SECOND EDITION

NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS
Beginner's Guide for Photographers Creatives
By Sukrit Srisakulchawla
DISCLAIMER

This content is for general information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for
consultation with any professional advisors. The information within this guide is not intended to
constitute financial, legal, or any commercial advice. Please conduct your own research and seek
out any financial, legal, tax, or other necessary commercial advice in your local jurisdiction before
making any decisions.

The reader of this guide accepts and agrees that the guide may not include all procedures or
information deemed necessary for the purposes of the reader. The reader understands and
accepts that the crypto ecosystem is rapidly evolving and that the contents of this guide may be
partially or entirely outdated.

The reader agrees that Sukrit Srisakulchawla, the preparer of this guide, neither owe nor accept
any duty or responsibility to it, whether in contract or in tort, and shall not be liable in respect of
any loss, damage or expense of whatsoever nature which is caused by any use the reader may
choose to make of this guide.

2
FOREWORD

Friday 25th March 2022

Dear readers,

I welcome you to this second edition of the Beginner’s Guide for Photographers on the subject of Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs, which is now retitled
as the Beginner’s Guide for Creatives on the subject of NFTs. If you’ve heard of NFTs, you have probably heard that over the past year, the space has
been very exciting for artists and creatives from all sorts of background, with a lot of highly-rewarding and life-changing opportunities. The earning
potential for creators of art, regardless of form, is higher than ever seen before in modern history.

As you go through this guide, I would like to warn you that the content of this guide has been prepared purely from personal experience and may be
based to some extent on personal opinions especially in the areas discussing the contrast between multiple options. I have tried my best to relay the
information here as if I were to be giving this advice to you personally, so please take it with a grain of salt and feel free to gather more information
before making any decision. The discussion here will be tailored to focus purely on NFTs in the Ethereum chain, so know that while some aspects may
bleed over, there are discussions in here which may not apply to you if you decide to trade on a different blockchain.

On that note, I hope this guide offers you a quick and easy entry into the world of NFTs as a creative. Feel free to find my contacts towards the end of
this guide and reach out to me if you do have any questions.

Kind regards,

Sukrit Srisakulchawla

3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Disclaimer 2 5.2 Common areas of weaknesses 32
Foreword 3 5.3 Wallets connected to websites 33
1. Crypto Basics 5 5.4 Token access 34
2. NFT Basics 8 6. Let’s Get Minting 35
2.1 What are NFTs? 9 6.1 Overview of considerations to start minting 36
2.2 Using art as an example 10 6.2 Marketplaces 37
2.3 Beauty of the Blockchain 11 6.3 Minting on OpenSea 38
2.4 So how does it all work? 11 6.4 Minting on Foundation 40
3. Let’s Get Technical 12 6.5 Minting on SuperRare 43
3.1 Ownership vs. Consumption 13 6.6 Minting on Sloika 44
3.2 NFTs and digital ownership 15 6.7 Minting on Tux 45
3.3 Copyright 16 6.8 Comparison 46
3.4 Licenses 18 6.9 Manifold contracts 50
3.5 Smart Contracts 20 7. Let’s Get Selling 52
3.6 ERC 20 / ERC 721 / ERC 1155 21 7.1 Offering value 53
3.7 Minting and Lazy Minting 22 7.2 Building community 55
3.8 Royalties 23 7.3 Treat this like a business 56
4. Let’s Get Financial 24 Final Word 60
4.1 Crypto wallets 25 About the Author 61
4.2 Transactions 26 Contributors 62
4.3 Gas and transaction fees 27 Glossary 63
5. Let’s Get Secure 29
5.1 Wallet security 30
4
 CRYPTO
BASICS

1 5
 WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY?
To start things off, in order to understand NFTs we first need to look at what the blockchain is. Simply put a
blockchain is a decentralised ledger of all transactions that are recorded in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.

Verification
The requested
Once verified, the
transaction is
✓ broadcasted to a P2P transaction is combined
network. The network with other transactions
to create a block of data
validates the transaction
Someone requests a for the ledger.
and the user’s details.
transaction

✓
The new block is then added to the
Transaction is completed blockchain in a way that is permanent
and unalterable.

Why is this important?

Immutability Traceability Efficiency Transparency

Once stored, the Every detail and step Eliminates Reduces fraudulent
data cannot be in the transactions intermediaries and activity as
altered or tampered can be easily tracked saves a lot of time transactions can be
with. from end to end. and costs for publicly audited.
transactions.

6
WHAT IS CRYPTOCURRENCY
Cryptocurrency is a digital medium of exchange that is stored in the blockchain. For simplicity, it is a
virtual currency that runs on a particular blockchain or network.

Because the blockchain is decentralised, cryptocurrency supply is not regulated by any central banks.

Like the blockchain itself, cryptocurrency is also decentralised meaning even if you “own” units of
cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin or Ether, you don’t actually carry the intangible asset or virtual coin
with you. It exists on the blockchain network and your crypto wallet instead carries the unique key
which gives it the permission to access and move or transact with the units of the cryptocurrency.

If cryptocurrency is just a digital asset that represents a virtual currency, how do we prevent
counterfeit cryptocurrency?

It is important to remember the blockchain runs on cryptographic technology which is used to verify
the authenticity of the transaction details. This includes verifying the authenticity of the cryptocurrency
that is being transacted with as well.

Like how fiat currency (physical currencies like US Dollars) have various characteristics such as serial
numbers, colour-shifting ink , etc., each unit of cryptocurrency stores that cryptographic information
that allows for that verification process to occur on the blockchain. It should be noted that this
technology is crucial for the development of NFT technology and what we will discuss in the later
parts of this guide. However, it is this cryptographic technology that has allowed for the evolution of
digital assets and currencies to become valuable assets and a new investment class of its own.

7
 NFT
BASICS

2 8
WHAT ARE NFTS?
Non-Fungible Token (NFT), let’s break it down… But when we think about stocks, this is actually a good way to
understand fungible tokens. If you have 10 shares in
The term itself may be confusing, so let’s start with the first Company A that represents 1% ownership and I have 10
part: “Non-Fungible.” In order to explain non-fungibility, we shares that also represent 1% ownership in the same
need to understand what fungibility means. Company A, you and I can essentially swap our shares and
there would be no practical difference. Nothing would
Fungible items simply means items which can be easily essentially change. This is a prime way to assess that our
replaced with another item that is basically the same thing. shares in this case, while are tokens, are actually fungible in
For example, one US Dollar can be exchanged with another nature.
US Dollar and they have the exact same value. Similarly, in
crypto, one bitcoin can also be replaced with another bitcoin On the other hand, if you have a painting A by a certain artist
and they are practically the same. and if I have painting B by the same artist, and even if we both
have the respective certificates of authenticities (tokens for
On the other hand, a one-of-a-kind trading card is non- proving the painting is real), because the two assets are
fungible. If you traded it for another card, it is completely different, if we swap our certificates of authenticity and swap
different. This is important. In real life there are many assets our paintings, then that would be trading of both the non-
that are non-fungible in nature, not just artwork or media files fungible tokens and the non-fungible assets. In this case, the
but also physical assets like real estate. One plot of land is certificate of authenticity for the paintings are the non-
essentially different from another plot even if they are the fungible tokens, and the paintings themselves are non-
same size, in the same neighborhood etc. fungible assets.

The second part of the word is the term “Tokens.” Tokens by Therefore in theory, like the example above, there are items
definition are a representation of something else. To see this that can be considered non-fungible tokens in the physical
in real life, you can consider stocks or shares in a company. world as well, but to avoid any confusion for the purposes of
The physical stock or share ownership certificate is a token of this guide going forward NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens will
the ownership an investor has in a company. That piece of refer to the non-fungible tokens that are digital in nature and
paper is what represents the value of the ownership and is stored and exchanged on the blockchain.
used for trading the underlying asset which is the company.

9
USING ART AS A EXAMPLE
Physical World Digital World

When selling artworks in the physical world, we In the digital world, historically speaking this has
would typically start by deciding either to been quite difficult to achieve. Let’s imagine a
produce a singular piece or a collection of simple JPEG file you have of a photograph you
pieces to sell. took on your phone. When you send the
photograph to you computer does it disappear
Before we create, we decide their scarcity which from the phone? No. When you email it to the
helps give them value; i.e. in art genres where client does it disappear? No. In fact, once the file
duplicated versions can exist in supply such as in starts getting spread it becomes very hard to
photography for example, are we going to print track who has the certified true copy.
only one edition of the photograph? Or editions
of 5, 10, 100…? This is where NFT technology comes in. Using
cryptographic technology we can now create a
If you do not set a limit on the number of times unique token for all digital files and since they
you would duplicate/print and distribute the art, are stored and exchanged on a blockchain, it is
it is considered an open edition. secure, unalterable and most importantly
publicly auditable.
Each print would then need a signature, an
edition number (i.e. this is print number 25 of The NFT is exactly similar to that certificate of
50), and then a certificate of authenticity. This authenticity when it comes to selling art but for
certificate is your way of validating that the work the digital world. When you tokenize the art, you
is yours and that you’ve authorised its are certifying the ownership and determining the
distribution. Otherwise someone could just take scarcity.
a high resolution photograph of your art, print it
out, and pretend it was “real.” Having this The blockchain then acts as a super record of
certificate is what proves ownership. Remember who buys and owns your art. It is a public ledger,
what we previously discussed - this is a token of that is unchangeable and tamper-proof, which
sorts. guarantees and keeps track of the ownership of
your work.

10
BEAUTY OF BLOCKCHAIN
As you can start to see, not only does the technology open up the door for us to solve a problem
that’s existed for digital works of art, but there is a certain benefit in having some of the physical art
be tokenized digitally and having the transactions exist on the blockchain as well.

A clear use is that “transparency” and “traceability” factor previously mentioned. Unlike in the
traditional world where it might get lost who currently owns your work, under the blockchain, you as
the artist, can always keep track of your who owns the token for your art as well.

This is not only a cool aspect but in fact helps keep creators connected to their work in perpetuity
which helps lead to various other aspects such as building in royalties (which will be explained later).
Fundamentally, this just helps change some of the narrative as we progress from a Web 2.0 basis
where intermediaries were rewarded to a Web 3.0 mindset where creation and contribution is
rewarded, and in this case at the very least through permanent recognition of the creator. The use
case for this technology in fact far exceeds that of the creative industry and can apply to many others,
such as gaming, real estate, education, events, tourism, retail, transportation, and more.

