To all the NFTs We Love
You fell in love with a side-chain NFT but don’t know how to mint. Now what?
Market is down. Coins are on sale. That means NFTs are too. It’s a great time to fall in love with side-chain NFTs! Why side chains and alt coins? Good projects, great art, cheap gas, fun minting experiences!
Ethereum is the largest NFT market right now, but it’s not the only one. For new creators looking to get a start, for new collectors who can’t afford ETH buy-ins, or for seasoned flippers who want to expand, ETH Layer 2 networks can provide a lot of opportunities.
I’m Toby Kurtzz; Community & Social Media Manager for Portalheads, Void Armada, & Rad Santas, and here is my quick guide, from personal experience, on accessing ETH Layer 2s and side chains for NFTs and alt coins.
Enjoy!
WTF is Bridging?
Crypto networks can’t really talk to each other yet, so we have to use work-arounds to make the whole crypto landscape accessible. Transferring your coins between networks is called bridging.
Bridging between networks costs gas fees on both sides but can give you access to new networks, artists, and NFTs. Some new omni-drop NFT projects like Tiny Dinos allow you to bridge your NFTs between networks.
The future is omnichain! But until we reach that future we’ll have to make due with bridging websites that facilitate our coin transfers. I give examples for each chain below.
Not all coins are supported on all networks so be sure to do your research when bridging, and make sure you are using the right wallets. If you accidentally send your crypto in the wrong way to the wrong wallet, it may be game over. Double check everything before you hit send on a transaction! You’ll thank yourself later.
Please note; outside the U.S. things may work differently for you. This is built with my own personal experience in mind. I’d love to hear your techniques on Twitter.
Start with Avalanche
Some side chains are only accessible in specific ways. From personal experience, I’ve found the easiest place to start is with Avalanche because it’s directly accessible from Coinbase, and it’s a low-gas fee network.
Avalanche is the network, AVAX is the coin. You can buy AVAX wherever you buy crypto. With Coinbase, AVAX is automatically on AVAX C chain which is the chain for NFTs (there are three AVAX chains that handle different utilities). AVAX C is the only chain that works with MM currently, so you can send directly from Coinbase to your wallet.
Here’s how you set up your MM for Avax. After your transaction from Coinbase you can then mint or buy AVAX NFTs. Avax marketplaces include Campfire, NFTKey, and NFTrade.
Avalanche to Fantom
Fantom is technically a Layer 1 chain, but you have to bridge to access in the US. You can go from ETH, but the gas fees can add up. It’s very easy to bridge to Fantom from Avalanche.
To access FTM from AVAX, you can bridge from AVAX via SpookySwap. Bridging costs .08 AVAX + gas (low) You can use other bridging sites, but I like SpookySwap. When you bridge your AVAX to Fantom Network, you can convert to $FTM also on SpookySwap.
Some of the Fantom marketplaces are PaintSwap (Fantom exclusive) & NFTKey You can setup your MM for Fantom here.
Some notable Fantom projects are Portalheads, Teens on Acid, Fantom Flamingos, Void Armada, Riot Ghools, Stone Gods, + more!
Fantom to Polygon
Now you can access Polygon network from Fantom network. Again, you can bridge directly from ETH, but why pay high gas? On Fantom you can convert your AVAX to WETH or a stablecoin like USDC or DAI. Usually it’s best to use a stable coin like USDC for transfers, but lately there have been some liquidity issues.
You can use Spooky Swap again to bridge from Fantom to Polygon (NOTE: Make sure whatever coin you’re sending from FTM is supported on Matic) You can setup your wallet for MATIC here.
Matic doesn’t have a native marketplace yet, so you can trade on OpenSea using WETH on Polygon. This is one of the biggest advantages of using Polygon; low gas and access to OpenSea’s marketplace.
Use the Polygon Wallet app to convert coins. You can also bridge back to ETH with Polygon Wallet, or you can use the wormhole Portal Token Bridge.
As far as I know, you cannot currently go from AVAX to MATIC, or send MATIC from Coinbase directly to Matic Mainnet. You can bridge ETH or MATIC from Eth Mainnet but it takes a while and costs ETH gas. Going from AVAX to FTM to MATIC costs me about $5 USD. So very cheap and you can drop coins off along the way to hit up all three chains!
The Visitors and Cyrptoburbs might be considered the Polygon OGs, but there are some fun, cheap projects on Polygin; Taco Tribe, Cool Tigers, Bunny Hole, to name just a few. Polygon is a network worth exploring!
Minting on Tezos
Tezos is another great sidechain for 1/1s, underground artists, and strange internet art. It’s also a great place to start if you’re a 1/1 artist entering the space. If you want to mint on Tezos, you can send directly from Coinbase to your wallet. I use a Temple wallet for Tezos
Tezos Marketplaces are Objkt which took the place of Hic et Nunc (RIP), Kalamint, FXHash, and others. You’ll find some great artists and great work on Tezos!
Solana is Hot on ETH NFT’s Heels
Solana just hit higher daily NFT trading volume than ETH. Solana is ripping right now. Currently it’s not accessible via MM, so you’ll need a Phantom wallet, or another wallet that supports $SOL. You can use Portalbridge to transfer from your ETH Mainnet MM to your Phantom wallet on SOL Mainnet. Or you could send $SOL directly from Coinbase to your Phantom wallet.
Solana’s dominant marketplace is Magic Eden. A strong Opensea competitor.
Aside from the network periodically crashing, Solana has a reputation for pump & dumps. Recently several high-profile projects have launched that are turning SOL into a proper NFT chain; Okay Bears, Mindfolk, which is a strong and well put together project, possibly Primates. There are more cool projects to explore on Solana.
TL;DR
Now is a great time to get involved in NFTs! Each network offers unique experiences and unique NFT creators. There’s value in minting across multiple chains.
Ethereum continues to be the highest volume of any chain and there are lots of great art and artists on the chain. It’s the current de facto home for most generative collections. But ETH can have high gas fees and a lot of minting competition. Other chains are worth exploring!
Solana has a few projects that might become “blue chips” but also lots of action for NFT Traders. Solana NFTs also trade on Opensea.
Tezos has more 1/1 artists & art work. Lots of fun stuff over there and it’s all cheap!
Avalance has some decent generative drops and I’ve had success with minor flips. I don’t personally know many stable projects yet on AVAX, but lots of cool artists are working on that chain.
Polygon NFTs are growing and the chain has Opensea access which helps. You still have to bridge to participate in the ecosystem though; These are small and cheap generative projects with potential if Matic catches on.
DYOR and Stay Safe
Always DYOR and take a look at the marketplaces before you decide to jump into a new network or NFT community. Stay safe out there. It doesn’t cost anything to create a burner minting wallet, and better to be safe than exploited & drained.
Good luck out there, and welcome to the world of side-chain NFTs!
If I got any of this wrong or if y’all have any feedback, hit me up on Twitter: Toby Kurtzz.
