LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS STOCKING STUFFER THAT’LL MAKE YOU LOOK SUPER COOL
This will be a super short crash course on what, and more importantly, how to make a NFT in mere minutes.
Let’s first start with what NFT stands for: Non-Fungible Token. This basically means it’s a digital piece of content that cant be duplicated due to it’s unique blockchain ID. Think of it as a certificate of authenticity. This allows GIFs, videos, jpegs, mp3s or any other file format to be certified as one-of-a-kind. This type of ownership has previously not been possible prior to blockchain technology.
Just a heads up, it’ll cost about $150 to do this.
5 STEPS TO CREATE A NFT (NO CRYPTO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY)
1. Create a wallet
2. Buy a little Etherium
3. Connect wallet to NFT marketplace
4. Listing and turning “art” into NFT
5. Give the gift!
Step 1 – Create a wallet.
Wallets are essentially like a brokerage account where you store your crypto currency and collectibles. The most popular wallet for Etherium is Metamask. Follow their steps for wallet creation. It’s pretty straight forward.
Step 2 – Buy a little Etherium.
You can purchase Etherium directly through your wallet or from other applications such as Coinbase and send it to your wallet. I use Metamask personally and buy Etherium through Wyre (their built in application). It’s as simple as using a credit/debit card for any other online purchase.
Step 3 – Connect wallet to NFTmarketplace.
NFT Auction websites, such as Rarible, make it super easy to connect your wallet. Simply click “sign in” and then “sign in” with your wallet. Then hit the “accept” button.
Step 4 – List and turning “art”into a NFT.
(How to make “art” itself is in the section below) Click the “Create” button on the Rarible website. Select “Etherium,” select “single.” Upload your “art,” give it a price, name, description, and select the royalties you wish to receive should the NFT change hands… If you want to gift the NFT you must pay for it’s minting (aka creation). In any other case, you could pass this fee on to the buyer. This minting fee is on the top of the 2.5% fee Rarible charges for its services. The cheaper you set your NFT, the less fee you pay to Rarible, but the minring fees are fixed and will run around $150 bucks (this changes on a daily basis).
Step 5 – Give the Gift!
Here is the process of giving your NFT as a gift. Follow the very simple directions here. You’ll get a URL and QR code. You can print this QR code out and who ever gets this code will get you NFT! If they don’t already have a wallet, they will be guided through the QR to create a Metamask wallet.
HOW TO CREATE A PIECE OF NFT ART
Step 1 – If you want to make a custom “piece of art” you can use a website such as Hotpot to create AI generated art. All you need to select the style of art you want and enter text of what you want drawn. You can try it out for free making a small resolution NFT. You can subsequently pay to increase the resolution (up to 736 x 736). Just follow the prompts.
Depending if you want to skip the queue (you can pay) or speed up the process (you can pay) a “for free” piece of AI generated art takes around 30 minutes. Although depending on the complexity, can take up 3 hours.
What’s cool is they have ask “the AI for ideas” and it’ll generate text for what you can have drawn. Here are some things the AI generated for me:
- A humorous comic book with a friend
- Rainbows in the morning
- The angry and thin man from the rainforest
- A gigantic yellow O in the sky above you, shooting out of its top
- The starside of Earth yawning with sadness about the rainforest
Once the graphic is ready, simply go to Step 5 from above and upload it to be created as an NFT. You could always share the jpeg, but that means it’s duplicatable!
If you make a NFT, your recipient can sell it on the open market (and you can get royalties from it!)
I’ll go into the importance of NFT technology and what it means going forward (besides just art creation and collectibles.)