SO HOW DOES IT ALL WORK?

Before we get into the process of how to sell your art, let’s get a little technical as well to understand the
fundamentals of the NFT technology as it relates to selling artworks or other digital assets.

The first thing you might ask is what’s the point? If it is a digital viewable image, people would be able to
screenshot the image anyway... or right-click save… so why is there any value on these pieces at all?

For that, we will first need to differentiate between Ownership and Consumption.

11
 LETS GET
TECHNICAL

3 12
OWNERSHIP VS CONSUMPTION (1/2)
Imagine you walk into a museum or an art gallery, and you look at art hanging on the wall. You can take it all in, enjoy it and be
inspired by it. In some situations you can even take a photo of the art, and you could go home and print out that photo and put it in
your living room… or you could even go into the museum gift store and pick up a poster of that art piece. The question to ask is by
doing any of these things do you own the art?

The same applies with digital art and with any platforms you are already using such as Instagram. Someone could screenshot your
image but that does not make them the owner of that image.

Unlike in traditional physical art, for digital art, it historically seemed impossible to prove ownership of a piece and thus to really
determine value for it. Remember the file issue we discussed - I can send two clients the exact same JPEG file. Who is the true
owner of the file? As a photographer you may have the RAW file, but often times when you sell your work, you do not sell the RAW.
As a digital illustrator or graphic designer you may have the working file. But when it comes to the finished product, how do any of
your clients even prove that they not only own that final but also that the final is a certified true edition, and that you haven’t also
redistributed the same file to others.

When it comes to physical art or items, we traditionally have that certificate of authenticity that has a signature indicating that
something is the true original, and not a replicated piece. Further physical items also can’t exist in two places at once unlike digital
files which copies every time its sent from device to device. With digital files, it has been very hard to put this concept into similar
enforcement. By using the blockchain to tokenize the files, we allow for value to be created and traded on a transparent, public and
decentralised ledger for anything and everything digital.

Because of this tokenization, we can now separate consumption versus ownership and we create real value with ownership. If we
look at just the past decade, and take social media as an example: artists can post their artwork for free on platforms for public
consumption (viewing) and there is no direct reward. Indirectly, they may gain opportunities to commercial project based on that
public portfolio and public engagement (consumption), but there is no direct value attributed to that portfolio of work. Through
this technology however we can convert each and every entry in that portfolio into valuable assets and build a reward system
through the element of ownership, where not only the artist but also the collector gets rewarded for their investment. The more
successful and artist becomes the more their entire portfolio can also appreciate in value.

13
OWNERSHIP VS CONSUMPTION (2/2)
But why is ownership more valuable? You can own a poster of the Mona Lisa but that doesn’t mean
you own the Mona Lisa. Similarly imagine the most luxurious
Lets break this down. Consider the following for a mansion you know. You can go stand in front of it, and take a
consumption model using platforms like Instagram or selfie and post it with the captions “my house.” It doesn’t
YouTube. What are some ways you can support an artist? mean anything. Yes, you may be able to create the
Liking, commenting, sharing, saving, following/subscribing – appearance of some narrative in front of the public for a while
do any of these actions guarantee any monetary reward for a but the difference between the real mansion owner and you is
creator? No. that they can actually make money by selling that house.

If you have a large enough audience, as creators you may Similarly for art, this has been historically true for many
earn some form of income by renting out your “space” for physical forms of art. We can look again at the Mona Lisa.
advertising. This is either in the form of ads on YouTube or There is a reason why it sits in the Louvre and is heavily
doing sponsored work within the content itself. Working with guarded even though you can just right click save it from
a brand or client to advertise something. This is not a direct Google.
reward from the actual work itself, nor is it actually a reward
from the consumers, so to speak. As creators, it is not just about immediate reward for creating
the art as well. The biggest element of owning something is
In this case, if you are liking, commenting, sharing, saving, actually the fact that it becomes an asset that can be traded.
following/subscribing, you haven’t rewarded the creator. You The future benefit of something increasing in value. If you as
may have just created an opportunity for them to possibly an artist can continue to appreciate in worth, either through
have access to an earning but your consumption does not becoming more skilled or well known and sought after, your
directly support the creator. works that were already previously sold will also gain value for
your early supporters. You get rewarded early on when they
But lets take it further. As an artist of course getting paid for like your work and see potential in you and thus collect from
your personal portfolio is amazing, but lets get back to why as you and they get rewarded back for being the ones to see
an investor it makes sense to also owning rather than just that potential early on when they can sell it for profits or claim
consuming a piece. bragging rights in holding a piece by you.

Ultimately it comes down to the investment aspect.

14
NFTS AND DIGITAL OWNERSHIP
That’s where NFTs come in to the picture

As previously described, NFTs are supported by blockchain technology, which acts as a public
ledger. This allows for transactions and ownership to be digitally traceable and protected so that it is
not alterable. The technology also ensures authenticity as once a token is on the blockchain, it cannot
be duplicated or counterfeited. So whilst yes, someone can screenshot your image, the ledger will
always continue to prove the certified owner of the piece at any given point in time as well as
provides a tracable history of ownership as well. Remember the NFT itself is not your art file, but
rather more equivalent to the certificate of authenticity which is tied to your art.

The system thereby protects collectors looking to invest in art or these digitized assets, as they not
only can trace back to who currently owns the “real” work, but also double check that the source of
the piece was not created out of theft. With the history, you can look all the way back to the original
creator of the NFT and see if it is indeed the artist or a true representative of the artist in question who
put it onto the blockchain, and thus base your value on it.

Before we proceed I want to take a moment here as well to say everything we have just discussed is
purely on the ownership of an object or a piece. For artistic work, ownership of an artwork versus
ownership of the artwork’s copyright is very different. We will get into copyright in the next page but
to put things in perspective consider the Mona Lisa again. The Mona Lisa is property of the nation of
France, and is displayed at the Louvre (which is also property of the French government). However,
the Mona Lisa itself is not protected under copyright law and is within the Public Domain, so anyone
can print out a picture of the Mona Lisa and basically commercialise it. Understanding this distinction
is important and allows you to see that various forms of ownership can exist as well.

15
COPYRIGHT (1/2)
If you are an artist who has done any form of To explain it clearly imagine a global Soda and they are sold on a marketplace, unless the parties
commercial work before, you must be wondering Soft Beverages company . If they produce their expressly agree in writing that part of the transfer
about how copyright fits into all this. soda and then sell to a large supermarket chain includes the transfer of the copyright. Remember
distributor, just because the supermarket now copyright transfer is yet another form of
Like mentioned, it is important to note that owns the physical cans of the Soda in their shelves transaction, that is a legal process, not a coded
ownership of a copyright is separate and distinct with the Soda branding on the cans and would sell process. So when you consider what the NFT is, it
from ownership of any material object (i.e., a those on to end users, does it grant ownership of is only a representation of the authenticity of the
physical painting) or digital asset (i.e., an NFT the Soda brand to the supermarket? The answer underlying piece. There is nothing in a certificate
representing either a digital art piece or a physical would be no. The supermarket cannot go out and of authenticity that says whoever holds this piece
art piece) in which the work is embodied or create advertisements using the Soda brand of document also is the owner of the copyright.
embedded. without permission in order to drum up business
for the supermarket. There would be very limited Therefore, as the copyright owner, you as the artist
Copyright laws vary country to country, and while use in terms of what the supermarket can or retain the exclusive right to make commercial use
there is no such international copyright law, there cannot do. of the photograph even after the NFT is sold. What
are certain international treaties in place that help you do with this is still up to you. You can if you
standardize how many countries should adopt Similarly, this is how the purchase and sale of would like, grant some access to that intellectual
certain principles of copyright into their own laws. artworks need to be considered. It is up to the property use to the holder of the NFT, but it should
As this is not a legal paper, and you should seek discretion of creatives how they want to structure be noted that the decision is yours entirely.
proper advice with local legal counsel on the laws their business, but in short, the sale of your items Nothing is required and it is up to you how you
of your jurisdiction. does not automatically transfer the ownership of want to run your business.
the copyright associated with the item as well. This
In many cases around the world, artists are given is a crucial point that many creatives needs to There are several artists and projects that grant the
automatic protection of their work since the grasp and also be clear about to avoid losing out holders full rights to the holders because it makes
moment of creation without needing to register. or being taken advantage of. sense for their business model to give the holders
This copyright protection basically is a form of the ability to monetize and benefit from the art and
legal protection which assigns the rights to a work When it comes to NFTs, in majority of the cases, brand of the project, but there are also incredible
to the creator, distinct from the work itself. Just especially on the larger established NFT platforms projects and artists who do just the opposite.
because you sell the work itself does not mean you the same underlying principle applies and you still
automatically sell your rights to the intellectual retain full ownership of copyrights to the art. Artists
property behind the work. do not lose copyright protection over works when
16
COPYRIGHT (2/2)
CREATOR’S RIGHTS To understand this, it is important to take it back to if you as the buyer do not have sufficient funds you
understand how NFTs are being traded as well and own in the designated crypto wallet. The seller
If you do not customise any form of licensing or what happens when you execute a trade. NFTs run cannot sell if they don’t own the item in their
granting of copyright and just release NFTs as is, on smart-contracts which is a protocol or a set of crypto wallet. It is just a set of codes that say “if all
you as the artist are free to market, print, and programs set on the blockchain to execute of these things turns out to be true, then allow the
license the underlying art you minted as NFTs at transactions when predetermined conditions are transaction to proceed.”
your own discretion. However, what you are not met. It is a process that governs NFTs as a whole. If
permitted to do is sell other NFTs of an identical you think about traditional sale of assets outside We will get back to smart contracts in a bit, but it is
piece. That goes against the spirit of you claiming the blockchain, you might enter into a contract to important to understand here that the smart
the NFT is the true copy if you as the artist release buy something with a lot of clauses that lawyers contract is not a legal document, just a program
another piece that also claims to be the true copy. have to review and requires a lengthy process. that helps reduce the need for a legal document.
Basically you as the seller have to state you are the Buyers and Sellers no need to execute a legal
This is slightly different if you do editions because seller and you have to claim that you have the right document if the transfer of the asset is executed by
that is still explicitly clear that there are a set to sell whatever you are selling and that you have this code. Therefore, the takeaway is that smart
amount of true copies upfront. possession of the item you are selling etc., and the contracts do not have legal texts. There is no
buyer has to do the same with the funds used etc. representation or warranties given. It is not
and then you both sign a document and if anything governed under any law except programming
turns out to be false or there are damages then code, so the issue of transferring rights, licensing
COLLECTOR’S RIGHTS you can take legal action against the other party or releasing copyright is separate from smart
(imagine if you find out the asset was stolen before contracts. Doing so would require a separate
From the collector’s perspective, through the legally acceptable documentation or evidence in
it was sold to you, such as if you bought a house
purchase they have the exclusive right to sell, place.
from a thief and the real owners come to claim it
trade, or transfer the NFT, but may not make
back from you, you would have lost the house to
“commercial use” of the underlying work. For
the true owners and also your money).
example, collectors may not sell copies of the
work, or license them off unless there is some The smart contract technology in this case is a first
written agreement in place between you and the defence against requiring any of that process. It is
creator giving them that permission. a set of code that requires certain facts to be true
before a trade can be executed. You can’t click buy

