How to Mint NFT: Step-by-Step for Top 3 Platforms

What is Meant by Minting?

Minting is a process of creating new assets on blockchain by creating a sequence of blocks. Similarly, minting an NFT means converting it into a form that can be traded on the blockchain; i.e. publishing it on-chain. As it gets published, it can be traded by the users.

But the bigger question is how to mint NFT? Consider an example: you drew a nice cat on a sheet of paper and want to sell it. How would you do it via blockchain? You would need to convert it into a digital form (taking its photo) and then mint it online. If some other user sees your lovely cat, s/he might think about buying it from you. This is possible if your artwork is minted on the blockchain. Let us see how that is done in detail.

What is Required to Mint an NFT?

• A Wallet: Just like you store your crypto tokens in a wallet, minting an NFT too requires a wallet like MetaMask. You store your NFTs in this wallet. You also need to fund your wallet with some tokens to pay for minting art and paying the gas fee.

• A Marketplace: You need a market where to buy and sell NFTs. There are several popular marketplaces for trading your Non-Fungible Tokens; a few names include OpenSea, Rarible, Polygon, Solana, Foundation Marketplace, Larva Labs, Axie Infinity, Mintable, and others.
  
  OpenSea is very popular among the beginners due to its easy-to-use interface and its support for more than 150 payment tokens. Larva Labs became the talk of the town after it hosted the famous CryptoPunks. Rarible has its own token RARI which is used for trading these virtual assets.

• A Blockchain Network: The art and its metadata (which stores information about it) exist on a blockchain. Ethereum is the popular choice for this and most of them are minted on it. Keeping an art on the blockchain means it cannot be altered in any way and remains secure for whoever owns it. This creates a permanent record of ownership.

How to Mint?

Let us first see how to mint NFT in general. The following steps detail how to mint it from the website:

1. To mint an NFT, you must first have it!! You need to create either digital art or take a picture of your physical art. But it is not restricted to art only; it could be your favorite weapons that you use while playing games online, it could be trading cards, music, video, a coin, or even a diagram. It could be anything that you think could find a buyer in the marketplace. If you are good at designing and have knowledge of tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and CorelDraw, you can create a really nice digital arts.
    
2. Select a hot, non-custodial wallet that will store the funds (like ETH) for doing the transaction for minting your Non-Fungible Tokens. As this will be a non-custodial wallet, you would have full control over the funds you have and no third party can play around with your money. The owner of a non-custodial wallet has full access to the wallet’s private key and hence, the security of the wallet is hard to compromise. Wallets like MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and MyEtherWallet can be good choices for minting your asset.
   
   
3. Store the funds in your wallet.
   
   
4. Select a marketplace for minting your tokens. Several cool platforms let you buy, sell, and trade them.
   
   
5. Connect your wallet to the marketplace.
   
   
6. Select the blockchain on which you need to mint; this could be Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Avalanche, Optimism, or any other that your marketplace supports.
   
   
7. Create a collection on your marketplace. This is where you will store all your Non-Fungible Tokens. You can create more than one collection for different types of tokens that you want to mint.
   
   
8. Add your tokens to your collection.
   
   
9. Finally, you mint them. This might attract a transaction fee. Apart from this, some marketplaces also charge minting fees and listing fees.  
   

How to Mint on OpenSea?

OpenSea is the most popular choice when it comes to minting Non-Fungible Tokens. It has an easy-to-use interface and provides a platform for Non-Fungible Tokens and collectibles over several blockchain networks.

Apart from art and gaming NFTs, it also gives you the option to mint PFPs (Profile Pictures) to be used as your social media profiles. These PFPs could be static or animated. You can upload PFPs that show only the face or the full body profiles.  You can even mint your photographs as virtual art. Let us see how to mint it on OpenSea.

• Connect your wallet (for illustration, we are using MetaMask Wallet) to OpenSea. You will need to sign (via your wallet) OpenSea’s terms and services before you proceed.

