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How to Mint an NFT on OpenSea
How to create, mint, and sell NFTs on marketplaces like OpenSea—a step-by-step guide to making your first NFT.
9 min read
If you've spent any time looking into Web3, you've likely heard of NFTs. Non-fungible tokens have rapidly increased in popularity over the past two years and are changing the lives of collectors, memers, artists, and pretty much anyone who comes in contact with these delightful but divisive JPEGs. The NFT market is projected to grow from $3 billion in 2022 to $13.6 billion by 2027. These numbers show the clear potential of NFTs and how mass adoption is well on its way.
Amidst all the wild numbers and NFT hype, you might be wondering how to get involved with creating NFTs. You may have seen artists (and even some major brands) coming up with their own NFT collections. The beauty of Web3 is that anyone can participate. There are relatively low barriers to creating and selling NFTs, especially if you use an established marketplace like OpenSea. Once you have a basic knowledge of creating a crypto wallet, minting an NFT can be as easy as dragging and dropping a JPEG!
This guide will take you through the step-by-step process of making your own NFT, minting it to the blockchain, and selling them. But first, a few basics.
🖼 What Are NFTs?
NFTs are short for non-fungible tokens. Non-fungible, which means no two NFTs are the same, allows people to tokenize things like digital art, real estate, audio, video, images, and much more. There are countless types of NFTs to create—the only limitation is your own imagination!
The process of making an NFT is known as minting, and to prove its ownership, we use blockchain technology. Whenever an NFT is created or transferred, the blockchain keeps track of it on a public ledger using a unique ID and metadata. It helps in identifying the owner and authenticity of the NFT.
🎨 Choose Your Asset
Any digital or real-life asset can be tokenized through NFTs. It could be digital art, photographs, memes, audio files, or a variety of other possibilities. It is important to note that the NFT is the underlying contract that tokenizes the item. The first step in minting your NFT is creating an original digital asset. You can start with just a single NFT, or you might decide to mint a collection of NFTs at the same time. Using a marketplace like OpenSea when minting will make this process very straightforward.
🛒 Find the Right NFT Marketplace for Your Project
The right platform for your NFTs depends on a lot of factors like:
What kind of NFT are you selling?
Different marketplaces are specialized for different NFTs. For example, Myth Market only focuses on Cards as an NFT.
On which blockchain do you want your NFT?
Most of the popular NFT projects live on the Ethereum or Solana blockchains, but you can also go with blockchains like Tezos or Polygon.
How much do you want to pay?
Ethereum requires you to pay a gas fee for minting NFTs, and maybe you don't want to spend that much on your first NFT. So, either you can do lazy minting (we will touch upon it later) or go with some other chain like Solana.
Also, each platform takes a fee for selling NFTs. For example, OpenSea and Rarible charge you a 2.5% fee for selling your NFTs on these platforms.
You'll need to evaluate all these questions and decide which NFT marketplace suits your project best. We want to keep this guide simple for beginners, so let's use OpenSea as an example. OpenSea offers an easy-to-use NFT minting process. OpenSea also supports several blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon.
Also worth noting, if you don't want to use any platform at all, it is possible to code a smart contract and deploy it on the blockchain of your choice; however, this is an advanced technical option that requires coding. If you're just starting, it will be much easier to use an NFT marketplace and mint an NFT without coding.
💸 Setting up a Wallet
A crypto wallet is necessary to create an NFT, as it will store the NFT you will mint. You will also need a Crypto/Web3 wallet to initiate and complete any required transactions during the minting process.
One thing to note here is that not every wallet is compatible with each marketplace. So if you are using another wallet or marketplace, make sure they are compatible.
An added advantage of using MetaMask and OpenSea is that they are both available on mobile phones. So, you can mint your NFTs even without a laptop or PC.
To Create a MetaMask Wallet:
Now that you have made your wallet, let's connect it to OpenSea and start minting your first NFT.
🚢 Connecting Your Wallet to OpenSea
Connecting a wallet to OpenSea is a simple task. First, click on the "Create" button on the OpenSea website, and you will get an option to choose your wallet. After selecting the wallet, OpenSea will take you through the process of connecting it just by clicking a few buttons.
If you are using a MetaMask extension on your browser, it will automatically pop up to connect the wallet to OpenSea.
Now that you have connected your wallet, you will be redirected to a page to make your first NFT. If you are not on the page, click on the "Create" button again.
🍬 Minting an NFT
Before we get to the minting part, let's decide whether you want to mint an NFT for free or pay a gas fee.
NFT minting can be done for free by "Lazy Minting." In the case of lazy minting, your NFT is put up on sale but not written on the blockchain. When someone buys your NFT, the gas fee to write it on blockchain will be paid by the buyer. However, lazy minting is not an option in every NFT marketplace.
The Ethereum blockchain requires you to pay a gas fee to get your NFT encoded onto the blockchain. Some blockchains like Polygon and Solana have fairly minimal gas fees.
Steps for minting an NFT:
Bingo! You just minted your first NFT 👏
Your NFT is now successfully minted, but it's not for sale yet on OpenSea. So, let's move on to get your NFT listed on OpenSea for sale. You can also easily transfer your NFT to another wallet if your intention was just to make an NFT and send it to a friend. OpenSea makes it easy to transfer digital assets. Just select the transfer option on your NFT and follow the steps in your wallet. Just make sure you have the correct wallet address for the receiving wallet! Once you send an NFT, there is no going back, even if you send it to the wrong address!
💰 Selling Your NFTs
For selling your NFTs, click on the "sell" button in the upper right corner of the NFT page.
There are three ways in which you can go about selling your NFTs:
It is important to note that OpenSea only allows you to sell your NFTs at a Fixed Price or through a "Timed Auction ." Other NFT marketplaces like Rarible, on the other hand, allow the "Open To Bids" option for selling.
After deciding how you want to sell your NFTs, you have to set the price and then click on "Complete listing." You can also choose to reserve your NFT for a specific buyer on OpenSea.
Once you click on "Complete Listing," you must confirm some transaction in your wallet to finalize the process.
After that, a screen will pop up saying that your item is listed on OpenSea for sale. You can go ahead and share your new NFT on social media platforms and Discord communities for people to buy 🥳.
🏄♂️ Now You're an NFT Creator
Congratulations, you surfed your first wave on the NFT tsunami. As you can see, creating and minting an NFT can be easy! It only requires a little know-how and a few steps on the NFT platform of your choosing. With your first NFT minted on the blockchain, you've cemented yourself as a first mover in this new digital renaissance.
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