17
 CC-BY-NC-ND
CC-BY-NC-SA
CC-BY-ND

CC-BY-NC
CC-BY-SA
LICENSES (1/2)

DOMAIN
PUBLIC

CC-BY
So now that we get the idea of copyright ownership a little
more, let’s talk just generally about licensing. Licenses are
basically the permissions given by the copyright holder to Requires
others. Licenses can either be purchased or given freely by attribution of the ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
the creator. original work

One of the most commonly used and accessible free

licensing schemes is the Creative Commons (CC) which is Copying and
granted not to a specific person but rather to the entire publishing the ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
public. CC licenses are applied by the copyright owner to original work
their own works. There are four components to the
licenses that are arranged into six configurations:
Commercial use
BY - attribution required. of the original ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗
work
NC - no commercial use.

ND - no derivative works. Modification and

adaption of the ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗
SA - Share Alike - the license must be the same on any original work
derivative works.

As SA only applies to derivative works, it should be noted Change license

that ND and SA cannot be combined. As such, there are for the adapted ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓
six CC licenses (excluding CC-0/Public Domain). work

18
LICENSES (2/2)
It should be noted that although the term CC0 may be thrown around often, it. How should you consider this?
is not a license type but instead a tool that relinquishes all copyright and
similar rights from the copyright holder and assigning those rights to the • It should be noted again that there is no right or wrong, and how you
public domain. should proceed would very much depend on the business model you want
to adopt and the circumstances which are unique to you and your work.
Aside from free licensing, creators or copyright holders can also instead opt There is absolutely no need for artists to grant some form of commercial use
for private licensing where licenses are agreed between two or more parties or license to their collectors. This is a business decision that needs to be
but not necessarily open to the public. Imagine the Soda brand we discussed properly evaluated.
earlier, the Soda brand may be held in one of its global companies but they
may privately grant the license for the use of the brand to each company they • If you do want to consider giving collectors certain rights, consult a legal
may set up in local jurisdictions to run advertisements of the Soda brand advisor to see what are some of the ways you can do that to meet your
locally. One company owns the copyright and then licenses it to a group of objectives. What are the rights you should grant and what are the rights you
companies under a certain agreement. can hold back from granting.

Similarly, if you are an artist and you want to license your work, you may enter • Also consider how much more valuable the work would be if you grant
into private agreements with certain parties for your work. This does not mean these rights on top of just the work itself and factor that into your pricing.
your work is freely useable by the public. Only the rights designated under the
arrangement is granted to a specified user for a specified time. • Most importantly, consult a legal advisor to help you enforce that license
legally since it is not a matter of just a few lines of text added in the
So when it comes to NFTs, it is important to note as well how you may want to description, especially in the international context. As you are trying to
consider or ignore licensing arrangements. There are some projects which construct a legally binding transaction, it needs to be legally sound and is
may carry the term CC0 with them, which basically means that the work it no longer a matter of programming the smart contracts.
given out to the public domain. It is important to remember that this means
the rights are granted to more than just the holder of the NFT as well. Anyone
can now use that work in any manner without the need to attribute the original
creator or work. There are other projects which adds value for collectors by
granting the rights of commercial use to the holder of the NFT. With the
exception of a few, the majority of fine art, photography or other digital arts in
the space at the moment do not offer additional licensing consideration, and
the artist remains in complete control of the copyright.

19
SMART CONTRACTS
As mentioned, all a smart contract is is Clearly there was no need for a human When we think about this, it then
a set of codes and programming that to operate the vending machine for becomes quite obvious that these
executes when all the necessary you, a smart contract can do the same. contracts would likely be standardize
conditions are met. It is important to as the nature of the transactions are
understand that the purpose of smart Smart contracts are powerful for a pretty similar for the buying and
contracts is to execute transactions number of reasons including how selling of NFTs. If everyone had to
without the need of any NFTs are traded but the use case for program every code themselves not
intermediaries, especially those reliant smart contracts far exceed NFTs and only would that be a big waste of time
on human operations which can be are used in various decentralised but it would also require a lot of
inefficient. finance and crypto protocols as well. auditing to ensure that the code
written is not malicious (such as
To simply imagine this, you can think When we look specifically at NFTs triggering unwanted executions, like
of a vending machine. If you were however, lets imagine our underlying transferring the NFT for a certain
looking to purchase a candy bar that transaction. We want to sell an NFT to amount of crypto payment but also
was 25 cents, and you put a dollar in, a prospective collector. We want to automatically trigger a transfer of the
the vending machine could either give make sure that once the NFT is sold, NFT back to the original account after
you your candy and 75 cents in we are still listed as the creator. We 24 hours automatically).
change (execute the desired want to make sure that we receive
transaction), prompt you to make some form of royalty payment if the This is where standards come into
another choice if it is out of stock of collector sells that work onwards. In play. In order to provide the market
the candy (failed to execute the this case, we would want a smart with a level playing field as well as
desired transaction because the asset contract that is programmed to show some sense of security, there has been
could not be found), or refund you the on the platforms it interacts with both several proposed protocols and
full dollar (failed to execute any “creator” and “owner” as well as have adopted protocols when it comes to
transaction at all). The very same way coded program that triggers a split NFT contracts with standards for how
the vending machines run is how payment every time it sells, to pay a things should be implemented.
smart contracts run. A code with a certain royalty percent to “creator” and
number of conditions that need to be the rest to the seller.
met before triggering a certain activity.

20
ERC20 / ERC721 / ERC1155
As mentioned, this guide is only and every new token whether fungible create tokens of the same piece with an
covering the Ethereum network, so or non-fungible must follow these set of edition size larger than 1.
please note that protocols of other rules.
networks may differ. Key differences between ERC721
ERC721 and ERC1155
What we need to remember about the
blockchain is that the rules and ERC721 on the other hand is the pivotal Since ERC-721 only allows for a single
protocols which governs the network standard that kicked off the NFT operation for each transaction (i.e. each
are decentralised and therefore runs on movement as it is a protocol for NFT transferred separately), it may be
a proposal and review based process creating unique non fungible tokens. expensive and time-consuming. ERC-
before undergoing a vote for adoption Essentially each ERC 721 token is 1155 on the other hand allows multiple
or rejection. To create a standard for unique and represents a single asset. operations in a single transaction (i.e.
Ethereum, a developer or group of batch transfers) making the transactions
developers must submit what is known ERC1155 cheaper and more efficient.
as an Ethereum Improvement Proposal
(EIP) describing the new functionality ERC1155 however was developed to ERC-1155 also uses less storage space
along with its specific protocols and improve further on some of the on a blockchain network as it doesn’t
standards. A committee then reviews, limitations of ERC721. While ERC721 require redundant redundant code
approves, amends, and finalizes that tokens require unique smart contracts
EIP which then becomes an Ethereum for each token, the ERC1155 standard As both token standards can mint NFTs,
Request For Comment (ERC). allowed for the creation of a single it is then a question of which is
smart contract to support an infinite preferred. While some art collectors
ERC20 amount of tokens (fungible or non only buy ERC-721 NFTs because they
fungible). see this token type as the gold
One of the main protocols that governs standard, other collectors do not have
tokens is the ERC20. ERC20 refers to a When we think about this in terms of any preference. In contrast, ERC-1155
scripting standard that dictates a set of art, using an ERC721 would only allow can be cheaper and more efficient as it
rules and actions that an Ethereum you to create unique 1/1 editions and reduces the gas fees, making it an
token or smart contract must follow and not editions of any more than the size affordable and approachable way to
steps to be able to implement it. Any of 1. ERC1155 however allows you to mint an NFT.
21
MINTING AND LAZY MINTING
In the context of the blockchain, Minting pieces onto the blockchain. Remember so that you finish manufacturing or buy
refers to the process of tokenizing an minting is only the act of putting an item those inventory just in time for the
asset to become tradeable on the on chain. If you want to make it available customer to make the purchase. You do
blockchain itself. (Simply put - uploading for sale on chain, it is a separate process not carry any items in store waiting.
the asset onto the blockchain). This is of listing an item (again another Obviously this is difficult in this scenario if
different from Mining cryptocurrency, transaction with another gas cost). you don’t have a readily available and
which is the process of unlocking or accurate forecast but the benefits of this
creating new cryptocurrency based on a With the minting process possibly being method is you only spend on inventory
Proof of Work system. a financial barrier, certain platforms have as needed when needed and you don’t
implemented a new mechanism called have to have a ton of inventory in the
The mining and minting terms are based “lazy minting” which is basically to defer store or warehouse.
from real-world coin making which dates the minting process until the point of
back to Rome in 269 BC when silver was sale. It basically adopts a concept from A lot of this hurdle is bypassed for NFTs
manufactured into coins. Gold and silver Supply Chain management, which is the for lazy minting because the minting
are "mined" out of the ground and then Just in Time method, whereas regular process is quite quick, so you don’t need
"minted" into coins for circulation. minting can be looked at as a Just in to forecast ahead to account for
Case method. manufacturing time etc.
For NFTs, the tokens themselves aren’t
mined as you create them off chain when Just in Case Therefore lazy minting can basically help
you create the asset, but are minted creators defer the point of minting down
when you first put them into the Imagine if you open up a store to sell the line until a buyer is ready to buy. This
circulation of the blockchain. computers. If you adopt a Just in Case however is not without drawbacks. Since
method of inventory management, you the work is not minted it remains off
It is important to remember that every basically have to either have all your chain until it is bought. That means if the
interaction with the blockchain is a computers manufactured or purchased platform goes down, your items may be
transaction which means that minting an in store ready and waiting for a unavailable as it is still stored centrally
may therefore cost the creator some fees customer to walk in. somewhere rather than being stored on
as well (gas). the blockchain.
Just in Time
This can be a barrier for some creators As you can see it is not a clear cut answer
who may have uncertainty on when they On the other hand, if you adopt a Just in of which is better, but rather dependent
will financially recover these costs which Time method, you would probably need on the situation and business needs of
can add up if you are putting up several to forecast when you will expect the sale the creator.

