How to Create (Mint) Your Own NFT and List it under $1

A few days ago, I created my own cryptocurrency called the “PandaToken“. While it was a fairly easy job to do, it was totally worth the dopamine hit. Followed by that, a lot of people asked me to share how to create NFTs. And off to yet another venture I was. This one doesn’t involve even an ounce of coding. While we copy pasted some code while creating the token, creation of NFTs is a user friendly play. Similar to filling a Google form if I may.

Which Platform?

As mentioned above, this step is very important. If you are a serious artist and really want to make selling NFTs a business, you can opt for Ethereum based platforms like OpenSea or Rarible. Creating and buying NFTs on these platforms would require you to pay a gas fee in ETH. And by now, all of us know how that pans out. So, if you plan to create an NFT on Rarible, you might need a gas fee of about $6 to get started. This is if you are lucky. If the network congestion is higher, it may go up to $10.

Since I am doing it solely for the purpose of fun, these two options were clearly ruled out for me. So I started finding out platforms based on Binance Smart Chain which has a proven record of being a fast and cheap way of dealing in digital assets.

And then I came across 3 different platforms. I am sure there would be multiple of them, but I reviewed until I found the one that would fit my requirement.

WazirX NFT Marketplace:

Of course you saw this coming. Indian NFT marketplace with low gas fee, it just checks all the boxes. But despite that, I couldn’t go ahead with this one. Why?

Because WazirX has a strict policy of letting legit creators only to upload their art on the platform. For uploading an NFT on their platform, first you need to fill this form. Once that is done, team would review it and you’ll be notified via mail if you are eligible for uploading NFTs on the platform. And I am sort of aligned with this approach. Else, people would just upload crap trying to leverage the hype around NFTs.

Therefore, despite good reasons, WazirX NFT marketplace is out of the picture.

Featured By Binance:

Featured by Binance is a decentralized counterpart of NFT marketplaces by Binance. Why plural? Because they have another one already called Binance NFT. Now this platform would let you mint NFTs below $1. You could also mint unique or multiple copies of your NFT. The storage limit is also set at a decent 30MB. So if you are uploading images as NFTs, you could comfortably go along this platform.

Only drawback? It is glitchy. NFT space is still evolving by the day and I am sure a giant like Binance would take notice. However, until then, it took me about 20 retries to connect my wallet and then when I finally got uploading the image, it took another 15 minutes to do that. In a nutshell, a sub par experience.

Refinable:

And then I found the one. Refinable had everything I was looking for. Less than $1 fee for minting an NFT. No pre-approval needed. Although I planned to create an image NFT only, but the storage limit was quite decent (50MB for images and 100MB for videos).

Although the basic version of this marketplace is free, it does have some premium features as well. These features can be unlocked by purchasing the native token of this marketplace called $FINE. 1 $FINE is right now trading at $0.3. Each level would give you additional features like adding royalty clause to your NFT, creating multiple copies of it etc.

However, if you are just doing it for fun, the basic version works just fine. Let’s quicky dive deeper into how I created the NFT.

How to Create Your Own NFT?

In this section, I would take you through the step by step process of minting your NFT on Refinable.

Step 1: Create a Metamask Wallet:

At this point, you should be like, is this guy joking? Because if you are venturing into web3.0 or a decentralized space, having a wallet is extremely important. While I have used Metamask for this transaction by adding BSC to it, you can also use the trust wallet or a couple of more that are supported by Refinable.

If you still want to understand how to create a Metamask wallet and add Binance Smart Chain to it, please read this blogpost where I created my own crypto. These were the exact same pre-requisites for that as well.

Step 2: Load and Connect Your Wallet:

Once you have created the wallet, it needs to be fed with some BNB. BNB is the gas for Binance Smart Chain network. So what you have to do is go to a centralized exchange like CoinDCX and purchase some BNB. Finally, withdraw that BNB to your Metamask address. If you want to dive deeper into the details of how to do that, refer to this post.

As soon as you open the website, you would be prompted to connect your wallet. If not, then you would have a button on the top right that says connect wallet. Press that button and approve the sign in from the Metamask wallet.

Once you are done, hit the create button.

Step 3: Create Your NFT:

As mentioned, this one is as simple as filling out a form. You simply upload the file (only specific formats allowed) you want as NFT. In the network please chose Binance Smart Chain. I would go on and explain a few fields in the form which might be a little overwhelming if you are doing it for the first time:

A. Editions:

You get to decide if the NFT you are creating is one of it’s kind or there are multiple versions of it. For example, I could mint just one art piece or create 50 different copies of it.

B. Royalties:

This is a % of share you want when this NFT is sold to the next buyer. Since NFTs are programmable, it creates an amazing opportunity for the artists to earn a passive income by fairly getting royalties each time someone makes some profit off their creation.

C. List for Sale:

Simply pick the price you want to sell your NFT for. This can be picked in BNB, BUSD or USDT. BNB is the native token of BSC and BUSD and USDT are stable coins pegged to the US dollar.

Once you are done filling the form, simply hit the agree and save button. Once again, your Metamask would pop up, a couple of authorizations, a small gas fee to mint the NFT and Viola! You should see the images below once you are done.

Conclusion:

EZPZ right? So what are you waiting for. Go ahead and show your talent to the world. For who knows you could be the next Beeple. Also, make sure that you check out my sample NFT here. I kept it at a price band of Rs. 50 so that no body buys it thinking it’s a piece of junk (Which it actually is). That was “How to create your own NFT” 101 for you!

So, what do you plan to do with your creation?

Got questions? Want to take it to the next level? Reach out to me using your preferred platform from the links below

Until next time..

Btw, if you are a seasoned trader or just testing the waters with derivatives, here’s an exchange specifically meant for that. Head over to MCS using this link. Still not convinced? Join the vibrant community that is talking about MCS on Telegram, here.

 This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with VoxBox.