, it’s the world’s leading platform. Every month it has over one million transactions. If you want to create NFTs, it’s one of the best places to start.

This is because there are plenty of perks that come with avoiding those smaller secondary marketplaces and doing your NFT minting on the world’s biggest. More people will see your NFTs, which means more visibility and potentially a better final selling price.

Additionally, every time someone resells your NFT on OpenSea, you’ll be paid an ongoing commission.

When it comes to minting NFTs on OpenSea, you’ll need to:

• Create a crypto wallet
• Buy Ethereum
• Connect your wallet to OpenSea
• Create and upload your NFT
• Put your NFT up for sale

Now it’s important to note that typically, Ethereum — the crypto currency — is used to guarantee the ownership of a unique digital asset (NFT). Because NFTs are recorded on a blockchain, any NFT smart contract is recorded on public ledgers which allow people to see the transaction history of NFTs.

This means you will easily and safely be able to view your own smart contract. Smart contracts are essentially the receipt of the transaction between buyer and seller. So, yes, once you mint NFTs they are bought and sold with cryptocurrency.

Alright, let’s get into it!

1. Create a crypto wallet

For the first step step you will have to open a crypto wallet before connecting it to your chosen marketplace. One of the easiest wallets to use is MetaMask. It’s also OpenSea’s preferred option when it comes to transaction services for crypto collections.

You can use MetaMask as a plugin on your browser, typically on Google Chrome or Brave. This wallet is where you will put away your Ethereum and NFTs. So, jump onto MetaMask and get that wallet set up!

1. Make sure your wallet is funded

When you buy or sell an NFT (which is technically recording the transactions between two parties) a network must process a number of computations. This transaction costs money, called the GAS fee we spoke about earlier. Always remember to check the transaction fees as they can get more expensive than expected. To pay these GAS fees, you need to make an Ethereum deposit in your wallet.

One of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world is Ethereum, which is why it is the preferred currency for trading NFTs. There are a few steps to getting hold of some Ethereum but don’t worry, you don’t need to take the week off work to do it.

Getting your hands on some Ethereum

Firstly, you need to jump on a crypto exchange and create an account. Some examples of these are Coinbase or Coinspot. If we’re sticking to the trend of using the most popular platforms as examples, then Coinbase is your go to. Once you have an account on Coinbase, you can purchase crypto such as Ethereum and have it sent to your MetaMask wallet.

Simply:

1. Open your accounts in Coinbase and MetaMask.
2. Click on ‘Buy and send’ in Coinbase.
3. Choose the right crypto and the right address to send to (steps below).
4. In MetaMask, copy the wallet address.
5. Paste the MetaMask address into the wallet address section on Coinbase.

Get familiar with the process above so that you can easily transfer over more if needed.

1. Connect your wallet to the OpenSea marketplace

Okay, you’re making good progress and are nearly ready to pre mint NFTs on the marketplace. But before we get into the mint function of how to mint an NFT, you’ll need to connect your MetaMask wallet to OpenSea.

To do so, simply:

1. Login to your MetaMask extension on your browser.
2. In the same browser, go to http://www.opensea.io/. In the top-right corner, select Profile.
3. Select MetaMask when the site prompts you to connect a wallet.
4. You’ll need to verify your account with your email and password and accept some terms and conditions.
5. Go to the confirmation email you receive in your email inbox (check junk).

Okay, get your digital assets ready, it’s mint NFT time!

1. Create your first NFT collection

After getting your hands on a wallet, getting some Ethereum in there, and linking it to OpenSea, you’re ready to mint your own NFT. Now, you might have thought of throwing up a single digital file and achieving success. But, this isn’t the game the NFT world plays, or at least not the best way to be successful on the NFT marketplace.

Consider a collection

NFTs typically get the most attention when they are a part of a collection. This doesn’t mean you have to go making multiple artworks that all are completely unique. A collection can be variations of one NFT. Simply alter the shapes, colours, layout, text and more.

create a collection

On the OpenSea site homepage, navigate to your ‘Collections’ and click on the ‘Create’ button. You will be asked to upload a logo for your collection and fill in other optional fields including a description of your work and any external links to additional information (such as your website).

You also get a chance to set a price that will determine what you are obligated to get when the NFTs get sold. A royalty payment between 5 % and 10 % is considered a standard payment.

You will finally be asked to upload your digital assets that you want to be turned into NFTs. These are your artworks, audio files, written pieces… whatever it is you were looking to sell when you looked up ‘NFT minting’, this is where you put it so the digital item becomes a blockchain based asset on the Ethereum blockchain (NFT).

Once you complete creating your collection, you will have finally made new tokens to sell!

1. List your NFT for sale on the NFT marketplace

Now that you can say you know how to mint NFT assets and you’ve done the digital labor to actually create one or a collection of them, you are ready to sell your first NFT.

Simply click the “Sell” button at the top of your NFT description page. You have to provide details on your sale right away. Choose an auction based on your chosen currency, fixed price, or timed auction.

When you created your collection you had already set your royalty payments to passively monetize your work over time. Other marketplaces or a secondary market you decide to list on may also allow that option. Just be careful listing on a secondary marketplaces as it may be stipulated in the terms and conditions of a platform that once an NFT is listed, it can’t be listed on a secondary market.

Once you’ve put your NFT up for sale a listing of sales fees and the related costs can also be found. On OpenSea, service fees are 2% of the NFT selling price.

Pay day (hopefully)

When your NFTs are sold, the Ethereum you’re paid will be automatically transferred into your digital wallet. The NFT’s metadata will record the purchase transaction.

Depending on the price you set you could be looking at a decent pay day when one NFT is purchased, or when your whole collection starts to gain traction. If that payday isn’t happening for you, then you might want to get your own NFT out there in other ways such as on social media pages, or even physical advertising that has a QR code scanner for quick access to your NFTs.

Well, we wish you the best of luck. Make hay while the sun is shining!