22
ROYALTIES
Another key point that makes NFTs extremely attractive is the future earning potential of a piece even after you’ve sold it. In traditional or physical art, this is
very hard to track. Once you’ve sold your piece to a collector, that is probably the last point in time in which you will earn from that sale. With NFTs, artists can
continue to also earn royalties through the future resale of their work.

Let’s look at how that works assuming:

• the arrtist originally lists their work for 1 ETH

• the platform has a 5% fee and the royalty pay out is 10%

• Collector A then resells to Collector B the piece at 6 ETH:

You
(artist) Collector A Collector B

0.85 ETH 5.1 ETH

Sale Sale
0.6 ETH 0.1 ETH NFT NFT NFT

0.1 ETH royalty + 0.05 fees

PLATFORM 0.6 ETH royalty + 0.3 ETH fees

23
 LETS GET
FINANCIAL

4 24
CRYPTO WALLETS
So, one of the first things you will need to get started with selling, buying and trading NFTs will be a
crypto wallet in order to manage your trades as well as also to store your balance.

Your wallet will also serve as the key to help you access your account on the various platforms and
networks. This will basically be your login.

NFTs can be traded on several blockchains, and there may be various wallets that run differently on
each network. Even on the Ethereum chain itself, there are various wallets out there which you can
use, but MetaMask is probably the most widely-known and used at this time. You can do further
research on wallets and there are several YouTube tutorials out there on helping you get your wallet
set up.

So what is this wallet and how is it used?

Wallets are basically like an address that is to be associated with each transaction that’s recorded on
the blockchain (on the public ledger). Rather than thinking of it as an account, think of it as a private
key to access your assets. Remember all the assets, and information is not centrally stored anyway
because it is a decentralised network so your funds and assets are also stored in a decentralised way.
This is why you need a key to access them. Everyone can see these assets existing, but without the
private key they won’t be able to do anything with the assets.

For every transaction, there will be a wallet address in which the transaction is transferring from to
another wallet which is is being transferred to.

While the name suggest the wallet is where you store your money, since this is a digital wallet, you
can actually access more than just cryptocurrency but also other digital assets like NFTs on this wallet.

25
TRANSACTIONS
Now as mentioned, the wallet is part of the record of each transaction. So when you are putting
up an artwork as an NFT, it will be put on to the network by your wallet. While the photograph is
unsold, it sits in the blockchain and is tied to your wallet. When you sell the photograph, the buyer
will basically transfer you the crypto, whilst you simultaneously, transfer over the ownership to the
NFT. This entire transaction is put on the public ledger and you will see the record showing both
parties' wallets. (Remember we talked about smart contracts, that basically executes this whole
thing. Also remember buying and selling only transfers ownership, not the creator label, so even
after it is sold, what the NFT will still show is the creator which is the artist’s wallet).

On the other hand, wallet addresses can also be used to check authenticity. Imagine you post on
social media that you want to sell this piece of art, and a collector finds you and is interested. They
would want to make sure the piece of art in the form of an NFT is indeed under the wallet address
you claim to own, and you would want to check that they have the crypto balance they claim to
have to purchase it. Using the wallet address, each party can undertake a due diligence of the
other party.

Not only can you check the authenticity of the art or the crypto balance, but with the wallet
address you can also see historical transactions.

In order to do so, copy and paste a wallet address into the search bar at https://etherscan.io/

Aside from each transaction having to be conducted between two or more wallets, each
transaction will also have a unique transaction hash (tx) which can be pulled up and looked at
publicly that shows who is trading what, when and for how much. It links together the wallets that
are trading the assets, the underlying asset trade, the value of the trade including the transaction
fee at the time, and also the smart contract which executed the trade so any viewer can audit any
aspect of this entirely.
GAS AND TRANSACTION FEES (1/2)
Just to rewind a bit, as we previously discussed about more complicated. The total fee is calculated as follows:
recording transactions on the public ledger, each transaction
will have an associated transaction fee. In the crypto world, Total Fee = Gas unit (limits) * (Base fee + Tip)
this is called Gas.
• Gas units (limits): This refers to the maximum amount of gas
Gas is the term for the amount of cryptocurrency required by you are willing to spend on a transaction. While you are
the network for a user to interact with the network. These fees able to adjust how much gas your transaction will cost, it’s
are used to compensate the miners for the energy required to important to do so carefully because different types of
verify a transactions which keeps the blockchain secure. interactions with the blockchain will require different
amounts of gas to complete. (i.e. sending ETH from one to
Even though they are an effective means of incentivizing another wallet versus deploying a smart contract will be
miners to keep verifying transactions and maintain network very different).
security, they can be absurdly expensive when the network is
congested with a lot of user traffic. • Base fee: This refers to the minimum amount of gas
required to include a transaction on the blockchain. The
How is Gas calculated? amount of gas required for a base fee is determined by the
demand for a transaction to be included, regardless of what
Because fees on Ethereum are usually much less than 1 ETH type of transaction it is.
the network instead uses a metric system of denominated
units called “wei,” where 1 ETH is equal to 1 quintillion wei. (A • Tips: Also known as a priority fee, tips are an additional fee
quintillion is a number with 18 zeros after it.) One of the most made to have your transaction completed faster. This fee is
common wei denominations used to represent gas fees is better known as a tip because it provides an economic
gigawei (gwei), or 1 billion wei. Therefore, when you check on incentive for miners to confirm your transaction before
a gas tracker and see that the average gas for a transaction is others. When a miner verifies a transaction with a priority
10 gwei, that means you should expect to pay a base fee of fee attached, they receive that fee as a tip for doing so.
0.00000001 ETH for a given transaction (seven zeros after the
decimal, hundred gwei would have six zeros ).

It is important to note that the fee structure is however a bit

27
GAS AND TRANSACTION FEES (2/2)
To illustrate the total fee formula, let’s say that I am looking to 1. Consider timing. Like said earlier, a big part of the formula
transfer to you 1 NFT and the average amount of gas required depends on the network traffic. The higher the demand the
to transfer the NFT on the network is 50,000 gwei. I would set higher the base fee, which means the higher the gas cost. If
that as my gas limit. Let’s say the current minimum amount of you are not in a rush for time (i.e. aren’t scheduling to mint
gas required to send the transaction based on the network something at a specific time), consider waiting until the
traffic at the time (base fee) is 60 gwei, but I want it to get to network is less congested. You do not need to watch the
you faster so I add a tip of 10 gwei to the transaction. In this network base fee as a hawk, but you can use advance tools
case, our formula for a total fee would look like this: on your crypto wallet to help you set a limit on the
maximum base fee you want for your transaction.
Total Fee = 50,000 gwei * (60 gwei + 10 gwei)
2. Set limits. This is alluded to above as well, but you can
Following, the total fee would be equal to 3,500,000 gwei, or actually use your wallet, such as MetaMask to set limits on
0.0035 ETH which would be sent to the network. the maximum fee you want to spend on a certain
transaction. This way, if the current network requires a
(it is important that you denominate this in gwei when calculating higher fee the transaction would remain pending, but if the
and not in ETH as multiplying decimals will result in an incorrect network becomes more laxed then your transaction would
outcome).
go through. It is important to note that setting limits needs
to be dealt with very carefully. Adjusting the network base
Understanding this formula can then help you to understand
fee limit may be much safer than adjusting the Gas limit
why gas can sometimes be so expensive. As part of the
portion as transactions usually need a minimum amount. If
formula is adjusted based on the market demand on the
you set a gas limit (first part of the equation i.e. 50,000
network, the fees can significantly soar when the network is
gwei in our example) too low, then the transaction will be
congested. Further as the fees are denominated in gwei
processed but it may ultimately fail because it is insufficient
which is linked to the price of Ethereum, the higher the price
to perform that transaction. This will result in you losing the
of Ethereum compared to the dollar, the more expensive the
gas fee entirely as the miners still did their work.
transaction fees may be.

While it is impossible to avoid paying gas, there are some

things you can consider to help you mitigate higher costs and
keep gas as low as you can.

28
 LETS GET
SECURE

5 29
WALLET SECURITY (1/2)
First things first, anything and everything in the crypto realm is It is important to remember that this seed phrase is the master
at the time ultimately more risky because of the very nature of key to your wallet. You should keep this safely stored, because
decentralisation. While the technology gives you great control it is the only way you can regain access to your account in case
of everything and cuts down on reliance of intermediaries, it you’ve forgotten your password or anything. No one, not even
also means that you are ultimately responsible for securing MetaMask or any other wallet provider will be able to recover
your own assets. No one, and. I repeat, no one is there to be your seed phrase for you, so if this is lost, you can almost count
customer support. No one has access to your accounts or on the balance inside that wallet as being good as gone.
wallets. No one can recover any of your assets for you if you
lose them. Here’s why... A good note is to make sure not to store this in the digital
world which can be vulnerable to hacks or cyber theft, such as
Remember when we talked about crypto wallets as a private storing it in your Notes app or in a word document etc.. Instead
key. Well that is what they are. Keys to access things. If you lose store it down physically in multiple copies but keeping it very
the key to your house, ultimately anything can be robbed from secure (fireproof if possible).
your house. Even if you get the key back, you can’t be sure the
thief hasn’t compromised you by making a duplicate. Even if Because these seed phrases serve as a pretty secure way of
nothing was stolen then, it would be insecure to still continue protecting your wallets, the wallet is actually a pretty secure
using the same key. You would need to change the locks tool; however, there are a lot of hackers and scammers out
entirely. there who will try to utilise social engineering tactics to either
get access to your wallet or break in to your wallet, especially if
In the crypto space, this process of changing the locks means you have made some sales and are storing a high balance of
transferring the assets to another wallet or another key, but assets or crypto in it through emotions or lapse in judgment
unfortunately, if you’ve already compromised your wallet, (such as phishing attacks or disguising to be false customer
chances are you’ll only find out after its too late (i.e. your funds support and asking for your seed phrase).
or assets are being transferred by someone else who has
gotten access to your private key). As a result, it is advisable that if you are entering this space to
always remain vigilant and never act with haste but with
What is this private key? At the time you set up your wallet, you sensible precaution. Always ask yourselves again if something
will be given a seed phrase (which is a random set of words seems legit before executing any transaction or showing any
unique to your wallet). information to anyone.

