How to Create and Sell NFTs Artwork on OpenSea.io

NFTs market recorded new highs in Q2 of 2021 after hitting a valuation of $2.5 billion. The young industry has become an integral part of the decentralized industry and holds lots of potential for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. This article details how to create an NFT and sell it on OpenSea. 

NFT is an acronym standing for Non-Fungible Tokens – these are crypto assets that represent a virtual item recorded on the blockchain, such as an image, in-game reward, or video. The NFT allows for the item to be traded through a decentralized marketplace. 

OpenSea ranks among the most respected NFT marketplaces. Below is a monthly chart of sales volume per month on the platform. You can see that the volume of sales has exponentially grown with the increasing popularity of NFTs since the start of 2021. 

OpenSea monthly NFT volume. Source: Dune Analytics

Things you need to know before creating your first NFT 

There are different types of NFT products ranging from artwork, music, video, trees, virtual land, or images. You will also find two types of investors in the NFT space. Investors love and buy virtual items because of their cultural significance or value as well as those that buy an item and speculate that its price will rise in the future. 

Something else you need to note is you will need to choose what blockchain to build the NFT. Ethereum is leading as the most used blockchain for deploying NFTs. Other blockchains increasingly being adopted by developers include the Binance Smart Chain, Tron, Polkadot, Tezos, Cosmos, and WAX. In the Binance NFT vs OpenSea article, you can find which of these markets would fit your needs better.

Additionally, choosing a given blockchain means you will have to choose its unique NFT token standard, marketplace, and compatible wallet. 

You will only be able to sell an NFT created on Polkadot at marketplaces only supported by the Polkadot blockchain. OpenSea is an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace. This means only those NFTs built on Ethereum can be traded on the platform. 

Requirements when building an NFT artwork, video or music include the following: 

1. An Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask or Trust Wallet. The wallet must support the ERC-721 token standard which is the NFT standard on Ethereum. 
2. Approximately $100 of Ethereum (ETH). You can purchase ETH from any exchange including Coinbase and send them to your preferred wallet.

Creating an NFT on Opensea.io

Visit  https://opensea.io/ and on the top navigation bar, you will find the Create button. 

The homepage of OpenSea

The next step is integrating Opensea with your Ethereum Wallet. The UI will provide you an option to connect with MetaMast or any different wallet service of your choice. You will also need to install the wallet extension on your browser. 

MetaMask

After you are done here, the next step is to upload your artwork. The User Interface will provide you with an upload button and the process is as simple as uploading a photo on Facebook. Once uploaded, you will have the option of adding descriptive attributes that will make your NFT artwork unique and identifiable. 

You will be charged to have the NFT live running on the Ethereum network. The charges are known as gas fees and are paid as Ether. 

Selling the NFT

Click the Sell button when ready to sell your NFT and then you will have to choose what ERC-20 token you’d like to receive as compensation for your sales. There are many types of ERC-20 tokens and the marketplace will provide you with a dropdown list. You might have to pay some fees to have the digital item listed on a marketplace. Therefore we advise you to be mindful of these fees.  

Bottomline

2021 is the best time to get onboard NFTs. Artists, musicians, content creators, and entrepreneurs are advised to quickly get into the industry and earn from their creations.  Isn’t it nice knowing the NFT industry has processed over $1.8 million transactions valued at $1.06 billion in approximately 30 days?