parent
10cb34d0d0
commit
ed4d179680
@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ |
|||||||
|
--- |
||||||
|
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 |
Loading…
Reference in new issue