Press Release
September 6, 2022
Bronx Mixed-Media Artist Natalie Collette Wood Joins The Minters Collective
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Basics On The Ethereum Blockchain
What’s the Difference Between Fungible Tokens vs Non Fungible Tokens
NFTs as a Vehicle for Positive Change
Popular NFT Art Creation Tools
Showcasing NFT Art Creations and Collectibles
Supporting the NFT Artist Community
In this quick and easy to understand guide, we’ll share exactly how to create, sell and buy NFT art. And while you may not be an artist or creator, this article will help you understand how people are creating NFTs that are selling for $69 million at auctions hosted by Christie’s or how one 12 year old made $160,000 in 24 hours selling NFTs.
Get comfortable, because by the end of this article you’ll know enough to be entertained, informed and ready to dive right into NFTs.
Before we get into creating and selling NFT art, we want to give you a brief refresher on blockchain technology. At its core, the blockchain is a distributed public ledger and a ledger is a fancy way of describing a database of transaction and/or item records.
Most don’t realize it, but there are lots of ledgers in the world that people have been using for decades without even realizing it. For example, banks have a private ledger of account balances. And if you’ve used a Visa or Mastercard, you’ve used a distributed private ledger. For access to Visa’s ledger using debit and credit cards, they charge businesses a ‘merchant fee’. The main difference between distributed private ledgers and distributed public ledgers like the Ethereum blockchain is that public ledgers don’t require a centralized trusted authority to verify transactions or the authenticity of goods in a person’s wallet.
The key benefit of decentralizing this authority is allowing creators and consumers to easily transact with each other. An artist creates art which is then signed with their wallet’s private signature to prove its authenticity. The signing is then recorded to the Ethereum blockchain. Then once someone buys the art, the buyer can verify the art’s authenticity using the public Ethereum blockchain.
One of the benefits of the Ethereum Blockchain is that it supports Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts allow parties to transact with each other without a centralized authority. Ethereum is the currency required to transact using smart contracts and it is required to create and buy NFTs. When you transact in Ethereum you pay a fee called the ‘gas’ fee which varies depending on Ethereum blockchain traffic. This gas fee goes towards miners who process the computations used to process the smart contracts. The video below explains how this works in further detail.
Ethereum can be bought using various cryptocurrency exchanges. The most popular exchange in the US is Coinbase. Coinbase allows you buy Ethereum, but it doesn’t allow
Once you’ve purchased your Ethereum, you’ll need to send them to a Metamask wallet for storing. This step is required because a decentralized wallet is needed to create, sell and buy NFTs.
Metamask is a decentralized Ethereum wallet that allows you to store Ethereum and other tokens. It also allows you to connect to NFT marketplaces and other Decentralized Finance (DeFi) websites and tools.
While it isn’t the only DeFi wallet on the market, it has over 5 million users globally and is supported by Consensus which is one of the largest blockchain companies in the world.
Once you’ve purchased Ethereum, send the funds to your Metamask wallet because you will need them in the wallet to create your NFT. These funds will cover the $80 - $100+ worth of gas fees it will take to pay for minting your NFT. Minting is the process of turning art files into NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain.
Note: Only get your Metamask wallet from https://metamask.io/ and be sure you backup your wallet recovery phrase and password. One backup copy is good. Two copies are better. Three or more copies is best.
The abbreviation NFT stands for Non Fungible Token. But that’s just a definition and doesn’t tell you what it is. An NFT is a smart contract which is a smart contract that is unique and is not a duplicate of any other smart contract. NFT themselves can be single NFTs in a collection or multiple NFTs in a collection.
The difference between a Fungible Token and a Non Fungible Token is that a fungible token can be divided into smaller parts and still carry all the character traits of the original unit and can be replaced by another identical item. A good example would be the difference between Bitcoin or Ethereum and a piece of art or a house. While Ethereum can be divided and still be similar and usable like the whole, if a house is divided it’s nothing like the sum of its parts. You also can’t exchange one house for another because no two are the same.
A lot of people have been wondering why NFT art has been growing at an amazing rate recently. What some are starting to realize is that NFTs help further democratize the art market by allowing new artists and any artists with access to the internet in any country in the world to get their creations to the market and allows other artists and non-artists alike to support artists directly.
There is nothing more valuable than human creativity.
While there are debates about NFTs and cryptocurrencies overall that focus on their energy consumption, the economic benefit of being able to support the creative endeavors of artists across mediums is undeniable. One thing I haven’t heard many people talk about is how much good comes from reducing the friction between creativity and commercialization. People also don’t talk about how many creatives are finally able to earn living wages by doing what they love.