• Once MetaMask is connected, click the profile icon and select My Collections, and then click Create a Collection.

• On Create a Collection screen, select an option to either deploy your own smart contract that the OpenSea Community would mint for you or use the OpenSea contract to mint items on your own.  The first option is for developers who want to deploy the smart contract that they already have. They will be prompted to enter the contract name, logo image, and token symbol to be represented on Etherscan. To mint via OpenSea, select the second option.

• On the Collection Details page, enter the Name and Description of your Collection. Enter a customized URL for your collection. Select a Category for your collection and Add tags that best represent your collection of arts.

• From the dropdown, select the blockchain on which you want to mint (Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Optimism, and several others). Select the tokens (such as ETH, WETH, USDC, DAI, and others) with which you will buy and sell your artwork.

• Now your collection is ready, you need to mint. For this, click the Profile icon again and select Create.

• On the Create New Item page, upload your NFT in the form of an image, a video, audio, or a 3d model. Enter the Name and Description of your asset. Select the Collection (that you created in the steps above) to which you want to save it. Set properties for your collection, i.e. size, texture, color, or any other you find the most suitable. Select any levels and numbers that might want to assign to them. Also, enter the number of token items that you want to mint under the Supply box.

• Select the blockchain.

• Click Create.

WooHoo… Your token is minted on the blockchain you selected and would remain there forever.

Cost to Mint NFT on OpenSea

You need to pay a first-time Ethereum gas fee when you list an item for the first time. There is no gas fee incurred for listing individual NFTs on OpenSea. Only once you have minted and sold, OpenSea charges a gas fee.

Sellers need to pay a gas fee when they accept offers from buyers. Buyers need to pay a fee when they purchase your fixed-price assets. OpenSea bears the gas fee for auction listings if it is sold to the highest bidder and if the auction amount was above 1 ETH, and OpenSea automatically completes the transaction. For auctions completed below 1 ETH,  it is up to the seller to accept or reject the highest offer. The buyer needs to pay in WETH for creating an auction bid.

How to Mint on Solana?

Unlike Ethereum-based NFTs, minting on Solana is an economical option as it costs a very low gas fee. Minting on Solana is also a faster process than on OpenSea. SOLSEA is the marketplace for users who want to mint their artwork and collectibles on Solana; this platform allows them to select and embed different types of licenses while minting art.

• On the browser, open the SolSea website.

• The first step towards minting is to register yourself on the SolSea platform. Click Register on the top right corner of the SolSea site. Enter your email id and password, and click Register.

• Once registered, you can log in to the platform using your email and password.

• Minting on Solana requires a wallet. For these steps, we shall create a wallet using Phantom Wallet Extension. Enter the Phantom app URL in the browser. Select the browser for which you need to install the Phantom Wallet. This opens the Chrome Web Store where you can install and add Phantom as an extension on your browser. Once the extension is added, you need to create a new Phantom Wallet. For this, click the Phantom extension icon.
  
  
• Click Create a New Wallet. Create a password that will be used to unlock this wallet. The system displays the 12 mnemonic phrases or the Secret Recovery Phrase. Note it down at some safe place, and click Continue. A new wallet is created.

• Now that the wallet is created, you need to connect it to SolSea. On the SolSea platform, click Connect Wallet in the top right corner. From the dropdown menu, select Phantom. As the wallet is already installed, it would prompt you to connect with SolSea. Click Connect. The platform and the wallet are now connected.

• Now, we shall create a collection on SolSea. On the Solana Marketplace page, click Create.

• Click Create Collection.

• On the Create Collection page, enter information related to the collection you are going to create. Select the Category dropdown and select the appropriate category for your collection. Enter the Title for your collection. Also enter Short Description, Description, and Collection Symbol. Click Next Step.

• Upload the Header and Icon image for the collection in the .jpeg or .png format. Click Next Step.

