How to mint an NFT

First things first

Before you get started with minting your own line of NFTs, there are three things you will need:

1. Your artwork, collectible, song or digital file.
2. The native token of the chain you are going to mint on in order to pay the minting fee.
3. A personal crypto wallet where you will store your NFT

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What can be turned into an NFT?

While many like to poke fun at the NFT crowd, calling their assets glorified JPEGs, the fact of the matter is that there are a variety of things that can be turned into a nonfungible token.

A recent trend has been giving physical collectibles an NFT representation that can be recorded on the blockchain and used for verification and validation purposes. In these instances, the private key for the wallet holding the NFT is usually built-in or provided with the piece in question.

In the future, all manner of items used in daily life from the deed to a house or car or medical and school records could be recorded and tracked in NFT form and transforming the paper society of old into a digital frontier.

For the purposes of this article and the average crypto user, the top choices for NFT minting include digital artwork, songs, gifs and videos as well as video game collectibles and financial staking products.

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Determine which blockchain you want to use

There are several options for NFT minting with more arising every day as the popularity of nonfungible tokens spreads.

The Ethereum network was the first to offer NFT capabilities and is host to the most NFT projects in the ecosystem as well as the most popular collections including CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Other popular choices include Tezos, BNB Chain, Polkadot, Solana, and Fantom, with each having its own pros and cons as well as burgeoning NFT communities.

Gas fees, or the cost to mint and transact, is an important issue to consider when choosing a network to mint on as they could limit the amount of interaction from users who are operating with limited budgets or just attempting to avoid high fees in general.

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What platform to use to mint your NFT

The platform you choose to use to mint your NFT depends on the network it will be minted on. If you are looking to be able to easily trade your token once minted, its best to choose a platform that has a marketplace you are familiar with using that also has a healthy amount of daily activity. 

The list of available options grows by the day, so it is up to each individual user to research the different options available, taking into consideration the number of active users, daily transaction count and the average value of each NFT sold.

Another important thing to consider is whether or not you want to mint an NFT on a network that is Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible. Doing so will enable you to transfer that token to the Ethereum network as well as any other network that is EVM compatible, such as BNB Chain, Avalanche, Fantom and Polygon, and list it on any of the available NFT marketplaces on those chains.

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Steps of the minting process

As mentioned above, it's up to each user to determine the chain and platform where they wish to mint their NFT. In general, the steps involved in the minting process are as follows:

1. Start the process by finding the NFT page and locating a button that says something along the lines of “Create”
2. Create a new collection
3. Enter the details of your collection. Options include: Collection name, Description, Category, Logo image, Banner image, Network, Symbol, Smart Contract owner address, Royalty Fee and Social media links
4. Submit your collection for review
5. Once approved and created, you will likely be asked to review the pertinent information of your collection including its Name, Description, Network and Properties.
6. Verify your ability to pay the estimated minting fees and submit your collection to be minted.
7. Once minting is complete, you will receive the NFT contract address and Token ID along with full control of your collection to hold, distribute or list on a marketplace.

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