What is an NFT?
Not all tokens can be used the same way, which is why they are called „NFTs.“
The word „nonfungible“ is often used in economics to describe things like uniqueness and non-interchangeability.
In the crypto world, nonfungibility means that one thing can’t be used to buy another.
If you think of a „token“ as a unit of account, you think of a certificate of validity that is stored on the decentralized blockchain. This makes digital assets traceable and accessible to everyone.
It means that virtual currency called NFTs can be used in almost any way, and they usually come in the form of art, videos, music, collectible items in games or other types of digital art that people can buy with them.
During early 2021, there was a big rise in the number of NFTs being sold and bought all over the world.
How can someone make real art into NFTs and then sell them?
The answer is no.
Is it necessary to write code to make an NFT?
In general, the steps are very easy.
Use the quick guide below to learn about the main steps and their specifics.
What is crypto art?
Most people use NFTs to make art, so it’s no surprise that crypto art in NFT form has become so popular recently.
In part, this is because the new blockchain technology makes it possible for artists to earn tens of millions of dollars from their digital paintings in a way that wasn’t even possible before.
Public attention has been paid to high-profile auctions of NFTs linked to digital art.
The most expensive sales made the news because they made a lot of money.
Most expensive NFT in 2022 was called „Merge“ by a digital artist called Pak. The price was $91.8 million, making it the most expensive NFT.
Beeple, an artist known as Mike Winkelmann, sold his Everydays: the First 5000 Days NFT collection in 2021 for $69.3 million. This was another very pricey auction.
Crypto art is usually thought of as unique art pieces made by well-known artists and sold on auctions at places like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as well as NFT platforms.
Still, most of the art in the crypto world is being made by people who don’t know how good they are.
This doesn’t mean that all NFT collections are examples of generative art. CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club are two examples.
This type of art is usually made with the help of a lot of different autonomous systems.
The images in these popular collections are made by putting together a variety of simple picture parts in different ways.
How to turn your art into an NFT?
What if you already wonder if you should turn your art into an NFT? „Yes, why not?“
The process of making an NFT isn’t complicated, expensive, or complicated.
All you need is a set of creative skills and a computer at home.
Again, it’s important to note that NFTs could be used to change not only images but also songs, videos, GIFs, and other digital items.
Choose the art field that best fits you.
This will help you figure out what kind of skills you need to be a real NFT creator.
Examples of tools you’ll use in your job as a graphic artist are: Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop; MS Paint and CorelDraw; and so on and so forth.
You can also try other methods, such as three-dimensional (3D) modeling, which is known to be more difficult for beginners to start with.
If you choose 3D animation, you will need to use tools like Blender or Cinema 4D to make animated graphics and characters that will be turned into NFTs.
Afterwards, you must think of a unique idea for your single piece of art or a whole collection, as well as the content it will become.
Is coding necessary for NFTs?
It is very easy to make an NFT from digital art without having to write any code.
The process of making them is known as minting.
It’s the act of putting a unique token on the blockchain, which is what it’s called.
When NFTs are made, they are minted. This is how metal coins are made and put into circulation.
After this, the piece of digital art is safe and hard to change, as well as difficult to tamper with.
NFTs are items that can be bought and sold. When they are resold or recollected, they can also be tracked digitally.
For artists, minting NFTs into digital art is a new way to make money from their work fairly.
Most NFT marketplaces allow artists to set up a royalty clause when they mint their items, so that when their items are sold again, they will make money without having to do anything.
If the demand for the art rises and it becomes more popular and valuable, the artists can make money from it.
On most NFT markets, you can use an automated process called „minting.“
A few simple steps are shown below:
Still, you can try to code an NFT yourself if you already know how to do this and want to become an NFT developer.
To learn more about NFT programming, you need to keep in mind that the Ethereum network is still the only one that can make NFTs.
Solidity is the programming language that most people use to make NFTs. It was made for making smart contracts that run on the Ethereum blockchain.
