Although many people still don’t understand what they are, many people have now heard of NFTs.
The media continues to highlight the fortunes made by NFT creators.
Considering the majority of NFTs are jpeg images or cartoon characters, many people are asking whether anyone can sell an NFT or are high level requirements needed.
Anyone can sell an NFT. To sell an NFT a smart contract will be required as well as an image with the copyright to sell. The smart contract, written in Solidity code for the Ethereum network, is code allowing the image to be minted as an NFT. Costs include smart contract fees and gas fees.
If you are a graphic designer, cartoonist, or a graphical artist – especially with a following – launching an NFT collection could result in a considerable sale volume that could be used to further your career.
A typical NFT will sell for around $200, but from a known artist the mint price could be higher.
Those launching an NFT will usually look to sell anywhere between 3,000 and 10,000.
At an average sale price of $200 each, a sellout could result in revenue of between $600,000 and $2million!
Considering the costs for selling this number of NFTs could be done for as low as $500-$600, this is an incredible return on investment.
In this article we will look at who can sell NFTs, and the process involved.
Who Can Sell NFTs
NFT – which stands for Non-Fungible Token – is a digital asset that can come in many different forms and throughout many different niches.
At the moment the mainstream NFTs people often hear about are digital artwork, often in JPEG files.
To buyers, the ownership of the NFT is the buzz. The status symbol.
The beauty of the entire NFT ecosystem is that ANYONE can create and sell an NFT!
No special qualifications, accreditations or associations are required. Any person of any age can create an NFT.
If you create an image, whether a photograph or digital art, and as long as you own the copyright of the artwork to be able to resell, you can turn this in to an NFT.
There is a steep technical learning curve involved. This technical side can either be learned through YouTube videos or online courses on platforms such as Udemy, or it can be outsourced to someone with Solidity coding skills and knowledge.
Solidity is the programming language used to create a smart contract.
A smart contract is a piece of computer code that sits on a blockchain network, such as Ethereum, and is used as a set of guidelines when turning an image in to an NFT, or when the NFT is sold in the future.
It is a set of rules, set in stone, that cannot be changed.
Without a smart contract on a blockchain such as Ethereum, it is just an image. With a smart contract it allows anyone to mint the image in to an authorised NFT.
You may be asking why an image is different to an NFT?
The main difference is an image will sit on your computer or in the cloud, whereas an NFT will have its address and characteristics stored in the blockchain as a unique key.
This unique key allows the NFT to be minted, sold, and resold. It’s how NFTs are given a monetary value and how they increase and decrease in value too.
This means the NFT will have a full audit history attached to it, which is perfect for preventing copycats or fraud.
Why Would Someone Create an NFT?
We’ve looked at who can create an NFT, but the next question often asked is why someone would create an NFT!
There are lots of reasons someone would create an NFT or an NFT Collection.
For some it’s to be able to give a piece of their artwork to loyal fans and collectors. It helps establish their space within the industry or build new followers.
For others, especially entrepreneurs, it opens a crowdfunding opportunity.
NFT crowdfunding is the process of selling NFTs as a collection, where buyers invest into the business concept.
It could be to gain access to a new game, or invest in strategic characters, pieces within a new Metaverse game.
On the other hand, it could be to launch a new business in which the sale of the NFTs provides a large capital to fund the start-up.
For example, if an entrepreneur successfully manages to create enough demand to sell 10,000 NFTs at a price of 0.08 ETH, this could provide a start-up capital of around $3,000,000 (yes, three million dollars!).
If an artist manages to sell 10,000 NFTs of their artwork collection, whether individual pieces or a limited edition set at a price of 0.12 ETH, this could provide income of $3,500,000 to the artist!
One of the highest selling NFTs sold for $69million by Beeple.
With these huge sums available in a very trending industry, it’s no wonder more and more people are turning to NFT creation in an attempt to strike it rich in the wild west days of where this NFT industry will eventually transform in to.
The concept of an NFT has so many benefits, far beyond cartoon apes.
Where this industry will eventually end up is not known, but the guaranteed authentication, full audit history and locked down ownership means the NFT space will evolve many times until it becomes standard within large blue chip industries.
How Anyone can Create an NFT
Fortunately, the process to create an NFT is the same for everyone.
Each blockchain network has its own process of course, but for this example we will look at the steps and process involved in creating an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain:
- Create a piece – or multiple pieces – of high quality digital artwork
- Use a tool to create a JSON meta data file relating to the digital artwork
- Code a Smart Contract using the Solidity programming language
- Activate the Smart Contract on the Ethereum Blockchain – a gas fee of approx. $500 is required
- Mint the NFT, using the Smart Contract, from the digital artwork
If this sounds incredibly complex, you are completely forgiven.
This is an incredibly complex IT based process.
There are courses online that teach you how to build the smart contract using free tools, and also how to create the JSON (another computer code file) containing the meta (details) of the NFT.
Anyone that has average coding skills in any coding language such as HTML, SQL, PHP, JAVA, Dart etc… should be able to pick up things with some training.
If though you are brand new into coding, and have never coded anything before, it can be an extremely steep learning curve.
Fortunately, as the process is relatively streamlined now for those developers who have done this a number of times, the cost to hire someone to do this for you is usually less than $1,000.
As many tools become available, and more developers learn Solidity, the price of this will fall, but considering returns can be $1million+, a $1,000 cost is not too bad an expense.