No organization has done the calculations or research yet, but I’d like to see a comparison between the electricity and resources being used by the global centralized financial system when compared to decentralized finance and blockchains. Considering there are no physical bank branches that are made with concrete, steel, electricity, and construction machines, I imagine the consumption of energy by the blockchain is much less.
Most of the NFT on marketplaces today is digital art in the form of photographs, videos, short films, and 3D renders. Despite being the majority of NFT art today, many ignore that it’s possible to also include physical objects with your digital art if you include a method to take delivery of the physical version of your art.
Photo Editing Software
Illustration Software
3D Render Tools
Video Editing
Audio Editing
There is no right or wrong way to create art because this is based on the artist. But one thing I’ve learned and valued over years of building and creating technology is that no creation takes place without action. I say this because people often get so caught up in making something that is perfect to create anything. However, learning, experience, and mastery come from action.
Once your art is created, minting is probably the easiest step. You’ll need the following to mint on Rarible. We’re starting with Rarible because once you mint on Rarible you can easily share your artwork on other NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Mintable.
The instructions below assume that you’ve already purchased Ethereum, created a Metamask wallet, transferred the Ethereum to your wallet, and installed the Metamask browser extension in your browser or the app on your mobile device.
1. Go to Rarible’s website.
2. Click “Connect wallet” in the top right of your browser to connect your Metamask wallet to Rarible’s website.
3. Click “Create” to create your NFT.
4. Click “Single” to create a single NFT.
5. Upload the file you want to use to create your NFT. You can upload a PNG, GIF, WEBP, MP4 or MP3 with a maximum size of 100 MB. Also, enter the price of your NFT in ETH and it will show the price in US Dollars. Also be aware that there is a 2.5% service fee on Rarible sales.
6. On the next step, you will enter the 1) Title, 2) Description and 3) Royalties (which can range from 0% up to a maximum of 50%). And yes you can get paid royalties on all resales of your NFT art and the money automatically gets sent to your wallet. I will talk about number 4 and the “Create” button in the next step.
7. Click create to create an ERC-721 version of your art. The reason why you should create this version of your art is so it is compatible with other NFT marketplaces. In this form you will add 1) a Photo that represents your art, 2) a Display name, 3) a Symbol that has no spaces or special characters and is no more than 20 characters, 4) a Description that has a maximum of 220 characters and 5) a Short URL with no spaces in the format of “my-nft-art”.
8. Next, you will click the “Create collection” button to create your NFT art.
9. You will go through several signing steps to mint your art, but once it’s done your art will show on your profile and in the Rarible marketplace.
Once your NFT art is minted, your next job is to promote the artwork online and offline so people know that your art is available.
At The Minters Collective we also recommend that artists list their artwork on multiple marketplaces. You might be wondering, “Why should artists list their art on multiple marketplaces?” When it comes to art, e-commerce, and related businesses, you never know where people who are passionate about your creation, products, or services will come from.
In marketing and e-commerce terminology, this is called ‘omnichannel marketing’ because each marketplace where you showcase your artwork is a different channel. By listing your art in multiple marketplace channels you increase your chances of it being found and enjoyed.
Marketing your NFT artwork is often a combination of promotion and community building. While some NFTs sell without promotion or community, both help a lot when it comes to building long-term support and interest in your artwork.
A few things that will help you promote your creative talents and build community are the following:
One of my favorite articles about growing a community was written by Kevin Kelly and is called 1,000 True Fans.
Buying NFT art is mostly based on your preferences as an art collector. Some people buy NFT art based on the individual piece without knowing the artist while others buy multiple pieces from a specific artist. What you buy and why is up to you to define.
Another reason to buy NFT art can be because the NFTs have a great community. Lots of awesome communities have sprung up around CryptoPunks, Meebits, Boring Bananas, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
NFT art can be showcased only at marketplaces like OpenSea, Rarible and Mintable. Showcasing your artwork allows others to enjoy the artwork you’ve created as well as the pieces you’ve collected.
One site that isn’t an NFT marketplace but has grown its community and collections of art is TryShowtime.
Another tool that has seen a lot of growth is Rarity.Tools
NFTs can also be showcased using digital art frames.
Some of the most popular frames are the following:
You can also showcase your art using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)
A few VR spaces are the following:
People come for the art and NFT technology and stay for the community. This is what I’ve found and observed since becoming more active in the NFT space. You’ll find that regardless of people’s interest, that overall the community is very engaged, responsive to questions and debates, and are passionate.
Hopefully, this article has helped you learn how to create, sell and buy NFTs. If you think this article will help someone in your community, share it. As always, the team at The Minters Collective is here to help artists grow.
Join our community on one of the platforms below to network and learn with other artists, collectors, developers, traders and people who are just curious about the art, NFT, cryptocurrency and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space.