Creating NFTs and where to buy and sell them?

1. Digital Asset Creation

Anything can be registered as an NFT: digital artwork, an audio file, lines of text, etc. NFT may also link to physical objects like oil paintings, sculptures, or even real-estate properties. Any form of art that is produced digitally fits perfectly into the NFT world. 

2. Marketplace Selection

There are a lot of NFT Marketplaces available but most popular ones differ depending on the cryptocurrency used, its fees, formatting and artists royalties. Some require an invitation to get in but the most popular cryptocurrency used to buy and sell NFTs right now is ETH and majority of the marketplaces support this currency.

Each transaction occurring in the Ethereum blockchain requires gas fees to cover for the energy wasted during the process. It depends on the number of transactions on the blockchain each moment. 

What are NFT Gas Fees?

If you’re new to the NFT space, you may be curious to know more about NFT gas fees and why such a thing exists. So, what are they?

NFT Gas fees are payments that users have to make to compensate for the computational energy required to process transactions on a blockchain. Basically, these are fees associated with producing a product and putting it on the market.The entire process takes an extraordinary amount of computing power and electricity. Data miners are working through the mining process simultaneously and it requires more electricity and power. It’s like driving a car that requires you to consume more gasoline, the more you spend time in the congested traffic. Similarly, the busier the information superhighway is, the more energy it consumes and the harder it is for miners to get their jobs done.

How to avoid Gas fees? 

It becomes difficult for some creators to mint and sell their work when the gas prices are high, it also varies from the actual valuation of NFTs and sometimes gas price is much more costly than the asset you’re selling. With some ways, you can reduce your gas fees by,

• Plan thoroughly ahead
  • checking the gas price and its historical network congestion.
• Setting your own gas limit
• Transact when demand is low
  • There is less demand in the blockchain either very early in the morning or late at night.

• Utilize another blockchain

Where to check Ethereum Gas prices?

You can check the current Ethereum gas price using Etherscan.io. It’ll tell you the estimated cost of transfer and interactions on the Ethereum Blockchain.

Which Marketplace has lower gas fees or no gas fees?

As of now, Polygon Network on OpenSea and Mintable Marketplace  charges no gas fees and you can list an NFT for sale without paying any fees. Some examples include Solana, Wax blockchain and Cardano.

3. Create a Digital Wallet

Creating a Crypto wallet will hold the cryptocurrency you will earn/spend, different marketplaces support different digital wallets, one of the most popular crypto wallets is MetaMask. If haven’t got MetaMask yet, [ link here for Metamask registering article ]

4. Connect Metamask to OpenSea

Go to OpenSea marketplace and click the top-right wallet symbol, by selecting MetaMask and confirming the wallet connection, it will now link your wallet to OpenSea marketplace  and let you set a profile and make your first NFT. Now, you’re prepared to browse through the marketplace.

5. Start Buying/Selling in the OpenSea NFT Collection

To purchase

By logging in on OpenSea, certain listings will feature a Buy Now option while others allow you to place an offer to the owner. When the exchange is complete, purchased NFT will now be under your collected tab on your profile and OpenSea will take a percent cut from every marketplace transaction. 

What if you wanna sell your NFT? 

To sell an existing NFT on the market, in your profile, click the desired NFT you want to sell. Select the blue sell button at the top right of the screen, Fixed price will let you sell at a specific amount whereas Timed Auction will allow other users to bid on your NFT. 

OpenSea charges an account initialization fee for your first listing and will require gas fees to ETH transactions. To know more about creating a collection, [ link here for NFT collection article ]

Buying and Selling NFTs on OpenSea doesn’t take too much of your time. However, It is always important to keep in mind that the market is unregulated. Be aware of scammers as they’re in the game as well, prices are also volatile. It is not uncommon to see people lose their money especially in cryptoworld, could either be through phishing or rug pulls. The NFT field is filled with wash traders generating fake trade volumes on certain collections, making it more appealing to investors. On the bright side, it seems that gas fees will be greatly reduced in the near future, giving hope to both creators and collectors in the NFT space.