Irreplaceable tokens (NFTs) have become especially popular in 2021, and this trend will continue, albeit slightly more slowly, in 2022. Users tend to create, sell and collect various NFTs for many reasons. Some like art, others try to speculate on its value, others are used as part of a blockchain-based game, and so on.
Whatever the reason, it looks like NFTs aren’t going anywhere. Naturally, Ethereum has become the dominant network for their creation, and the ERC-721 token standard continues to lead the market. However, this has also led to network congestion, huge fees and slow transaction processing, and other blockchains have proven to be a reasonable alternative as users look for cheaper and faster solutions.
One of them is Solana. In fact, Solana is thriving in the non-fungible token space as more creators look to Ethereum alternatives to launch their NFT projects. In this guide, we’ll explain step by step how to mint NFT on Solana – specifically on Solsea, the largest NFT marketplace on the web.
Quick navigation
What is NFT mining?
How to create your first NFT on Solsea?
Connecting a phantom wallet
Creating an NFT Collection
Minting your NFTs on Solsea
What is Minting?
Minting is the process of tokenizing a digital file using cryptography, while tokenization is the process of turning an asset into a digital token that can be moved, stored, and recorded on a blockchain. You can turn almost any digital file into a token – mp3, mp4, jpeg, WAV, PNG, GIF, etc.
Don’t worry about the technical process now – you’ll understand it as we go through this guide.
How to mint NFTs on the Solsea Marketplace by Solana
There are several NFT marketplaces on Solana such as Solanart, Magic Eden or Solport, but for now we will be minting on Solsea, the first and most popular NFT marketplace on Solana. We’re also going to be using Phantom, a non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet and browser extension commonly referred to as MetaMask of Solana.
Let’s go step by step. First, set up your wallet.
1 – Installing the Phantom
If you don’t already have Phantom installed, go to Phantom.app and download it as an extension for your browser. In this case, we are using Brave.
Once added to the browser, you will see the Phantom icon on the extension button in the top right corner. Click the icon and continue with the installation.
You will be redirected to a new page. Click “Create a new wallet”.
You will receive a recovery passphrase that you will use to recover your account if you need to reinstall it on another device later. This is the most important step in creating your wallet – if you lose this phrase or spell it incorrectly – you will not be able to recover your wallet and may lose your funds. So be sure to write it down and keep it in a safe place and remember:
Never save your private key on your PC! Never share your passphrase with anyone, this will give them full control over the funds!
Also, Phantom doesn’t currently have an Android version, so be careful of phishing and fake apps.
After that, Phantom will be added to your browser. You can easily access it by clicking the Phantom icon in the menu bar.
2 – Replenish your wallet
To start mining, we need SOL, Solana’s native cryptocurrency. If you have SOL on a crypto exchange like Coinbase, you will have to send funds to your Phantom wallet. To do this, simply click on the $ icon.
Select SOL and click “Deposit”.
You can either fund your wallet by scanning the QR code, or you can copy and paste the address below the QR code.
Once your wallet is funded, you are ready to start minting NFTs on Solana.
Creating a new Solsea account
The next step is to create an account on Solsea. You can do this by connecting your wallet to the platform. Just click the Connect Wallet button in the top right corner and select Phantom.
Phantom will appear on your screen and ask for permission to link your wallet. Solsea will be able to view your funds and activity in your wallet, and request confirmation of the transaction.
Once connected, you will be redirected to the Solsea login page. Enter your email account and password.
Agree to the terms and click “Register”. Solsea will send you an email to verify your Solsea account. After that, your wallet will be automatically connected to the Solsea platform.
Now you can go! The next few steps will show you the actual minting process.
Create an NFT collection
First, you need to create an NFT collection where you will store your NFTs. Go to the “Create” tab and click “Collection”.
2. Choose a title and add a description for your collection.
3. Upload title and icon image.
4. You can add your social media accounts and website if you want more people to be interested in you and your future work.
5. When you’re ready, click “Create Collection” and sign the transactions to create the collection. Note that you may see a pop-up message saying that the mint transaction failed – this is probably a bug on the Solsea side and you may have to wait a bit for the transaction to complete.
If you are not sure if a transaction was approved or not, go to your wallet, select SOL and view your transaction history or use any Solana block explorer.
After confirming the transaction, go to Wallet and click on My Collection. It should look something like this:
Minting your first NFT on Solsea
Now that we have our NFT collection set, let’s add some NFTs to it. Return to the “Create” tab and this time select “NFT”.
2. Download the file. Accepted formats are JPEG, PNG or GIF (image) and MOV or MP4 (video). Make sure you read the supported file formats first. For the sake of this guide, we will upload an image of our awesome laser eye potato.
3. Then choose a name and add a description for your NFT.
4. Now we have the option to set the royalties. This is the percentage that you, as the creator, will earn each time your NFT is resold on the secondary market.
The percentage ranges from 0% to 50% and you can set it based on your own business model.
The following fields are optional but highly recommended, such as an external link to your artwork page if you have one, so people can see more of your work.
When it comes to tags – in our case it’s a regular image – choose the right tag for your file type (if it’s mp4, then choose video). Once created and listed, your NFT becomes searchable based on its tag.
Solsea is also the first NFT marketplace to embed licenses in NFTs. These licenses allow you to specify what you are selling and buyers will know exactly what they are buying. If you are still not sure, read here.
If you have created an NFT collection before, you can add a new NFT to it by selecting it from the Collection drop-down list.
Finally, you must add traits, but be careful because you can’t change them after minting.
Click Mint NFT. Again, you will have to sign transactions in order to create an NFT.
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