Everyone talks in abbreviations and technical terms these days, and in the NFT world its no exception.
If you have been researching the NFT world, you may have come across the term ‘minting’.
Minting is the creation of the NFT in to the blockchain and the assigning of a wallet address. It enables the NFT to be listed on the open market for resale. The blockchain address provides the audit trail ownership of every NFT minted. 100% of all NFTs will have been minted.
The concept of minting can be technical, but in this article, we break down the concept into very basic terms to help you understand exactly what minting is.
How an NFT is Minted
An NFT is minted through the NFT projects website by using the appropriate instructions once you have connected your digital wallet.
Before NFT Launch
Before launch and minting begins the founders of the NFT collection will make a number of NFTs available within a contract to mint.
This can be anywhere from 1 NFT in a collection to 20,000 NFTs or more, but on average the number of NFTs in a collection ranges between 6,000 and 10,000.
At the time of sale – either pre-sale mint or public minting – each connection from a buyer’s wallet is provided an NFT from the contract on an AI random basis.
This random nature means you do not often know which NFT you will end up with until after the mint, and a couple of days later, when the reveal happens.
The reveal is where all NFTs that minted are revealed to their owners.
There is always excitement around reveal day. This is often because each NFT is given a rarity score, and the rarer the NFT the more it should be worth.
Your 0.06 ETH mint could be worth 1 to 10 ETH after reveal. It may not sound much but this would be between a 16.6x and 166.6x return on investment.
The $190 mint cost (minus gas fees) could be resold for $3,200, $32,000 or even more for really popular projects.
This sounds amazing but this is a 1 in 10,000 opportunity, so it is possible but also unlikely.
During NFT Launch
Once the minting begins the relevant option on the NFT project’s website will be enabled allowing you to connect your wallet and mint the NFT.
This action turns what would be a simple digital asset, such as an image, and creates the NFT in to the blockchain assigned to the wallet’s address of the purchaser.
During this action the fee to the NFT owner is paid, as well as the network gas fees for making the transaction.
This is a very quick process and NFT is awarded, minted, and showing in the purchaser’s wallet within seconds.
You’ll receive a confirmation message from the digital wallet that the mint has been successful and allow you to check the confirmation of the transaction on the blockchain providing evidence of new NFT ownership.
After NFT Launch
Once the mint has been made, and the NFT created, you’ll want to go and see it.
Usually at this stage the NFT hasn’t been revealed but you will still see your allocation number, and a placeholder image or GIF for your NFT pending the reveal and full allocation.
The reveal date is often 24 to 48 hours after the mint period ends.
The NFT is best seen on the marketplace the collection will be displayed on.
This is usually OpenSea for Ethereum minted NFTs, and Solanart for Solana minted NFTs – but these two platforms do not have exclusivity over these cryptocurrencies, so they could be loaded on to others.
The NFT projects website or Discord channel should point you to the right place.
Once you find your NFT through your account and profile, it will update automatically after the reveal to show you the NFT awarded.
Then you can use whichever rarity tool the NFT project is using (again through a link on their website or Discord channel) to find out how rare and valuable the NFT you have been randomly allocated is.
Why an NFT must be Minted
Unless an NFT is minted it will stay just an image, photograph, or other digital item.
When the minting step happens, it creates the digital asset as an official NFT with registered digital address stored in the blockchain and can be owned by a digital wallet. Full registration is stored against the asset in the collection, and ownership can be verified and audited.
You may wonder why people go through an expensive minting process, and investors pay very high gas fees for the privilege – and the reason is authentication.
If you have ever watched a show such as Pawn Stars, you’ll notice the skepticism Rick, Corey and Chum Lee need to have on every item they look at. No one wants to purchase a fake, forgery or copy. The value is in originality and the genuine item. This is essential.
The blockchain does exactly that. You may be able to take a copy of the NFT and store it on your computer or cell phone but you will not own it.
The ownership can be verified on the blockchain to an ownership digital address (wallet address) providing irrefutable evidence the item is genuine.
Imagine if Rick could do a simply online search of an item that provide conclusive evidence without a shadow of a doubt of how genuine the item is.
Welcome to the NFT world and the blockchain!
Where can an NFT be Minted
In almost every occasion the NFT will be minted through the official website of the NFT project.
This helps to ensure potential buyers are not scammed with spoof sites, and social media links which appear to be helpful links to where people can mint but end up being links to the scammers wallet where they are waiting for you to connect your wallet to steal your hard-earned cryptocurrency.
Millions of dollars have been lost so far through these scammer favorite tactics.
It is worth the additional due diligence to seek out the official Twitter, official Discord, and official website of the project – and only stick to these links for minting regardless of what someone posts elsewhere.
In Conclusion – Minting an NFT
Minting is an essential step in the creation of the NFT, and absolutely necessary for the address, authentication and continued audit trail of all buyers, sellers and owners to be stored on the blockchain forever more.
