Upcoming NFT Mints

One of the most exciting parts of any NFT pre-sale campaign is the moment when it finally gets minted and what started as a proposal on a white paper gets one step closer to reality and is typically one of the major milestones on any NFT project’s roadmap.

There are so many upcoming NFT mints out there, each of which offers something new to investors. These not only include the art pieces themselves on the blockchain, but also many other aspects of the smart contracts that come with these tokens.

To understand the wave of excitement that happens when a minting date draws near, here is everything you need to know about minting NFTs, the benefits of doing so, the costs and why you should mint your NFTs.

What Is Minting?

In the world of fiat currency, a mint is a factory or complex where coins are made to exact specifications, with precise amounts of metals, weights, sizes and engravings used to ascertain that these coins are legal to use as currency.

Minting on the blockchain works in a similar but slightly broader way. It is the process of conversion, verification and registration of crypto tokens, whether they take the form of currency, DAO tokens or NFTs before they are distributed to wallets and can be bought, sold and traded.

The minting process, therefore is what makes a token non-fungible; it creates a single, unchangeable and uncopiable record on the blockchain which proves ownership and allows these owners to buy and sell pieces on the blockchain.

In some cases the mint is the end of the process, particularly for art collections; once the pieces are on the blockchain and the smart contracts set up, the transaction is complete and the NFT can be used as the owner wants within the terms of the smart contract.

In other cases, the minted NFT is a proof of ownership that provides access to other content that is often stored off the blockchain but requires an NFT to access, such as comics, animation and video games.

What Can Be Minted?

As minting is a critical part of the NFT process, anything that can be turned into an NFT by definition can be minted, which includes a wide variety of tangible and intangible assets.

Typically, however, minted NFTs are divided into three main categories:

• Tangible Assets: This is where the NFT ownership directly correlates to the ownership of an object. The most common usage is digital art, but it can also include trading cards, code, animations, tweets and even NFTs linked to real objects such as property.

• Intangible Assets: This can include legal rights such as intellectual property and proof of identification, but is more commonly used as an access pass to other content, such as games and digital items.

• Other uses, such as Avatars/Profile Pictures/PFP.

The Minting Process

Minting an NFT is part of the process of creating an NFT, and as a result, many of the steps in the process are the same as making an NFT, in that the creator takes the original file to an NFT marketplace such as OpenSea, connects a file and pays the gas fees to add it to the blockchain.

During this process, systems known as smart contracts are also set up which provide conditions for the use of the files. For example, one common condition for art collections is that whenever they are sold, a percentage of the sale goes to the original minter.

For collectors who have bought an NFT at a presale, the project leaders will often have an automated system that allows them to link a compatible wallet and mint an NFT automatically.

Anything You Need To Consider?

Before you finally click that “Mint NFT” or “Claim NFT” button, there are a few key aspects to bear in mind to ensure a streamlined, friction-free experience.

The first is that once you mint an NFT it is permanent, and so if there are any issues with the smart contract, the only recourse is to completely remint the NFT and go through steps to ensure that it matches the old one in every form required to ensure the NFT still functions.

This happened with Wolf Game NFT, an example of an NFT game that played entirely on the blockchain and thus could not be patched when a major bug was found, necessitating the complete recreation of the game and all of its 13000+ character tokens at considerable expense.

The other aspect is that, like any other transaction on the blockchain, there are fees involved to pay for the processing that is required to place a token on the blockchain, known as “minting fees” or in some cases “gas fees”. Make sure you know what the price will be before you mint, as gas fees can fluctuate.

This is especially true if you are minting many NFTs at once, as each individual transaction has a cost to it, and this can add up if your collection is substantial.

As well as this, NFTs do not replace other forms of copyright and ownership, so do not mint any piece of work that you do not own the copyright of. As NFTs become more established, the laws surrounding ownership will also become more clear.

The final consideration is to know which blockchain and wallet you want to use. The most common blockchain for NFTs is Etherium with a lot of compatible wallets available to store Ether tokens, but there are others that can be used such as Axie Infinity’s Ronin blockchain.

Why Should You Mint An NFT?

The simple answer to this is that you need to mint an NFT in order to prove ownership, so if you want to trade and sell an NFT, you need to mint it.

For collectors looking at the list of upcoming pre-sales and mints, however, you should join a mint if you are interested in the goals of the project as written in the white paper and want to get in on the ground floor.

Otherwise, there is no shame in waiting until the NFT appears on OpenSea or another marketplace and buying it then.