30
WALLET SECURITY (2/2)
For many crypto traders it may be advisable to have multiple Once you have accumulated enough crypto balance to start
wallets each set up with different intentions, such as: storing away, you may consider setting up a private wallet that
you never have interact with your hot wallet(s).
• A spending wallet or a “hot wallet”, where a majority of your
trades will be for purchasing assets. A hot wallet refers to Instead, you would have to repatriate the crypto balance out
one that is connected to your internet browser so that you from the hot wallet into a decentralised exchange or a crypto
can make trades easily. exchange (for example, Coinbase or Binance), and then have
the balance trade back into the cold wallet. (i.e. two
• A savings wallet or a “cold wallet”, where you store assets transactions instead of one). However, if these transactions are
you want to keep for long term, and this is disconnected larger in volume it may still be easy for anyone digging to
from the internet so that it is less vulnerable to any online connect which two transactions in the public ledger are
attacks. associated. You could go one step further and trade out to fiat
currency entirely on one exchange and then use a completely
In terms of doubling up layers of security, you can also consider different exchange to reinvest back into crypto.
whether you want your wallets to be stored offline on a
hardware rather than just purely one that is web accessible but
disconnected. This is where Hardware wallets come in. When
making transactions from a hardware wallet, you will have to No on-chain
access your physical hardware device to execute the trade connection
which acts as the extra layer of security.

Aside from just storing assets such as NFTs, you may also want On-chain
Exchange#1 Exchange#2
to consider strategies to protect your crypto balance. Off-chain

As mentioned, since trades are publicly accessible, if you trade

from one wallet to another you own, it will be possible for
anyone searching to find out what your second wallet is. This
can leave even the second wallet open to some levels of risk.

31
COMMON AREAS OF WEAKNESSES
Theft by Hacking people into unconsciously granting them • Check the profile of whoever is messaging
access. Remember, this can also include you to ensure they are who they say they
In theory, crypto should be a completely malicious smart contracts that are coded to are. Sometimes hackers pose as collectors
secure investment as you have full control and empty out a wallet or execute transfers etc. or other community members with the
all the value stored on the blockchain is The scam may not always pose as a link, but same profile photos and username (may be
secured on the blockchain; however, in reality, could be in the form of NFTs or other assets off by a letter) on social media. They then
there are tons of hackers out there that attacks dropped into a persons wallet as well. Once engage with you with offers to buy your
the vulnerability of the system through that person then tries to send the unwanted work or opportunities to make investments
hacking wallets or exchanges to gain access NFT to a burn address they can be with them. It is likely that they will ask you
to those stored value. Whilst this is hard, it is unknowingly interacting with a malicious to make some form of small payment to
not impossible especially for hot wallets contract that then leads to the successful cover their gas to buy your work or
connected to the web. security breach. As such, it is recommended something along the lines and the best
that: case is you will not see that payment back,
Phishing Scams worse case, they get you to interact with
• You do not give away your seed phrase something far more malicious and you lose
Other notable vulnerabilities come from under any circumstance. No one, no everything else as well.
situations where hackers don’t try to break in support team, no platform, no exchange
but disguise themselves and are given access ever requires this. Anyone asking for your • Be extremely vigilant and always double
in unknowingly by the owners themselves. seed phrase should immediately trigger check. Try not to to let emotions and
Think Trojan Horse. This may be in the form of red flag warnings. excitement get to you and leave you
malicious links which are disguised by making rash decisions or feeling the fear of
scammers to pose as official links to • You be very careful with opening any missing out (FOMO) and acting without
something but in reality are designed to sneak links or files sent to you by someone you proper and careful. thought.
granting access to your private key to the don’t know or don’t trust, in DMs or on
scammer. Once a key is compromised it profile bios etc. Even Google searches can • Secure yourself with cold wallets /
becomes really hard to secure anything sometimes redirect you to malicious links hardware wallets for savings and long
connected to that wallet. so be very careful with ensuring you are term investments so that you do not
clicking on the right official links. Double compromise the assets within from a
A lot of the times, these scam attempts will check the link URL or save bookmarks of wrong trade.
use social engineering tactics to manipulate your commonly accessed sites.
32
WALLETS CONNECTED TO WEBSITES
Another thing you can consider is also to can do is from that point onwards ask you to
review where your wallet is connected to. sign transactions. Just doing so is not
Remember wallets are keys used to access posing any risk. Where you need to be
your assets on the blockchain, and you will careful is in the future transactions asked
likely need to connect them on various and where you end up executing or signing
websites and platforms to connect those funds transfers and if those are the intended
and assets to use the website. (i.e. connecting transactions.
your wallet to OpenSea so that you can set a
sale auction of your NFT on OpenSea, etc.) On your wallet applications, such as MetaMask,
you will be able to see all the websites which
When you connect a wallet to a website you your wallet is connected to. You can choose to
should know that this basically is a command disconnect from them if you would like. Does
to your wallet that says “if this website asks, this help protect you? The short answer is no,
you are allowed to reveal what my public but it is a nice feature for privacy purposes. It
address is, and the website is allowed to ask just means you’re telling the wallet that when
me if I want to run any transactions.” That is you visit such a website again, the website
all. needs to ask for permission again to view your
address, initiate transactions etc.
You will likely see a message that says “allow
this site to: see address, account balance,
activity and initiate transactions”

- See address, account balance and activity is

redundant. Since this is blockchain, if I know
your wallet address I can look you up and
see the balance and the activity anyway.

- Initiate transactions is not to be confused

with execute transactions. All the website

33
TOKEN ACCESS
Separately to connecting to websites, you will also have to are stored in the decentralised blockchain itself. The wallet
consider Token Allowance or Token Access permissions. basically only carries this unique signature that is used to
What these are is basically you granting permission to a third allow the movement of the assets on the blockchain which is
party to have the right to carry out a transaction of a certain owned by the wallet.
amount of your tokens, which are associated with our address
on your behalf, without giving away your private key. When you sign certain token allowance requests, what it
basically does is connect your token or your funds to a certain
Think of this as when you use a platform like OpenSea, they smart contract of the platform or the third party, so that they
will need your permission to move things like your NFTs can basically interact. This matching allows the whole process
around when you list them because they handle the process to run. However, as we noted there may be some malicious
between you selling an asset and the buyer buying an asset. smart contracts out there as well which may not immediately
In order to get this permission, they will need to get an trigger theft but wait until a certain time has passed. This
allowance from you that you have “signed” that is a function means that if you have given someone permission which
of “you are allowed to move my tokens on my behalf as I connected your tokens to a malicious contract, the token may
requested.” This is the part of the transaction you execute be in risk.
when you are transferring something or listing something for
sale. Remember they need your permission first, which is As such, you should consider periodically reviewing all the
where your signature comes in. When you list something on outstanding allowances your tokens have been granted to
OpenSea, your item is on sale on OpenSea, and OpenSea and consider revoking these allowances when they are no
through your permission can sell this item on your behalf. A longer necessary. You can use Etherscan to check all of the
different platform cannot carry out the sale on your behalf, allowances or token access you currently have active and
hence why it is not listed on that Platform. This signature is either use Etherscan to revoke them or platforms like
crucial because this is the underlying requirement for all revoke.cash.
transactions on the blockchain.
When you revoke token access, all you are doing is telling the
Hackers and scammers are trying to get into your wallet so contract “you now have permission to move ZERO of my
that they basically have access to this signature which then tokens.” It may be a useful tool especially if you think you have
allows them to execute transactions and the blockchain will accidentally signed a bad transaction that may just be waiting
think you allowed it. Remember the crypto wallet doesn’t around to steal your tokens later.
actually store any cryptocurrency or tokens, because those
34
 LETS GET
MINTING

6 35
 OVERVIEW OF CONSIDERATIONS TO START MINTING

The Where? The How?

The What?
The next thing is to evaluate Think also about what value do
The first thing is the underlying
where you would like to sell. you bring to your potential
artwork or asset itself. Think
You will need to evaluate which collectors or customers? How
about what piece or pieces you
marketplace works best for do you wish to market your
want to mint and sell?
your needs. work and yourself as a creator?

The When? The How Much?

When do you want to release Consider what pricing strategy
your work and how often? Think you will adopt. Account for all
about how you manage your costs and structure the
consistency, growth and best business model for your
scarcity. needs.

36
MARKETPLACES
So you’ve set up your crypto wallet, and you have your artwork. the way pages are designed.
The next step of the way is to probably think of where you want
to mint and sell. SuperRare
SuperRare is probably the most exclusive out of the platforms
When it comes to marketplaces, it is important to remember
here only because it is an application based platform with a
that there are many different platforms out there and each has
very curated selection.
different types of art they display, different features, and
different protocols they operate with. This guide will discuss Applications open up periodically and only certain artists are
the features and process of the common platforms that selected to join. So this is the platform where more exclusive or
currently are used by photographers and digital artists on the high-end and well known artists may gravitate to.
Ethereum network; however, there are more out there as well
and you should do more research on what is suitable for you. Sloika

OpenSea A relatively newer platform that is built for and by

photographers. Similar to SuperRare the entry is through an
OpenSea is one of the oldest and probably the largest NFT application based but the platform is catered to offering more
marketplaces. It definitely has one of the highest trading features that are useful for photographers.
volume and there’s a bunch of features that make it super
friendly for those starting out (more on this a little later). Tux

Foundation A fully decentralised platform with no barrier to entry except for

the costs (network costs due to decentralised aspect). This
Foundation is a little more exclusive than the other two platform may be more suitable for creators who have a greater
previously discussed, as it is an invite based marketplace. understanding of the blockchain as well as ability to garner
Anyone can be a buyer on the platform, but in order to create high demand.
you need to be invited by another creator who has sold NFTs
on the platform.

Foundation also has a more aesthetically cleaner user interface

and is more tailored towards digital art (art, photos, videos) in

37
MINTING ON OPENSEA (1/2)
Now, let’s start off with OpenSea. As I mentioned, OpenSea probably has the lowest entry barrier for artists wanting to start out
selling NFTs. This is because of OpenSea’s adoption of Lazy Minting for creators creating NFTs using their contract.

However, it should be noted that a creator wanting to create NFTs for sale on OpenSea for the first time, will have to undergo two
separate interactions with the blockchain still which triggers gas for each. The first is an initialization to activate their account, and
the second is that token allowance we talked about earlier as well, which basically grants OpenSea to move the creator’s tokens on
their behalf.

