NFTs are today the most popular and rapidly evolving technological phenomenon in the world. Revolutionising the very concept of a digital marketplace, these Non Fungible Tokens possess incredible potential for both investors and creators, in a fully secure blockchain environment. Today, NFT assets are sold and purchased for millions of dollars, all over the world, with countless celebrities from Snoop Dogg to Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton to Lionel Messi ranking among the biggest investors.
What Does Minting NFTs Mean?
Every NFT has a unique digital certificate created on a blockchain, usually the Ethereum blockchain, that enables the ownership of the digital asset, and giving it its unique status. Artists and creators can monetise their work by turning anything from their art to music to essays into NFTs. This process is what is known as minting an NFT.
While the concept of selling digital files is nothing new, what sets NFTs apart is the fact that owing to the decentralised nature of the blockchain market, the holder of an NFT is always publicly credited for being the original owner, no matter how many copies are made. The details of the transaction and the owner is documented on the public ledger, and recorded forever. This digital certificate allows you to charge a royalty fee and receive passive revenue every time the digital asset is sold on a secondary market, in the future.
While each NFT marketplace is unique, OpenSea is the world’s largest and most popular one. So, here’s our step-by-step guide on how to turn a piece of art into an NFT on OpenSea.
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1. Connect Your Wallet To A NFT Marketplace
To get started, you’ll need to first create a cryptocurrency wallet and then link it to the NFT marketplace of choice — in this case OpenSea. Head to the OpenSea website and click on the wallet symbol or the “Create” button at the top right corner.
You’ll be prompted to link your wallet via a QR code scanner on your smartphone or download your wallet to your computer, depending on the wallet you’re using, such as MetaMask or Coinbase, and the platform you’re working from — desktop or mobile.
Once you’ve connected your crypto wallet and created your marketplace profile, you can now finish up your profile. You can add a short introduction about yourself, include links to your website or social media channels, and also declare which cryptocurrencies you accept payments in, for your NFTs.
2. Mint Your First NFT
Now, if you click the “Create” button at the upper right-hand corner of the marketplace’s home page, you’ll be asked to upload the digital version of your product and give it a name. This is what your NFT will be known as. You can also add descriptions of your work, external links to your website or additional information, and the blockchain on which the NFT should be built. For instance, if you’re using OpenSea, your NFTs will need to be built on the Ethereum blockchain, or Polygon, also based on Ethereum.
This is also where you can specify how much royalty you’ll receive if your NFT is resold in the future. The standard royalty rates range from 5% to 10% of the secondary sales price. Once you click on “Complete,” your first NFT will now have been created, or minted!
3. Top Your Wallet
Selling an NFT involves recording a transaction between the two parties on a blockchain, and this process requires some computing on the network’s part. Hence, there is a charge for all such transactions, which is known as a “gas fee.”
Before you put up your NFT for sale, you need to purchase the appropriate cryptocurrency, in this case Ethereum, and add it to your wallet using a crypto trading app. You can then transfer it from your wallet to your NFT marketplace account, although marketplaces like OpenSea allow you to directly purchase the cryptocurrency you need, right from your profile, by setting up a payment mechanism like a credit card. If you don’t know how much cryptocurrency you’ll need, it will be automatically calculated.
4. Put Your NFT Up On The Market
Now, you’re almost ready to hit that “Sell” button in the upper right corner of your NFT’s description page. But first, you should finish up the specifics of your transaction. Choose between a fixed price depending on your preferred cryptocurrency and a timed auction. (On OpenSea, you can specify the royalty rates for ongoing passive monetization of your work over time in step two, but other markets may allow you to do so now.) Any associated selling costs will also be disclosed by the marketplace. The service fee (cost of handling the listing) on OpenSea is 2.5 percent of the NFT selling price.
After that, you need to select “Complete listing”, at which point, the marketplace will calculate the gas fees depending on the current level of activity on the cryptocurrency network at the time of listing, and request payment from your crypto wallet. It’s important to note that the costs fluctuate from minute to minute. Once the gas fees are paid and all the terms are confirmed and approved, your NFT will be advertised and available for purchase on the marketplace.
5. Keep Track Of Your NFT Business
Now, you can start communicating with your potential patrons, mint more NFTs, and add them to a collection, which could catch the eyes of art collectors or other prospective buyers. NFTs created on one platform can also be transferred and sold on another, but there may be additional fees involved.
Interacting with users and collectors on NFT marketplaces, like any other online activity, builds connections and presence, which can help you grow your new NFT business. To achieve their maximum potential, keep an eye on the activity around your NFTs, ask for feedback, and keep creating new pieces for digital collectors to buy.
The online creator economy has been one of the earliest adopters of NFTs, holding a game-changing potential for artists, musicians, content producers, video game developers, and others, to passively monetise their work, long after the original sale has concluded!
