3 Ways to Mint NFTs

Guess what? This is a creator economy. That's one of the things we've been talking about all along is how to be part of a creator economy. So today we're going to talk about 3 ways to mint your NFT, and I'm going to talk about 3 platforms because they're platforms that I'm already using. The first one is OpenSea, the second one is Rarible, and the third one is Mintable. So let's get started with OpenSea. Now, OpenSea was launched in 2017, the same time as the CryptoKats and CryptoKitties. Notice the timing. And it is now a $1.2 billion market cap company. That's 2017 to now, and it's already a $1.2 billion company. And you know what? It feels a little bit like Facebook in a way. Like you go in there, you have some ideas, you share it with your community. You can create a marketplace or a store inside. But what I love about OpenSea is not only that they've been there first, but they have the most integrations. So when you buy things on other platforms like Mintable or Rarible or Cargo or any other place, a lot of them are integrated with OpenSea and you will see your NFTs all in one place. The other thing that's brilliant about them is they allow for smart contracts. And we talked about smart contracts in an earlier episode. But what that is, is that's a specific contract that you can put in place with the rules of that NFT, not only for today, but for all the transactions forward. For example, if you wanted to put 10% goes back to the creator every single time it's sold, you put that in the smart contract. Or if you want to honor the creator or their name or their family name or something they've done, you put that on the smart contract and that lives forever. on the blockchain. Now, when you go in OpenSea, it's really not that difficult to get started because really all you do is set up your account, you go through the prompts step by step, and then when you're done, you upload your NFT. Now, there are not direct fees for listing your NFT. Fees are applied when you go to sell it. It's the gas prices that will be affecting the sale of your NFT, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But one of the things that's really special about OpenSea is you can create your own store. It's almost like Shopify for products, but this is your store for your NFTs. So one of the reasons to look into OpenSea is to make sure you have the ability to create a store and look into a place where you can put your things for sale or put your things to hold and have them for a long time. Now, the second one we're going to talk about is Rarible. Rarible is phenomenal. It's actually got a huge stake in the marketplace already. Now, it was only launched in 2020, and it's already worth more than $300 million in their market cap. What's brilliant about Rarible, it's a community-based creator economy. Think about it like Reddit. You know what, it's a creator economy that comes together and they create the discussions and they support each other and they elevate together. It is a creator-focused community, and I will tell you, when you go to post anything, your NFT, and launch it and mint it, it does require a review by the committee. It doesn't automatically go up there, it has to be reviewed, and then it does get published as long as it makes the cut. They do require publishing fees up front, just so you know. This is one of the platforms that you're going to be paying 5% just to publish up front. And then when it is sold, the collector will be paying 5% as well. So Rarible has a piece up front, 5% from the creator, and a piece on the back end, which is 5% from the collector. We have used Rarible not only for minting, but also for purchasing. And I will tell you what, what we've purchased on Rarible, I already see in my OpenSea account. So it's really, really easy once you get in there and get started. I recommend you at least buy one so you can see what the process is for yourself. Now, the third one we're going to talk about today is called Mintable. Now, Mintable was started in 2018. It currently has a $41 million market cap. Now, this one is Singapore-based. The first 2 we spoke about are actually US-based. This one is Singapore-based. It is for digital items for crypto. Now, with this, you can create an NFT with Mintable But you'll need a listing title, a listing subtitle, and description of all your items. What's beautiful about Mintable is they allow you to choose things from images and videos and audio files. You can add GIFs, you can add collectibles, documents, and more. It's very, very nice for the collector to be able to share that and have that. Now, the fees for this will be based on gas prices, and at sale is when the fees are paid by the collector. Normally the gas prices are somewhere between 2.5% and 10%. I know I've bought things in the middle of the night before just to make sure to keep our gas prices low. Sometimes the gas prices can be more than the item itself. I've seen like the worth of it change dramatically just by the timing of the day. So one little thing I want to also share as a little bonus today is another ecosystem that we use, and it's called WAX. Now, WAX is completely different than the other ones, so that's why I saved it for last. But it is the first place that we minted our NFTs. My team and I created it, minted it, and figured out the entire system on WAX first. So we will put more in the show notes about that because there's so many details to know, and I'm hoping we'll have a future episode about it as well. So for right now, just know, study the platforms, assess what you want to do and what you want to create. Do you want to be a creator? Do you want to be a collector? Or do you want to just stand by and watch what's happening? Go in that ecosystem, go to those platforms, see what people are interested in, and you'll be learning as you go along. Now, I want to confirm that your NFT can be uploaded to the platform you've selected, and you can create a way to either sell it or collect it in your portfolio as well. So, what I want to sum up for you today is to just take action. Some of it is going to be learning, learning the platforms we told you about today, but I'll tell you, there's a lot more platforms out there. One of them is Foundation. We've used that as well. You're going to find new things happening every single day in this space. So even as we're recording this, by tomorrow it's already going to be outdated because it's changing on a daily basis. So the one thing I want to recommend to you is start paying attention, look at what inspires you, and take action today. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm super excited about what we're talking about. I hope you're inspired as well. And you know what? 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