Note: if you are not minting an item on OpenSea but instead are importing items minted elsewhere to sell on OpenSea, then you
may have this token allowance request again for each unique contract. But if you are minting through the OpenSea standard
contract then this would have only triggered once upon your first time.

So what is the process?

• On OpenSea, once your are connected to the platform with your crypto wallet, you can click Create in the top navigation bar.

• You'll be redirected to the NFT item creation page. This page will allow you to upload the digital file you want to make an NFT
of, name it and add a description for the NFT.

• You’ll also be able to customise your NFT further, by placing it in an existing collection (if you have one), or adding properties,
levels, stats and even unlockable content to it. Note: you do not need it all, but these are just the features available.

Example: for art you can use properties to uniquely identify key information about the piece, especially in collections as it serves
as traits. A photography example would be to add the various shot information such as location, date of creation, aperture, ISO,
shutter speed, camera model, lenses, etc.

Note: If you do not have a collection yet to include your item in, you may want to set one up first. To do so, in OpenSea, hover
your mouse over your profile icon in the navigation bar and select My Collections from the drop down. From there, you will be
directed to a page where there will be an explicit button to Create a Collection.

38
MINTING ON OPENSEA (2/2)
• Aside from the various details that you can add to your NFTs, you will also see there is a box for “Supply” in the NFT creation
page. This is set auto to 1 for NFTs on the Ethereum network and by default you won’t be able to adjust it; however, you can get
pass this if you want to create works of editions (i.e. multiple copies of the same NFTs). To do so, you will need to add
“?enable_supply=true” to the end of the URL of the NFT creation page. This will enable the NFT to be created as editions.

• Once you are all set, you can just click the create button which will now create NFT items stored on OpenSea. You can now go
to these items and click the Sell button. You'll be taken to the listing page, where you can choose the price and type of sale.

Ø A Fixed Price sale is where the price stays fixed.

Ø Timed Auctions (OpenSea has two methods)

o Sell to the highest bidder (English auction) – which like the name sounds just means you set a reserve (minimum)
price, which once is met by a bid kicks off an auction.

o Sell with declining price (Dutch auction) – is another mechanism where you set a starting price to begin and an
ending price which is lower. Over time the price lowers from the start until the end, or until someone purchases it.

• With listings you will need to set a duration the listing should last for.

• As a note, if you have editions remember to make listings with Quantity set to 1 upon listing. You will need to list each copy or
edition separately. The reason for this is if you set list Quantity to 10, for example, then the buyer who wants to make the
purchase is forced to have to buy all 10 editions. They cannot just buy 1 or some of the 10.

Remember the mint and the gas for the individual NFTs themselves are deferred until the point in which a collector buys the piece
so in reality these pieces aren’t minted on the blockchain yet and is stored by OpenSea. So neither at creation nor at listing will
there be any gas to be paid.

It should be noted that OpenSea reads all Ethereum data, which means that all of the NFTs you mint on any platform should appear
on OpenSea regardless. So if you wanted to mint elsewhere, but list them for sale on OpenSea, you could do so as well. However
the vice versa may not be possible depending on the platform.
39
MINTING ON FOUNDATION (1/3)
On the other hand, when we compare it with Foundation, once you have been invited as a creator, the process is quite different
because Foundation does not incorporate lazy minting. That means there will definitely be more upfront costs as you upload onto
Foundation but more of the process is secure on the blockchain.

Foundation has also changed recently, with the introduction of Collections in December of 2021, as well as switching out the
standard contract to creator contracts and several other new features.

Previously, when minting on Foundation, creators would:

• Click on the Create button on the top right, and be redirected to a page where they can choose the file they want to make an
NFT of.

• After uploading the file, will be redirected to a page where they would need to input the Title and the Description of the piece
and then would be required to Mint. This would trigger gas #1.

• Once the NFT is minted, the creator can add tags to the NFT, which is Foundation specific. This aspect is just for searching
within the Foundation platform and is not linked to the blockchain so this can be edited at anytime. If you didn’t want to add any
tags yet you can skip ahead.

• The creator then would need to list the piece for sale, which triggers gas #2. Listings used to only be by way of an English
Auction, which means the artist would set a reserve (minimum) price which if met kicks off a 24 hour auction.

• Once an auction is over, either the creator or the winning bidder can settle the auction and this results in another gas payment.
Since either party can pay this gas, creators may want to have this discussion with the bidder upfront to set clear expectations
on who would be responsible for covering the settlement.

Under the previous version of the program, all NFTs minted would only be under the Foundation. Standard contract. Because
Foundation is an invite based platform, only certain NFTs are allowed on here, and thus NFTs from other platforms are not linked.
This also means creators can’t import their own smart contracts.

40
MINTING ON FOUNDATION (2/3)
Now, when minting on Foundation, creators are no longer allowed to mint into the Foundation standard contract. Foundation
made this decision in hopes of pushing for artists to gain more control of their work. Now, artists looking to create NFTs must first
deploy their own Foundation contract. This contract is mostly still governed by the parameters set by Foundation but gives the
creator more control of the contract and how it is identified. The process now for creators therefore is:

• Click on the Create button, which will bring up options to create a new collection, or create within an existing collection.

• If you clicked on create a new collection, you will be redirected to a page for deploying your custom smart contract. Remember
this is blockchain and things being put here is unalterable once minted including the smart contract, so be very careful and
deliberate with your collection name and token ticker.

• If you clicked on create within an existing collection, then similar process as before applies; however, there are now multiple
ways in which a creator can list. They can set the reserves as before, or also set up a Buy Now price which sets a price at which
the NFT would automatically be sold and not have to be held in auction for 24 hours. Creators can have both Buy Now and
Reserve prices at the same time.

• Foundation has also introduced Offers which is basically a way for interested buyers to make an offer that might be different
from the Reserve or Buy Now price set. In doing so the offered amount is locked into an escrow for 24 hours or until the seller
decides to accept or not, whichever is less. It should be noted on OpenSea people could also make offers but the amount is not
put into escrow, which means there is a chance that the amount offered may not actually be available at the time the seller may
accept it resulting in a failed transaction. This is however not the case for Foundation as the amount is locked away and not
released back to the offering person to double dip with the same funds for at the very most that 24 hour period.

If you minted and listed pieces on Foundation before the new Collections update and had items in the Foundation standard
contract, then these pieces will appeared under your “Created” tab on your profile. However, going forward the primary page for
creators is the “Collections” tab which showcases any and all collections they have created.

It is important to note that all pieces on Foundation are ERC 721 tokens so there is no possibility of minting copies or editions yet
on Foundation.

41
MINTING ON FOUNDATION (3/3)
Overall, as mentioned, Foundation still prides itself as an invite based curated marketplace. Anyone can be a buyer on the platform,
but in order to create you need to be invited by another creator who has sold on the platform. This keeps access to Foundation a
little more exclusive than OpenSea; and yet allows it to grow in a decentralised manner (i.e. not governed based on a central team).

Because of the costs of deploying a contract, minting and listing for each piece being all upfront, the nature of the platform itself is
also more geared towards standalone or small bodies of work such as collections but not to larger NFT projects (like membership
passes or avatar/PFP projects with thousands of tokens). However, with the higher upfront costs associated, the items on
Foundation also automatically are geared to a slightly more premium market as well with creators listing their works with a more
premium pricing to also cover gas that may have been covered by the buyer if it were on OpenSea.

Unlike OpenSea, Foundation does not read all Ethereum data. This means that Foundation only currently shows NFTs minted on
Foundation on its platform. It does not automatically link other NFTs you have minted elsewhere with the same wallet and
showcase them on the platform.

Currently, Foundation also does not allow you to import your custom contracts into the platform. This may or may not change in the
near future but it is likely that Foundation needs to vet and assess how they can implement contract imports without sacrificing the
integrity of the platform and ensure that only Foundation mints appear on the platform.

Tips for Collections:

• Like mentioned, when creating a collection you will have to be careful and deliberate with the Collection name and ticker
symbol as this will be unalterable once on the blockchain. However, once the collection is created you can customise certain
features that are not stored on the blockchain such as the cover image, thumbnail and the collection description.

• Be mindful of the order in which you mint into Collections as you will not be able to change the order of how they appear. The
default sort order is minted newest, so you may need to mint your works in reverse order if you want them to appear
chronological or from beginning to end.

42
MINTING ON SUPERRARE
Unlike the previous two platforms, SuperRare is probably still one of the most exclusive platforms as it is an application based
curated platform. To mint your work on the platform, you will need to submit an application for approval.

However, within the platform, the process is somewhat similar to Foundation with a few exceptions.

• Like Foundation, NFTs on the SuperRare follow the ERC 721 token standard.

• SuperRare does not adopt the lazy minting mechanism, so minting and listing will be interactions on the blockchain that costs
gas for creators.

• Unlike Foundation, creators still continue to have the choice of whether to mint under the SuperRare shared contract or
standard contract or to deploy their own contract (Series Contract). For the time being, artists can only create one Series
Contract; however, that may change in the future. This means that unlike in Foundation where Collections can be used to curate
various bodies of work, in SuperRare it is not yet a matter of curating work but rather just to separately give the artist more
provenance of their own work.

• The price mechanics run similarly to Foundation in the sense that creators can set reserves for bids, as well as Buy Now price.
Collectors can also make offers, place in bids, or purchase it out right accordingly. To set a Buy Now price, creators should
select the “Set a list price” option, however, to set a reserve for auction, creators should select the “Start an auction” option.

43
MINTING ON SLOIKA
Sloika is a brand new exciting platform that is geared towards photography. The platform actually adopts many of the features we
previously already discussed but also has some unique offerings of its own. Here are the key features of Sloika:

• Like SuperRare, Sloika is an application curated based platform. Therefore creators need to apply for creating NFTs on there.

• Sloika does not utilise a standard shared contract so photographers will only be able to set up custom contracts with Sloika for
their collections.

• The process of minting on Sloika is actually slightly different where photographers don’t just mint on the website but rather by
working with the team in the minting process. Currently the process is as follows:
1. Approved creators prepare the series they want to mint using a Google Doc form, where they would need to include details
about the creator themselves, details about the series (i.e. series title, custom token name, royalty, etc.), a dropbox/drive link
with the photo assets, and a list of the title, description and various properties for each photo, and also the intended date for
the public launch.
2. Once the doc is ready, creators need to submit it to the Sloika team and they will turn it into NFT metadata, checking for all
typos and making sure everything looks good.
3. Once the draft looks good, the creators and the team will have a call (zoom) to mint the series. The creators will receive a
minting workflow link before the call and will be walked through the minting process. Creators can choose to do the minting
themselves after the series has been drafted properly and checked by the team if they want.