Javascript and HTML/CSS are two more.
Also, the InterPlanetary File System is often used to store artists‘ NFTs.
Choosing the NFT marketplace to make and sell your NFTs
An important part of the process of making NFTs is choosing a good NFT platform.
The right choice depends on a lot of things, like which file format is supported, how easy it is for users to get to the platform, and how much it costs to make an NFT, or a transaction fee, which is a payment to pay for the computing power needed to process and validate transactions.
There are a lot of different online NFT marketplaces in the crypto world, and each of them works a little bit differently.
Knowing if the platform is curated or self-service-based is important for artists. They need to choose the one that is the most popular, visited, and easy to use for them.
All artists can use self-service or non-curated NFT platforms for free.
As a way to add NFTs to them, you only need to sign up for a crypto wallet and pay the transaction fee for an NFT.
OpenSea and Rarible are two of the most popular mass self-service NFT marketplaces, but there are many more.
Curated NFT platforms are more picky about who can be on them.
In order to sign up and start minting your art on these platforms, you will need to fill out an application that includes all the information about the NFT collection and your previous art work.
Another problem with curated NFT markets is that it takes a long time for the experts to make their decision.
Because of this, only the best digital art is shown on these platforms, so buyers have more faith in artists who work with these platforms.
There are a lot of well-known curated platforms, like SuperRare and Nifty Gateway.
Setting up a cryptocurrency wallet
A cryptocurrency wallet is a tool that you will need to use NFT platforms, sign transactions, and keep track of your balances, among other things.
Before you start setting it up, make sure that the wallet you choose will work with the cryptocurrency used on the NFT platform you want to use.
Because most NFT marketplaces are built on the Ethereum platform, they accept Ether (ETH) as a form of payment.
So, it’s important to have a crypto wallet with some ETH on you at all times.
There are a lot of crypto wallets that already have a lot of people who use them.
A lot of them have different features, but some have their own apps and browser extensions that make it easier to use blockchain-based platforms.
If you want to keep your money safe, you need to choose a cryptocurrency wallet that fits your needs.
You can find them in a variety of ways: custodial, non-custodial and hardware wallets.
In the same way that banks keep the money in checking and savings accounts, the money in a custodial wallet is automatically kept there by a third party.
Because it is so easy to use, it is thought to be the best one to use and set up.
A noncustodial wallet gives users full control over the security of their crypto and doesn’t rely on a third party to keep funds safe, like a bank account.
A hardware wallet, also called a „cold wallet,“ is a physical device that can keep crypto offline and keep it safe even if someone’s computer is hacked. It can keep crypto safe even if someone’s computer is hacked.
How to sell digital art as NFTs
The sale of your NFTs is likely to be the end of your NFT making.
Most of the NFT platforms let you choose how to sell your NFT or set a price for it when you make it.
Fixed price sale and auction are the two main ways to sell NFTs now.
A fixed-price sale is thought to be the easiest way to buy and sell things. It’s also thought to be pretty clear and direct.
To sell your newly made NFT this way, you only need to say how much you want to charge.
Some platforms also ask you to set a royalty percentage, which is how much money you’ll get if your art is sold again in the future. You should also pay attention to that, because some platforms ask you to set that percentage.
You can also use an auction to sell your NFT. People can look at and bid on your digital art at the auction, which is another way to make money.
Auctions may be done online, but some may end in a full-blown live one, too.
Most of the time, there are two types of them.
In an English auction, the highest bid at the end of the auction is the one that gets you the item.
A timed auction is a type of English auction in which an NFT can be bid on for a set amount of time, and at the end, the collector who bid the most is the winner.
Until someone else buys your NFT, the price keeps going down. This is called a „Dutch auction.“
Choose how to sell NFT to make money.
When you set a fixed price for your art, you may not be able to figure out how much your art is worth. When you sell your art through auctions, you may have to wait for a certain amount of time before you can sell your work.