I've minted NFTs on Ethereum, then WAX, then Phantasma, and am set to mint on Hive (but haven't gotten around to it yet). NFTs are exploding. Personally, I think they are only beginning and that the biggest use-cases haven't even yet been imagined. And, since there are lots of questions around, I thought I'd share my experiences.
People have helped me, maybe this will help someone else.
Ethereum NFTs
I first minted in Feb. 2020 using https://opensea.io/ a year ago when Gas prices were not crazy. I drew this little dog then minted it as an NFT. I believe the cost then was about $0.25. I sold it for .0015 ETH, which at the time, was worth about $0.18 if my math is correct. Yes, a loss, but I was testing and learning and that .0015 ETH is now worth $2.59!
See the NFT and history: https://opensea.io/assets/0x8a76211d94f7c06fab465d691f224234c3597793/0 Here are my Ethereum NFTs on OpenSea.io.
Notes on Ethereum NFTs
There are two things that come to mind:
- OpenSea is doable, but not entirely easy. I literally took notes on paper in attempt to cut down on minting errors. I still made plenty. But to be fair, (a) this was my absolute first attempt, and (b) I think they've made the UX easier.
- The Gas fees. I think most people here understand this makes things prohibitive until a solution is developed to get Gas prices down. Quick side note: Since Gas skyrocketed, I stopped on Ethereum. I checked my OpenSea account a month ago. I still had a few NFTs for sale, but because of the run-up in ETH prices, I was asking way too much for my NFTs. I decided to lower my asking ETCH price down to about $1 or $2...thinking that was an off-chain change. Turned out I spent $15 in gas to lower an asking price down to $2. Ouch.
AtomicHub.io on WAX
Thankfully, my second NFT experience presented a better option. Short story...WAX is where you want to mint NFTs and AtomicHub is where you want to do it.
http://AtomicHub.io on WAX is by far the easiest and cheapest way to mint NFTs. I minted my first one, on day one of AtomicHub in about ten minutes. It was the 45th sale listed on Atomic, which means there were 44 prior. But, considering there currently have been 3.6 million sale listings, #45 is still kinda cool. And, oh, it was free.
Let me repeat, you can mint one or two or three NFTs on AtomicHub for free. (It depends on the file size.) After that, you'll need to buy a little WAX, and I mean a little, to mint more. I bought 5 WAX and minted a couple hundred. Since, I've invested $20 to buy WAX, have minted over a thousand NFTs, and I am currently at 5% capacity.
Here are tons of NFTs I've made on WAX: https://nefties.com/pages/free.html
Notes on AtomicHub NFTs
- The devs on Atomic (Jona and Fabian) are very smart, professional, nice young men.
- You can mint an image (static like jpg or animated gif), but you can also do audio/video NFTs. See my examples at https://nefties.com/pages/examples.html
- It really is easy: (a) get a Wax Cloud Wallet, (b) go to AtomicHub.io and login with your Wax Cloud Wallet, (c) click NFT Creator.
- I made a couple of AtomicHub tutorials:
- article: how to mint on Atomic (minting the sale #45): @crrdlx/a-great-leap-forward-for-nfts-a-test-mint-tutorial-of-the-new-atomicassets-nft-protocol-at-atomichub-io-using-the-wax-blockchain
- video: how to mint on Atomic: @crrdlx/pauluoay
- video: how to mint a two-sided NFT: (like a baseball card):
Phantasma Chain
Somewhere, someone put out a poll a couple of months ago. It asked something like, "What's the best blockchain to mint NFTs on?" (I think WAX got the most votes.) But, what caught my attention was that several people commented, "Why isn't Phantasma Chain offered as one of the choices?" The poll creator responded, essentially, "I didn't include it as only an 'NFT blockchain' because there is so much more to the Phantasma ecosystem."
Okay, I'd not heard of Phantasma before, but my interest was piqued.
https://phantasma.io is the home base, but https://phantasma.info seemed easier to digest to me. Phantasma is a bit overpowering with all that it entails (I have much more to learn). However, focusing on NFTs, https://ghostmarket.io is the place to be.