• Enter minting information, you are going to create. This includes Collection Supply (number of virtual tokens to be included in this collection), Minting Date, and Collection NFT Initial Price. Click Next Step.

• Enter the URL for your Official Collection Website where your collection is present. If you do not have a website, you may not be able to verify your Collection. Enter your social media accounts, if any. Click Create Collection.

• You would be prompted to approve the transaction on your Phantom Wallet. This incurs a small fee of about 0.00001 SOL. Click Approve. Your collection is created.

• The next step is to mint it on SolSea. On the page, select Create NFT. From the dropdown, select if your asset is a part of any of the collections you created earlier.

• Enter details related to token, including Category, SubCategory, Title, Short Description, and Description. Click Next Step.

• Enter the royalty payment percentage (the amount a seller would earn every time his/her art is sold in the secondary market).

• Click the License dropdown and select the type of license you want to embed. These licenses auto-attribute the creator. Click Next Step.

• Now upload the preview and actual NFT file (artwork file). This minting would cost you a small fee. Click Next Step.

• Add any additional details such as any external URL for your token and traits (if applicable). Click Mint NFT. This will add your it to the Phantom Wallet.

• The last step is to list them. On your wallet, click NFTs In My Wallet and then click List NFT. Select a price. You are now ready to sell your artwork!!
  

How to Mint on Polygon?

For minting on the Polygon blockchain, you need to visit the NFT Minter website and must have some MATIC tokens in your wallet.

• On your browser, open the NFT Minter URL, which is the URL to mint your tokens quickly, easily, and economically.

• Click Mint your NFT.

• The website prompts you to connect a crypto wallet. We shall use MetaMask for these steps. Click Connect Wallet. Select MetaMask. Change its Network to Polygon, if not already done. 

• Unlock your MetaMask wallet using your password. It prompts you to select the account that needs to be connected to the Minter website.  Click Next.

• Click Connect to approve the website to view your MetaMask address, account balance, and transactions to be approved by MetaMask.

• For approval, you need to sign an encrypted message that your wallet shows. Click Sign.

• The Minter shows the option to select Single Mint (lets you mint a unique piece of art without charging any gas fee) or Batch Mint (lets you mint up to 10,000 tokens at a time and a gas fee is applicable). Let’s us select Single Mint. Click Continue.

• Now select the type of standard that you want to choose; it can be either ERC 721 (A unique art is minted and can be owned by only one wallet at a time) or ERC 1155 (art is not unique; you can create multiple copies of it and it can be owned by several wallets at a time). Select one and click Continue.

• Next, you need to create a new Collection where you will add your art works. Click the + sign.

• You are prompted to authenticate with your Twitter or Discord account to proceed.

• Name your collection and assign it a symbol. Click Create Collection. Creating a Collection attracts a small gas fee that is deducted from your wallet. Once that is done, a new Collection is created. 

• All you need to do now is upload your NFT image and give it a name and description.

Well, that was how to mint NFT on Polygon.

Can You Mint NFT for Free?

While most of the platforms charge you the fee for minting, Polygon, a layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution has utilized the concept of lazy minting. The cost to mint on Polygon is zero, so the sellers are not charged any fee for creating it (a small charge is levied on the creation of a collection) as the the tokens are created off-chain first. But when it gets sold, Polygon charges a 2.5% service fee from the user as the digital art would now be finally published to the main chain.

This fee is deducted from the selling price set by the user. In the nutshell, the answer to the question “Can you mint NFT for free?” is no; you cannot mint your artwork completely free of cost. There is always a cost to mint NFT

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and is NOT a financial advice. We do not promote, in any form, any NFTs, wallets, cryptocurrencies or tokens mentioned herein. The content of this article is based on the information available up to the knowledge. You should be aware that investing in any NFT or wallet or cryptocurrency is subject to market risk and you MUST do your own due diligence (DYOR) before you put any money in any of these NFTs, wallets, coins, or tokens. 

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