Web3 development has been scaling up at an unprecedented pace, with experts calling it the next phase in the evolution of the internet. A large part of that evolution revolves around cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
NFTs, in particular, seem to be all the rage, with major celebrities, athletes, athletic clubs, artists, musicians, and even lifestyle and fashion brands jumping in to make the most of the trend.
In this short read, we’re going to introduce you to what an NFT is, how they’re made, and why there is an unspoken need to unify their creation.
What is NFT?
NFT is short for non-fungible tokens, and these are essentially cryptographic assets that are created and stored on blockchains, or rather a link to the NFT is stored on blockchains. The term ‘non-fungible’ signifies that each of these assets is unique and cannot be interchanged or replaced.
A lot of things qualify as NFTs, from digital pieces of art, digital sports memorabilia, and music to real-world assets like fashion accessories, real estate, and precious metals.
Here are some salient features of NFTs.
- They are either digital assets or physical assets connected to a digital one.
- They are all created using blockchain technology with underlying cryptocurrency values.
- While some platforms may allow the buying, selling, and trading of NFTs using fiat money, most still accept payments in cryptocurrency.
- Each NFT is unique, and cannot be replaced or interchanged with another.
How to create an NFT
Now that we know what NFTs are, let’s take a look at how they are created, or as tech experts call it, minted.
1. Decide what type of NFT you want to mint
As we mentioned before, a lot of things qualify as NFTs, just as long as they are tied to a digital asset. It could be a piece of art, a song, or, as in the case of sports teams, digital memorabilia.
The purpose of minting an NFT is to create a unique digital asset and sell it, just like you would sell a painting or a baseball card.
Keep in mind that the more unique your NFT is, the more value it is likely to have. Also remember that if you don’t own all the rights to digital media that’s being made into an NFT, you could find yourself in legal trouble.
2. Pick a blockchain
All NFTs are created using blockchains. There are multiple blockchains you could choose from to mint your NFT. Keep in mind though each blockchain has its own pros and cons.
Here are the five most popular blockchains that developers use to create blockchains.
Ethereum
Ethereum is the most well-recognized and widely used blockchain for NFT creation, making it an ideal choice for first-time creators. However, while it has a huge user base and is fairly well-established, Ethereum has some well-documented scalability issues.
Flow
Flow, from Canadian start-up company Dapper Labs, has been gaining a lot of traction as a great alternative to Ethereum, thanks largely because this PoS (proof of stake) blockchain is capable of powering large ecosystems without any glitches, making it ideal for web3 gaming and NFT minting.
Cardano
Cardano makes the list because while it is a PoS blockchain that can handle around 250 transactions per second right now, it is scaling up to more than 2 million transactions per second with 2000 staking pools, thanks to Hydra, its Layer 2 scaling technology.
Solana
Solans is on the list because it is one of the fastest blockchains to program on. This hybrid between a proof of stake and proof of history blockchain can currently handle as many as 65,000 transactions per second, with the company claiming it will scale up to 700,000 transactions per second in the near future.
EOS
EOS is another blockchain that is gaining some momentum because it enables quick transactions and has high scalability, but a lot of developers find it to be too rigid.
3. Set up a wallet
Next, you will need to set up a crypto wallet that supports the blockchain you’re going to use to store your NFT. There are quite a few you could choose from.
For example, MetaMask supports both Solana and Ethereum and is compatible with multiple cryptocurrencies. Coinbase supports Solana and ERC-21 NFT tokens.
4. Pick a platform
Next, you will need to choose a platform to create your NFT. A lot of platforms also provide other services, such as a marketplace for listing and selling NFTs. Popular choices include Solanart, OpenSea, and crypto exchanges like Binance Exchange.
5. Create the NFT
Here’s how the general process of creating an NFT works on most platforms.
- Choose the wallet of your choice from the Menu options, and verify that you want the wallet connected to the platform.
- Most platforms should have a “Create” or similarly worded option on the menu for you to upload the media file you want to be converted into an NFT.
- Upload the media file that you want to use to create the NFT.
- Add details, such as a description of the NFT, unique properties of the NFT, the limitation of how many can be minted, and any other details you may want to include.
- Hit the Create button and you have your NFT.
6. List it for sale
Your NFT will be in your digital wallet and is ready to be listed for sale. This is free on most platforms but will need you to fill in details of your sale, such as the sale price and royalty percentage.
You may also need to pay transaction fees on the NFT blockchain you have chosen. In most cases, these transaction fees are not too high and depend on the network fees at the time of creating the listing.
Once the listing has been created, your NFT will have a unique URL that you can share.
Remember though, that once your NFT is sold, you will need to pay a small fee to the marketplace for enabling the transaction. This fee is usually a percentage of the sale price and varies depending on the marketplace.
Why NFT creation needs to be unified
While this is the process of creating and selling NFTs, creators face a lot of challenges, some of which we have mentioned above.
For example, each blockchain, platform, and marketplace has its own pros, cons, and red tape related to the hosting, creation, listing, and sale of NFTs, all of which are not really in line with the basic tenets of decentralization and democratization that the entire web3 experience is meant to be based on.
In an ideal world, NFT creators would benefit more and the creative process would be a lot more accessible if all the workflows for different blockchains and platforms could be managed by a single creative tool. This is what Kreatorverse aims to achieve with our NFT Kreator. Among our star clients are Safebay, Esketit, and CURD. For whom we’ve built custom solutions based on asset tokenization and asset lifecycle management protocols.