Ghost Market is pretty almost as easy as minting on AtomicHub. You do need to download the Phantasma wallet called "Poltergeist" (you don't have to download a wallet on Atomic). Still, minting on GhostMarket is very similar to Atomic and it's very easy.
There are two things on Phantasma that make it very different in my mind.
- Things can be "infused" into Phantasma NFTs. They use the comparison of the Russian egg dolls. You have a doll, open it up, and there's another doll inside. For NFTs, this means you can embed "secret" info inside the NFT. Then, only the buyer/owner can see that information.
- Phantasma is multi-chain. ETH and NEO can be bridged or "chain-swapped" along with the Phantasma cryptos: SOUL and KCAL. I have to learn about this, but this is ahead of the curve.
One thing unique about Phantasma is that it has two tokens, SOUL and KCAL. SOUL is the main chain token, KCAL is like Ethereum's gas, it's fuel to do stuff. You need both. I was given 2 SOUL and 200 KCAL. I staked the SOUL (that let's you changed your wallet to your name, so, instead of my public Phantasma wallet address being P2KGwDQRDJwdVzvifC8ArStee6VvoUL6fh4yTCQnUW3eAUy my address is now simply crrdlx and the tokens can be sent there...just like on HIVE). The KCAL is what's needed to mint NFTs. It takes about 20 or 30 KCAL to mint. So, checking the current prices at http://satoshibitcoinconverter.com/more/kcal.html, it costs about $1.40 to mint. (Wow! It only costed me about 25 cents as I recall! I need to get back over there!)
Here's my first mint on Phantasma. It sold recently.
And here's a look at the kinds of things up on Ghost Market right now.
Notes on Phantasma
- The lead dev, Vincent, is also a smart, professional, nice young man. And, there are nice and helpful people in the community...they gifted me the resources to begin.
- I mention in the tutorial...the day I wrote it, by chance, they started a tipping system on the Phantasma Telegram channel. The purpose, I believe, is in part to get newcomers started. If ask nicely there, they just might gift you enough to start minting.
- Personally, I think something huge will be built using the ability to infuse or hide information inside NFTs. It might be on Phantasma, maybe elsewhere, but it'll happen. For instance, I imagine someone buying an NFT with any coin's private key secretly placed inside. And, much more clever ideas than that simple one will be developed.
- I made Phantasma tutorials:
- article: how to mint on Phantasma: @crrdlx/how-to-create-an-nft-on-the-phantasma-chain
- how to mint video on 3speak: @crrdlx/nhnnukrf
- same video on lbry: https://lbry.tv/@crrdlx:a/How-to-Mint-an-NFT-on-the-Phantasma-Chain:c
Hive NFTs
I have not yet minted on Hive. I did go through the get verified process for https://nftshowroom.com Victoria on Telegram and Julia were super helpful on Discord.
Understand, I love Hive. So, I want to mint on Hive. But, I simply haven't yet. Reasons:
- Initially, the idea that I needed to "apply as an artist" was a little off-putting. To me, crypto is about doing your thing, without having to ask permission. And, apply as an artist? I thought a true artist didn't ask anyone any permission to anyone for any art. You just do it. To be fair, the showroom is not decentralized. I get it...they wish to avoid the flood of spam nonsense that could come. They want some standards. Fair enough. I can respect that.
- Cost was a second factor. NFTshowroom's cost to mint is 5 SWAP.HIVE, so, http://satoshibitcoinconverter.com/more/hive.html shows about $1.50 right now. When I looked a while back, it was about $0.75. This was much higher than WAX and higher than I'd minted on Phantasma. So, I held off. (Seems about the same as Phantasma now.)
- When I looked at the creator tool, it looked rather easy. It's a fill-in-the-form format which is easy enough.
- A final reason I'm kind of delaying is because there's so much development on Hive-Engine right now. NFTshowroom uses Hive-Engine. I imagine other front-ends will appear. Still, I do feel obligated to mint on NFTshowroom...they've been too kind not to.
For anyone new, if you'd like a free NFT
I've given away a several hundred, I think over on WAX. Go to my website and there are some instructions there: https://nefties.com/pages/getstarted.html
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:)