What does it mean to mint nft

NFTs are a vital form of blockchain-based asset. Their rise in popularity signals that blockchains are moving beyond cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, governance tokens, and utility tokens. In this technical tutorial, you’ll learn how to create an NFT and deploy it to the Ethereum blockchain. 

What Is An NFT?

Before looking into how to create an NFT, it’s essential to understand exactly what an NFT is. NFTs are non-fungible, or unique, tokens. Non-fungible items are not interchangeable. This means holders are concerned with which specific token they hold, not how many. Trading cards are one excellent example of what an NFT could represent. To dive deeper into NFTs, check out What Is an NFT?

What Does It Mean To “Mint” An NFT?

Minting is the process of creating an NFT. This is when a digital asset is stored on the blockchain. It’s important to know what is being stored during the minting process. It could be an entire work of art, in which case the entirety of the NFT and its metadata is stored “on-chain,” or it could be a reference to information stored off-chain using a tool like IPFS. Regardless of the data being stored, the simplest way to think about minting is as the process of creating an NFT.

Minting Your NFT

So you’ve decided you’d like to mint your first NFT. How do you get started? You could use an NFT marketplace like OpenSea or mint directly onto the blockchain via a smart contract. Let’s take a look at both. 

Minting an NFT on OpenSea

Minting an NFT on OpenSea is straightforward. It consists of two steps. 

First, connect your wallet to OpenSea.

Once your wallet is connected, click “create” and fill in the relevant information. Note, if you don’t have a collection, you may need to create that first. There are instructions in the “Collection” section to help.

If you want a more programmatic approach to minting NFTs, deploying a smart contract to a blockchain like Ethereum could be a better option. 

Minting Directly From Smart Contracts

If you come across a contract for an NFT project and want to mint directly from a tool like Etherscan, you can do that if the contract has been verified. The checkmark next to “Contract” is the first thing to look for. This means the contract is verified.

What does it mean to mint nft

If the contract has been verified, you should be able to interact with it from Etherscan directly. You’ll need to select “Contract” then “Write Contract”. Once there, you should see the functions you can interact with. You’ll be looking for the mint function; it might be named safeMint. After you connect your wallet and provide your address, you should be able to mint the NFT to your wallet.

Minting NFTs by Creating a Smart Contract

Building smart contracts to mint NFTs is a more in-depth topic. The tutorials below will walk you through the various processes. 

  • How To Create an NFT Game
  • How To Create an NFT
  • How To Build an NFT Marketplace With Solidity and Hardhat
  • How To Create Generative Art NFTs
  • How To Create NFT Domain Names
  • Build, Deploy, and Sell Your Own Dynamic NFT
  • How to Build Dynamic NFTs on Polygon

Where To Go From Here

If you’d like to learn more about building a successful NFT project, check out this blog for a guide to the essential steps and considerations to get your project off the ground—NFT projects are more than the code behind the images.

To learn more, visit chain.link, subscribe to the Chainlink newsletter, and follow Chainlink on Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.

Is Minting an NFT the same as buying?

Minting an NFT simply requires the file that is going to be minted and the cryptocurrency, usually Ethereum, that is necessary to pay for the gas fee. However, buying an NFT can be less risky if you get in early with a well established project. Each investor will have their own preferences.

Does Minting an NFT cost money?

How Much Does Minting an NFT Cost? The gas price is the fee you pay to the blockchain and plays a crucial role when it comes to creating NFTs. Therefore, your cost to mint NFT may range as low as $0.01 and go into thousands. However, the gas fee associated with minting NFT can cost you an average of $500.

Why should I mint a NFT?

Minting digital assets (everything from art to music to articles) as NFTs is one way for artists to monetize their work. Of course, selling digital files isn't new. But one of the more innovative uses for NFTs is the ability to guarantee that you get credit for the original creation.