This process may be subject to change in the coming future as the platform tries to ease the process for creators especially those who have
already gone through the steps once, however still maintaining the integrity of the pieces and offering a layer of review to prevent unwanted
errors.

• When it comes to pricing mechanisms Sloika also allows creators to set fixed prices or variable prices for pieces. Sloika also has
a unique feature of Gacha which creators can choose if they want where the selling method is to set a randomised purchase.
Neither the collector, the creator, nor Sloika will know which exact piece will be sold from the collection next, but the collector is
guaranteed to get one random piece with each purchase. This may be a fun way way to sell as it sets a level of uncertainty and
element of surprise into the process.
44
MINTING ON TUX
Tux is perhaps one of the lesser known and more unique platform in the sense that is is mostly decentralised and there is no team
behind it. However, because the platform is mostly decentralised, the costs for creators are perhaps the most expensive. This is
because nothing is stored with Tux and every piece of information is stored with the blockchain. For artist, this goes beyond just the
NFTs but also if you want to add a profile picture or a custom profile name and bio. Unlike other platforms which may store those
information centrally, everything entered into Tux is to be stored on the blockchain.

The key features of Tux include:

• Creators can decide to mint and list onto the Tux standard shared contract, or deploy their own contract using Tux contract
deployer. Because most of the contract itself is fully decentralised it is not optimised for gas so deploying an artist contract on
Tux will be significantly more costly than any other platform.

• The only pricing mechanism on Tux is by way of auction, so artists will only need to list by setting a reserve price.

• Users can curate on Tux using the "Houses” feature. Anyone can create a House and add creators to it. Creators can then
choose under which House to list their piece in which they have been approved; however, choosing a house is optional and the
creator can list outside of the Houses as well. The additional factor for Houses is that House curators can set a curation fee, so
that a portion of the sales proceed goes towards the House.

• Every action on Tux also rewards users with TUX tokens which can be currently exchanged on the platform to feature the work
on the front page.

• There is no royalty aspect for NFTs minted on TUX, so the creators only earnings are from the primary sale.

Note: While artists are granted more provenance in participating in a fully decentralised platform, the current platform is not
without drawbacks. Specifically, NFTs minted into the shared Tux contract do not label the creator as a creator on the token
themselves which means on other platforms that read all Ethereum data, like OpenSea, the NFTs do not appear under the creator’s
profile. In order to get around this, creators would need to deploy their own contract but this can be quite costly.

45
COMPARISON (1/4)
OpenSea Foundation SuperRare Sloika Tux

Types of NFTs: • Standalone 1/1 • Collections of 1/1s • Standalone 1/1 • Collections with • Standalone 1/1
pieces pieces several 1/1s pieces
• Collections with • Collections with • Collections with
several 1/1s several 1/1s several 1/1s
• Standalone
editioned pieces
• Collection of
editioned pieces

Minting: Lazy-minting is No lazy-minting and No lazy-minting and No lazy-minting and No lazy-minting and
adopted and mint is gas is borne upfront gas is borne upfront gas is borne upfront gas is borne upfront
upon sale. by the creator. by the creator. by the creator. by the creator.
Gas is borne by the
buyer, except for
offers, then borne by
the seller upon
accepting.

Listings • Fixed Buy Now • Fixed Buy Now • Fixed Buy Now • Fixed Buy Now • English auction
price price price price
(per NFT):
• English auction • English auction • English auction
• Dutch auction • Offers • Offers
• Offers

46
COMPARISON (2/4)
OpenSea Foundation SuperRare Sloika Tux

X-platform Supports cross Only shows NFTs on Only shows NFTs on Only shows NFTs on Only shows NFTs on
visibility platform NFTs the Foundation the SuperRare the Sloika platform. the Tux platform.
(NFTs linked on platform. platform.
other platforms with
the same wallets are
shown and tradeable
on OpenSea)

X-platform OpenSea pieces Foundation pieces SuperRare pieces Sloika pieces will Tux pieces will show
functionality of minted will show up will show up on all will show up on all show up on all other up on all other
mints on all other platforms other platforms that other platforms that platforms that read all platforms that read all
that read all read all Ethereum read all Ethereum Ethereum data like Ethereum data like
Ethereum data like data like OpenSea, data like OpenSea, OpenSea, Rarible or OpenSea, Rarible or
Rarible or Rarible or Rarible or KnownOrigin. KnownOrigin.
KnownOrigin, and KnownOrigin. KnownOrigin.
However pieces
pieces that are lazy
Foundation minted on standard
minted will also
collections may not Tux contract will not
show up if those
show up under the show under the
platforms integrate
artist’s profile but is artists’ profile.
OpenSea’s API
still controlled by the
(application Tux pieces on artist’s
creator.
programming deployed contract will
interface) – i.e. if show under the
OpenSea is down artists’ profile.
these won’t show.

47
COMPARISON (3/4)
OpenSea Foundation SuperRare Sloika Tux

Ability to import Yes. Not yet (exceptions Not yet (exceptions Not yet. Not yet.
custom contract upon request) upon request)

Making Because of lazy- Once a piece is Once a piece is Once a piece is Once a piece is
mistakes / minting, certain minted it is minted it is minted it is minted it is
changing details can still be impossible to edit. impossible to edit. impossible to edit. impossible to edit.
details updated provided Therefore, creators Therefore, creators Therefore, creators Therefore, creators
the item isn’t sold. would have to burn would have to burn would have to burn would have to burn
Once sold, it is on the piece and remint. the piece and remint. the piece and remint; the piece and remint.
chain and however, Sloika team
unalterable. provides a layer of
review to prevent
mistakes.

Creator 0% - 10% decided Fixed at 10%. Fixed at 10%. Customizable by the None.
Royalties by the creator. creator.

Platform fees on 2.5% of the sale 5% of the sale price 15% of the sale price 15% of the sale price None.
primary sales price deducted. deducted. is deducted. is deducted.
3% of sale price
further added on top.

Platform fees on 2.5% of the sale 5% of the sale price 5% of the sale price 0% on secondary None.
secondary sales price deducted. is deducted. is deducted. sales.
3% of sale price
further added on top.
48
COMPARISON (4/4)
As can be seen, there are definitely some advantages to each platform, but also definitely drawbacks. As such, it is important to take into account all the
available information and decide which best fits yoru need. This guide has not covered all the platforms out there such as LooksRare, Rarible, KnownOrigin,
Nifty Gateway, to name a few.

However, you can take the various features looked at here to understand how those marketplaces work and what features are being offered. LooksRare for
example, is very similar to OpenSea except offers additional rewards to both buyers and sellers with token rewards on each transaction.

There are various differences in terms of the interface itself and functionaility for the buyer side that may need to also be considered. Consider how easy it is
for buyers to find your work and if you have projects that have various properties how do get displayed. For projects or collections that play on the traits to
generate rarity and make certain pieces more valuable than others, consider whether this is easily distibugishable based on the features and interface of the
platform.

49
MANIFOLD CONTRACTS (1/2)
Aside from choosing the right marketplace, Creating a contract
another aspect you may want to consider is
regarding the choice of the contract. As noted, • When creating your Manifold Creator
many platform offers you the ability to use their contract, Manifold will ask you whether you
shared contracts or deploy your custom want the contract to follow the ERC-721
contract that they have built to some extent. standard or the ERC-1155.
However, another route that may be possible
for platforms that allow you to import contracts • Creators then need to add the name of the
would be to use a different contract deployer, contract, the custom contract symbol, and
such as Manifold. the Contract ASCII art (ASCII art is a
signature detail of the Manifold Creator
Manifold offers creators the service of creating contract. ASCII art is used to visually identify
their own contract with a seamless user your contract in the code).
interface to mint their own NFTs with zero
coding knowledge required. However, • Before deploying, Manifold gives you the
Manifold itself is not a marketplace so if you ability to deploy to testnets (basically not the
deploy on Manifold contract you will need to main blockchain but a practice blockchain
import it to a marketplace. to see beforehand how it will look like once
minted).
This smart contract is owned by you and is
important to note that Manifold doesn't have • Once you are happy with the testing, the
any ownership or takes any cut out of your next step is to set royalties. Manifold allows
contract. That means that if Manifold Studio you to set royalty either at the contract level
someday disappears you will still be the owner or at the individual token level.
of your contract and will be able to do Contract level: all tokens within the
anything that you want with it. contract will have the same royalties.
Token level: override the contract level
royalties and set royalties for a specific
token.

50
MANIFOLD CONTRACTS (2/2)
Minting an NFT Importing the contract to a marketplace

• To mint an NFT into the contract, you will Certain marketplaces restrict the ability to
first need to have a contract deployed. import your own contract but where possible,
such as OpenSea, you can then import your
• On your profile you should see all the minted contract and NFTs from manifold and
contracts you have deployed on Manifold. start selling.
You will need to enter one by clicking on it.
On platforms like OpenSea, if the creator
• Once you are in the contract page, go to the wallet already exists the contract should
Tokens tab. Here you will see all the NFTs automatically appear under their collections.
minted under this contract. You can add a However, in the event that the contract with the
new NFT by clicking the New Token button. NFTs do not appear you can import manually.
The steps to do so may differ from platform to
• Here you will be able to add the underlying platform.
asset, and all the properties of the NFT.
Manifold allows you to also test the NFT by It should be noted that for importing contracts
minting to the Rinkeby testnet first as a into OpenSea, it is important that you as the
practice before minting onto the Ethereum owner of the collection still go to the collection
mainnet. You do not need to complete the settings on OpenSea and add in the royalty %
whole process and if you exit from this page again. OpenSea will not honour the royalties
your token is saved as a draft. set on the contract in manifold if the items are
sold on the platform. While doing so you can
• Once ready, you can mint onto the mainnet also beautify the collection page on OpenSea
and your tokens are minted, however, since by adding thumbnail image, banner and
Manifold is not a marketplace, there is no collection description etc.
listing. To list, you will need to import the
contract with the NFTs to a marketplace and
list there.

