Step-by-Step Guide to Creating and Selling an NFT (2024)

Due to massive interest, some of the marketplaces will require an invitation.

The most popular cryptocurrency used to buy and sell NFTs right now is ETH and the majority of the marketplaces support this currency.

A term that is important to be familiar with when starting out in the crypto space is “Gas Fees”.

Gas fees are costs that come with almost any transaction that occurs on theEthereum blockchainand are supposed to cover the expenses for the computer energy that is wasted in this process.

Some of the marketplaces will require the creator to pay gas fees for each transaction: listing an item for sale, selling the item, and more. While others may only require gas fees to get started and some will allow you to start with 0 cryptocurrencies in your wallet.

Surprisingly, you will find out that gas fees can actually be very high. In many cases, the gas fees you will require to pay for creating or purchasing an NFT are higher than the actual price of the artwork itself. That is due to the increasing popularity and high volume of actions on the Ethereum blockchain.

You can list an NFT for sale without paying any fees (even if you have 0 eths in your wallet ) if you use Mintable Marketplace or Use thePolygon Network on Opensea.

At the time of writing this post, Opensea is the largest and most popular marketplace for NFT artworks.

• Go to Metamask.io.
• Download the chrome extension and accept the terms. You will find the link to the download on their main page. (There is also a mobile app available)
• Open Metamask extansion by clicking on the Metamask icon.

• Create a new password.
• You will now get a secret backup phrase that consists of 12 words. You need to write it down somewhere (maybe couple of places). That is the secret phrase to your wallet. If you lose it you will lose the wallet as well.
• After you click next, you will be asked to re arrange the words of that phrase in the right order. Once you finish and confirm you know the phrase your account is ready.
• Click on All Done.
• Click on View Account.
• You can see your wallet address below the account name.

• Open Opensea.io
• Click on the profile icon on the top navigation menu. When a dropdown menu will open up, select "My Account" option.

• Opensea will now prompt you to connect your Metamask wallet.

• Click Sign in.
• Opensea will now create an Unnamed account.
• You can open the Account settings, change the username, add contact info and upload a profile picture.

• On Opensea website, click on "My Profile" and select "My collections".
• Click on "Create My Collection" button.
• Add the graphics: collection icon, banner.

• Fill in the name of your collection and write a description (It should be no longer than 1000 characters).
• Select a category that is the nest fir for your collection.
• Add links: you can add links to your own website, discord channel, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram.
• Write down the Royalties. Royalties is the percentage you would like to receive on the future re-sales of your work. Max percentage is 10%.
• On the Blockchain section, select "Polygon" (This is the gas free option, you will not be asked to pay any fees when uploading or listing items for sale on Polygon).

• The default payment tokens is Eth, you can add more from the list.
• Select your display theme and click "Create".

• Open your newly created collection. (If it is not open yet, click on your account icon, select "My Collection" and click on click on the collection you just created)
• Click on the "Add Item" button on the top navigation menu.

• Create a new item window will now open up.
• You can drag you art file, it can be image, video, audio or 3d model. File size should be less than 40mb.
• Give your artwork a name and a description. You can also add a link for more info on the item here.
• You can add properties. That is most relevant to collection with many similar items that differ from each other by certain elements.
• On supply list the number of copies you want to list of the same item.
• Make sure that the selected blockchain is Polygon and click create.

• Open the NFT you just created.
• Click on the "Sell" button on the top.
• A pop window asking you to set the price will appear. Set the price for your NFT.
• Now you will be asked to unlock currency. You will only need to unlock currency once for the first listing you make. Click unlock.

For me, it took a couple of sessions to properly unlock currency. Several times I tried to unlock the currency for the first NFT I listed for sale I got an error message stating: ” There was an error with your transaction, please try again”.

I was a bit worried that it might be due to the 0 eth on my wallet, but it had nothing to do with that. Apparently, that was just a technical issue on Polygon (Which may happen from time to time), a day after the same operation went smoothly without any change on my part.

• Now you will be asked to sign your listing.
• After you sign the listing you will get a message that your NFT is listed for sale.

Now it is time to market your work and get it sold. Marketing is still a field I try to understand. It seems that being active on the relevant channels on Twitter and discord can be helpful. Any tips you can share are highly appreciated.

Stay tuned for new updates on the topic and check out my NFT Collection.