minting a single nft

static/src/_posts/2021-12-01-minting-a-single-nft.md

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+---
+title: >-
+    Minting A Single NFT
+description: >-
+    Harder than I'd thought it'd be.
+tags: tech art crypto
+---
+
+In a [previous post][prev] I made a page to sell some NFTs I had designed. I say
+"designed", not "made", because the NFTs don't actually exist yet.
+
+On [OpenSea](https://opensea.io), where those NFTs are listed, the NFT isn't
+actually "minted" (created) until first sale. This is primarily done to save the
+artist the cost of minting an NFT which no one else is going to buy. There might
+be a way to mint outside of a sale on OpenSea, but I haven't dug too much into
+it because it doesn't matter.
+
+It doesn't matter because a primary goal here is to not go broke. And OpenSea is
+primarily on Ethereum, a blockchain that can't actually be used by normal people
+because of the crazy fees. There are some L2s for it, but I don't have any set
+up, and keeping an NFT in an L2 feels like borrowed time.
+
+So, as an initial test, I've printed an NFT on Solana, using
+[Holaplex][hola]. Solana because it's cheap and fast and
+wonderful, and Holaplex because... a lot of reasons.
+
+The main one is that other projects, like [SolSea](https://solsea.io/) and
+[AlphaArt](https://www.alpha.art/), require a sign-up just to print NFTs. And
+not a crypto signup, where you just connect a wallet. But like a real one, with
+an email. [Solanart](https://solanart.io/) requires you to contact them
+privately through discord to mint on them!
+
+Why? NFTs are a weird market. A lot of these platforms appear to the
+~~customer~~ user more like casino games than anything, where the object is to
+find the shiny thing which is going to get popular for one whimsical reason or
+another. The artists get paid, the platform takes a cut, and whoever minted the
+NFT prays.
+
+For reasons involving the word "rug", the artist, the one who is attaching their
+work to an NFT, is not necessarily to be trusted. So there's a lot of mechanisms
+within the Solana NFT world to build trust between the audience and the artist.
+Things like chain-enforced fair auctions (open to everyone at the same time) and
+gatekeeping measures are examples.
+
+Which is all well and good, but I still couldn't mint an NFT.
+
+## Metaplex
+
+So I tried another tact: self-hosting. It's like, my favorite thing? I talk
+about it a lot.
+
+I attempted to get [Metaplex][meta] set up locally. Metaplex is an organization,
+associated with Solana Labs in some way I think, that's helped develop the NFT
+standard on Solana. And they also develop an open-source toolkit for hosting
+your own NFT store, complete with NFT minting with no fees or other road blocks.
+Sounds perfect!
+
+Except that I'm not a capable enough javascript developer to get it running. I
+got as far as the running the Next server and loading the app in my browser, but
+a second into running it spits out some error in the console and nothing works
+after that. I've spent too much time on it already, I won't go into it more.
+
+So metaplex, for now, is out.
+
+## Holaplex
+
+Until I, somehow, (how actually though...?), found [Holaplex][hola]. It's
+a very thinly skinned hosted Metaplex, with a really smooth signup process which
+doesn't involve any emails. Each user gets a storefront under their own
+subdomain of whatever NFTs they want, and that's it. It's like geocities for
+NFTs; pretty much the next best thing to self-hosted.
+
+But to mint an NFT you don't even need to do that, you just hit the "Mint NFTs"
+button. So I did that, I uploaded an image, I paid the hosting fee ($2), and
+that was it!
+
+You can view my first NFT [here][ghost]! It's not for sale.
+
+I'm hoping that one day I can get back to Metaplex and get it working, I'd much
+prefer to have my store hosted myself. But at least this NFT exists now, and I
+have a mechanism to make other ones for other people.
+
+[prev]: {% post_url 2021-10-31-dog-money %}
+[meta]: https://www.metaplex.com/
+[hola]: https://holaplex.com/
+[ghost]: https://solscan.io/token/HsFpMvY9j5uy68CSDxRvb5aeoj4L3D4vsAkHsFqKvDYb