How to: Mint an NFT

A lot of artists today have been drawn to the NFT space and have been met with confusion as to minting NFTs. Safe to assume that you have decided what you want to tokenise on the blockchain network, we can move to the process of minting NFTs.

To fully understand the process of minting NFTs, you have to first understand what NFTs are, and for this, I would recommend my previous article. There are also some terms that you might need to also familiarise yourself with such as:

• Minting: the process of tokenizing a digital file on the blockchain.

• Tokenization: the transformation of an asset into a digital token that can be transferred, stored, and recorded on the blockchain.

It is relatively straightforward to mint an NFT and I will give you a step by step guide on how to mint on Opensea; the biggest NFT marketplace. There has been a wide misconception that minting an NFT requires a high level of technical knowledge, however, by the end of this article, I am certain that you will find this to be false.

The first step in minting an NFT is to connect with other NFT artists and build a community. This is an often overlooked step, but it is by far the most important step. Without a community, your NFT might not generate the necessary buzz required to attract buyers. To build a community, you would need an active presence on Twitter and Discord crypto spaces, as these are the most vocal platforms for NFTs. Building a community is important because it gives you free marketing and there is no better example than the Loot Collection on Opensea. This collection is simplistic and can be easily replicated, but its community cannot, and it is this community that gives the collection its worth.

The second step would be to open a crypto wallet that will be connected to Opensea. I highly advise using Metamask; the most popular wallet used with Opensea and you can download the software from their official website to prevent phishing attacks. After installing the software, it will appear as an extension on your browser, then you need to transfer some cryptocurrency to your wallet to pay gas fees (transaction fees). After setting up and funding your wallet, you will go to Opensea and connect your Metamask wallet. To connect your wallet, you should go to your profile on Opensea and click on the option to connect your wallet. You can also set up and verify your account at the same time.

After setting up your Opensea account and linking your wallet, the third step would be to create your NFT. The process of minting your NFT has been simplified for you by the Artificial Intelligence that will take care of most of the technical parts. To mint your NFT, you should go to your profile, and go to my collection then click the Create button.

You, however, will still need to describe your collection, and upload your NFT in any of the accepted file types such as JPG, GIF, MP3 and ensure that it does not exceed the 100 MB limit on Opensea. You can also determine the royalty that you will charge on any further sale of your NFT.

The next thing to do will be to confirm which blockchain to store your NFT on, Opensea accepts both Ethereum and Polygon. The last step would be to choose the number of copies that can be minted and whether it will be auctioned or sold at your set price. Opensea also charges 2.5% of any transaction that occurs on the platform and will ask you to initialise your wallet before you can start selling.

Minting an NFT on any platform is not really a taxing or stressful affair and any one who follows these steps could easily create and sell an NFT on any platform of their choosing because these steps also apply to most NFT platforms.