Cryptocurrencies were on the rise in 2021, but the industry of non-fungible tokens (NFT) got most of the hype. Today even children can make millions with NFTs: for example, a boy from London earned $400,000 for his NFTs with whales, and a 12-years-old American girl sold her pictures as NFTs for $1.6 million! And those examples are not unique nowadays.
Not only painters make money with NFTs but also musicians, poets, and other artists. Even the authors of memes can monetize their jokes using NFTs: for instance, Zoe Roth – the ‘Disaster Girl’ – made almost half a million dollars selling non-fungible tokens.
AIN.UA has already explained what an NFT is and how it works. Now we want to provide you with detailed instructions on how to turn your art into NFTs and start making money right now.
Step 1. Choose a subject to tokenization
The most popular among NFT authors are fine arts. It could be not only pictures but also rare calendars and printed materials, photos, etc.
You can also tokenize audios, videos, 3D models, and any files that can be converted to PG, PNG, GIF, SVG, MP4, WEBM, MP3, WAV, OGG, GLB, and GLTF formats (these formats are supported by the OpenSea platform, which I will use to create and host my NFT.
For this guide, I have chosen a photo of my old, a bit of psychedelic painting. A great thing to immortalize in a blockchain, isn’t it?
Step 2. Install MetaMask
MetaMask is a secure Ethereum wallet. It is free and allows you to buy, sell, and store tokens, including NFTs.
The easiest way is to install it for Chrome or Firefox, then create a wallet. To do that, click Install MetaMask for Firefox (or Chrome, if you use that browser). MetaMask is also available for Brave and Edge.
This will launch a page with extensions for Firefox — click the Add to Firefox button. For other browsers, the procedure is similar.
When the application is installed, you only need to create a wallet — click the Get started button for this.
Then follow the MetaMask instructions. Be sure to write down the password to your account, as well as a secret phrase that will help restore access in case the password is lost. Do not neglect this security measure — it is very important, and MetaMask will warn you about it several times during the wallet creation process.
Finally, the process is complete, and you can work with your new account.
Step 3. Create OpenSea account
OpenSea is one of the largest NFT marketplaces in the world. You can produce, collect, sell, and buy NFTs on the platform.
To get started, click the Create button on the OpenSea home page.
Now you need to connect your MetaMask wallet to OpenSea. OpenSea works with other wallets, including Coinbase Wallet, WalletConnect, and Fortmatic, but MetaMask is the most common and easiest option.
So, select MetaMask from the list.
Then a pop-up window will appear in the top right corner of your browser: follow the instructions in it to connect your wallet to OpenSea.
After you have completed the process, the page for creating a new token will appear.
Step 4. Create an NFT
This format is straightforward and understandable.
- First, you need to upload the file you want to tokenize. Please keep in mind that it cannot be bigger than 100 Mb.
- Second, choose the title and enter it in the Name field.
- Under the name, you can add a link to your website or any other web page that will be available for all users watching your NFT.
- You can also add a description of your piece of art. It could be a short text consisting of several sentences or a detailed article with a special web syntax (you can find the tutorial for markdown syntax under the following link).
- We skip the Collection field since it is our first NFT, and we haven’t created any collection yet.
- The Supply field, the number of offers for this token, will be filled out automatically.
- There are only two options for the Blockchain field — Ethereum and Polygon. We leave it by default since the Ethereum blockchain is often used for NFTs.
- If all fields are completed, click on Create.
Congrats! We have just created our first NFT! And the whole process took less than ten minutes.
You can edit the new NFT on your account. Here you will find view activity and rates that users interested in buying will offer you through the Make offer button. Ures’ activity will determine the value of the new token.
Step 5. List an NFT for sale
To list a new NFT on the OpenSea marketplace, click the Sell button in the top right corner of the page that will direct you to the listing creation page. Here you will need to decide on the price — it can be fixed, or you can choose the type of auction. Also, you can add additional options – for example, to reserve for a specific buyer. You can also choose the period during which the token will be traded on OpenSea.
Once you have filled out all the fields, hit the Complete Listing button.
Note that OpenSea charges a 2.5% fee on the sale amount. So to list your token for sale for the first time — you first have to deposit 0.05 ETH (about $200 as of December 2021) or pay the minimum gas price of 0.02 ETH ($80). This is required to initialize your wallet on OpenSea, but after that, no fee will be charged.
After that, the NFT will be published on the marketplace and available for sale.