It’s almost impossible these days to go ten minutes without hearing about crypto or NFTs. You probably have friends that have bought or sold an NFT and the thought has been nagging at you. Here is a simplified walkthrough on how to become an NFT creator. 

What is an NFT?

You probably have heard a great deal about NFT’s, or Non Fungible Tokens. Quite simply, these are unique digital assets. No two NFTs are alike, and therefore each NFT’s value is different. They’re also digital, which means their ownership, transaction history, and behavior can be recorded, published to a public ledger (the blockchain) and programmed. 

Becoming an NFT creator represents a revolutionary way for artists to create, sell, and receive royalties for original works. As an artist you now have the ability to own the rights for your work from cradle to grave, whether music, poetry, or otherwise. You can choose to give your work away for free and earn a portion of any future transactions, or you can “mint” your work and sell it for $10MM; it’s entirely up to you and subject only to your prospective buyer’s demand. 

Choose your platform to sell your NFT on

Perhaps the most popular NFT creator platform is OpenSea, which boasts the largest number of NFTs available for sale and the most transaction value to date. You can also list your NFTs for sale on Rarible, Looks Rare or the more niche Harmony chain site, Metatr.One to name just a few. Or you might instead elect to simply offer your NFTs directly on your website. 

Set up & connect your wallet

To get going you’ll want to start by downloading a wallet. There are many to choose from, but you’d be wise to start with a MetaMask wallet, as it's probably the most used wallet by far. Your MM wallet will be used to pay the “gas fees” associated with minting (creating) your NFTs and the crypto paid to you by buyers will appear here.

Wallets are basically just digital folders for crypto, secured by a password and linked to your wallet address, which is a public key.

Your seed phrase and password are your private keys and should be shared with no one, ever.  I’m going to repeat that. NEVER share your password or seed phrase with anyone, under any circumstances. If you accidentally lose it, you’ll lose access to your funds forever. There’s no password recovery, no one can help. It’s over. So be warned!

Create your NFT

Now that you have a wallet, you’ll need to buy some Ethereum (ETH) to pay your minting fees. Head over to OpenSea and create an account, choose the chain you want to mint your NFT on, ( ETH or Polygon) and set your price and royalty rate. Mint the NFT and you’re done.

You’ve successfully put your work on the blockchain and minted your first NFT. Now comes the hard part; marketing and sales. Circle back for a future article when we discuss how to sell those NFTs!