51
 LETS GET
SELLING

7 52
OFFERING VALUE (1/2)
Another main point of concern which you will There are a ton of successful artists whose only
hear a lot about in the NFT space is what is the added value is showing collectors how
utility behind a project? Or what value do you committed they are with their craft. That’s it.
bring to the table with your work? Keeping that communication alive through your
brand on social media is sometimes good
When it comes to art this may seem weird, and enough to signal to collectors you are
many collectors will say not at all a necessity, but committed to growing and bringing them along
providing perks and incentives for collectors may for that ride.
be a great way to help set you apart and entice
that collector over the fence when deciding over When it comes to collections or larger bodies off
your pieces. work, there may be a stronger case for artists to
focus on the roadmap or plan for what they
What collectors want to see is a long term intend to do as you would want to ensure to your
approach and commitment from you essentially. collector that has picked up a piece that you will
So providing a long term return to them gives work to getting the collection sold out and thus
them comfort that you won’t leave them once moving to the secondary so they can possibly
you’ve sold the art and that you’ll do your best to resell and earn a gain.
ensure that the piece remains valuable, or even
better increases in value in the event they may Again, this is not necessary but sometimes
one day want to sell that piece for profit. collections mimic projects with more liquidity
and the benefit in creating a collection is it
Whether it is something as simple as offering a generates a sense of community and also a
physical print of the work or a private call session social exclusivity for collectors. People often
to thank them for collecting the work, or gravitate towards mimicking or trying to copy
something very complex like building in a the movements of the socially elite, and that is
reward system for them, there are tons of true for NFTs as well.
creative ways to consider “added value.” But
most importantly, it is to be reminded that this is Sometimes the added value is not generated by
not necessary as long as you can prove value to the artist but rather the community that relies
your collectors through other means. behind them.

53
OFFERING VALUE (2/2)
If a well known crypto collector picks up a piece This is not to say collections add extra value over
from a certain collection, or even a prominent standalone pieces. Standalone pieces also bring
figure such as a celebrity, a well-known athlete, a different benefit to them, as minting anything
or a wall-street investor, the collection will likely on the standalone allows the piece to truly
generate some buzz. More people would want blossom on its own irrespective of how other
to get in and, while yes there may be some pieces are doing.
similar value in just owning another piece of
work from the same artist, if they can get in on As a collector, a collection might take a while to
the same specific collection there is definitely an pay off if the floor is constantly being undercut or
added value of exclusivity and status involved for takes time to rise. The health of the entire
that next collector. collection will also determine the potential
upside gain for the collector, whereas in an
Imagine a luxury fashion brand releases an individual standalone piece, it may be easier to
exclusive 10 items only collection of handbags or disassociate from that and trade just based on
say a certain travel company comes up with a the merits of that piece held.
unique once in a lifetime getaway package for
10 individuals only. Now imagine a famous Remember you can’t really control who else
celebrity pick up one of the 10 items. Whilst the invests in, and even when they do, how they
luxury brand or travel company may already be would manage their investment.
well known, and while it may attract other people
to buy their other offerings, the 9 other people All that being said, it is best to have that
who pick up the 9 other pieces from this same discussion with your collectors on how you’d
collection will have a special edge, and a certain best serve them. Each collector is different and
status boost to owning something similar to that its best to have open discussions with your
celebrity as well. targeted collector to determine the best strategy
for you. However, the most important rule to
The same applies here, which gives collection a remember is always try to under promise and
very special collectivist value as well. The pieces over deliver, rather than letting it fall the other
in a collection is valued not only individually but way around.
also in parallel with the rest of the group and
along with the statuses of the collectors.
54
BUILDING COMMUNITY
I cannot stress enough how important this is. NFT collectors to continue learning about the evolution of
the technology and market. Remember the space changes
If you would like to be successful in the NFT space, it is so quick and there is a lot of insight and smart
important to remember that NFTs are relatively new and each conversations happening all the time;
day is an exciting new leap. Earlier adopters of the technology
also are given the immense responsibility in shaping the norms 3. Similarly, join in on Twitter Spaces and start listening to
and standard of the space. As creatives we are given free range others share their stories, and their NFT journeys (take it all
to determine the best path forward and put forth the best we in and learn as much as you can) as well as raise questions
can conjure in determining how our art is to be seen and to be you have there. The community usually is very helpful and
appreciated. wants to help you figure out the solution when you are stuck
on something;
Equally, if this is to be a successful venture, it is to be
remembered that unlike the social media space of Web2, this is 4. Don’t go cold-shilling. Treat people as humans and learn to
not a popularity contest but rather a test on the merits of the art make connections before posting about your NFTs. People
and the artist. Collectors are interested to understand the story want to hear about you more than they want to be sold
behind the art piece and you and you want to spend the time something. If you join a Twitter Space, do not immediately
to invest in cultivating a community who will be there to help post about your work. Don’t over sell and be respectful of
support you and share your work on your behalf. the space you have been given;

While the NFT community exists on all sorts of social media, a 5. Utilise threaded tweets to convey the message and story
large part of the community is on Twitter, and the app is behind your pieces when you share them. This can be the
actually a great way to get started in building your network. case for art content shared or NFT pieces shared; and

Tips for Twitter and Social Media: 6. Be Community-oriented. Share other people’s work and
NFTs. Build relationships and help support others without
1. Start posting your art content there (not just NFT) but start the expectation of any favours returned. Participate in the
getting people more familiar with your body of work; conversation and be involved where you can. Help host
Twitter Spaces for others and onboard more people with
2. Connect with other artists and follow crypto traders and the knowledge you have gained.

55
TREAT THIS LIKE A BUSINESS (1/4)
Ultimately your ventures into NFTs is a business venture and the goal you have is to make more
money than you lose. While the opportunities are plenty and the potential is unlimited in how your
creatively set up your projects, there are a few things you still need to be wary of.

Pricing Strategy

There are various pricing strategies you can adopt when it comes to selling products, which also
apply similarly for NFTs. These strategies can be broken into two main categories: (1) Cost-based
pricing, and (2) Market-based pricing.

Cost-based Pricing

1. Cost Plus pricing – This is probably the simplest pricing method. You basically add a percent
mark-up to the overall production costs to make up the price. For instance, if the cost of the
product is $10 and you expect a 10 percent profit, then the selling price will be $11.

When it comes to NFTs, the cost for the NFTs may include the gas and various platform fees and
may also include the underlying cost it took you to create the work such as equipment rentals,
electricity bills, etc.

Cost plus methods may however be more practical in situations where the cost is significant but
and you would like to just ensure a certain healthy profit margin but not where your profits may
exceed your costs.

2. Mark-up pricing - Similar to cost-plus pricing, the mark-up is calculated as a percentage of the
selling price and not the cost price. If the cost of the product is $10 and you want to earn the
mark-up of 20 percent on sales, the price is calculated with the following equation:

Price = product cost / 1 – mark-up which in our case is: Price = 10 / 1 – 0.20 = $12.5.

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Market-based Pricing

3. Perceived value pricing – This is dependent on the seller, more than anything, to set the price
based on the perception of whatever is being offered. As an example, a customer buys a more
expensive product such as a top-branded smartphone despite having lower-priced smartphones
available in the market. The reason for such decision lies in the brand’s alignment with perceived
value pricing where the customer has no problem paying extra for better quality and durability or
perhaps for the status symbol.

This pricing mechanism may be more appropriate for artists who have built some reputation or
have a built perception of value in the context of NFTs. The more committed you are in the space,
the more social credit you may accumulate allowing you to be able to successfully adopt this
pricing method.

4. Value pricing - The basic principle of value pricing is to provide low priced products with high-
quality levels. This method usually is pulled off when leveraging the benefit of economies of scale
where a large quantity reduces the cost of production overall thus allowing for the price to be
lowered and attract more buyers.

This method may not be suitable for all NFTs especially 1/1 art or photography; however, larger
projects such as avatar projects that mint thousands of pieces can leverage some aspects of this.
They can provide a lower entry price for collectors because they leverage on volume to be able to
recover their production costs which is shared across the project.

5. Going rate pricing – This is simple as all it is is taking into account the prices of direct competition
and using it as a basis for your own prices. The prices can be (1) on par –the same price as that of
the competitor(s); (2) premium –higher than competitor(s), usually accounting for additional
features; or (3) discounted – lower than if lacking features that competitor’s has.

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For NFTs this may be an easy method to adopt provided you understand who your peers are and
what they offer. For those starting out, look for other artists in the same genre and specialty and
observe how they price their work, and after gathering sufficient information, position yourself
accordingly in relation to them.

Overall pricing is pretty subjective, so at the end of the day you will need to determine what you are
happy with. Whilst NFTs with its perpetual ability to keep on reselling can attract future income in the
form of royalties for you, it is to be noted that there is no guarantee your collector will sell that piece
on or when that might be. You may not see that royalties for years or decades, so price your primary
selling price with that in mind.

Take into account your supply

A major determination of price is also the balance of demand and supply. As creators you will have to
work to generate the necessary demand for your art, but be sure to also consider how you manage
your supply. Scarcity in the right situation can result in very attractive pricing and large profits but can
also mean you are losing out on opportunities.

Each piece you put out has a probability greater than zero of selling, but for every piece you don’t
have out, they have a zero probability of selling. Think of opportunity costs.

However, if you over supply your storefronts, and offer buyers way too much choice, you may
overwhelm them or worse make them feel uncertain about investing in you, as they question if there’s
not enough demand. It is a much more riskier investment for them to make if there isn’t a healthy
market for your work, which collectors might not always be willing to make. It may be easier to go for
an easier bet with an already established presence as it may seem a safer investment.

Finding the balance of your supply will be important in your overall strategy as a business in this
space.

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Manage your books and plan for taxes

Finally, as a tax consultant by trade, it wouldn’t be right if I left the topic of personal finances and
taxation out from this guide entirely; however, the subject of tax and crypto is quite complex. So my
only point would be to please conduct proper research on how crypto and digital assets are taxed in
your local jurisdiction. I have written another guide which may be a good starter to understand how
the basic principles of accounting and tax works for crypto and NFTs.

In some countries, even getting gifted an NFT may be taxable… whereas in others you are not taxed
until you convert your crypto back into fiat currency. This extreme variation makes it very tricky and
thus hard to reconcile what the tax implications would be for each individual.

But now that you are ready to start selling your art as NFTs, I hope you also prepare yourself in
understanding how you would be taxed, so that you safely set aside your tax due. Please keep proper
documentation of the costs as well when you mint and list pieces as depending on your tax law and
rules, these might be expenses you can deduct from your gain.

Essentially, with great opportunities to make income also comes the responsibility of being a good
citizen and paying the tax you owe but also equally important the duty to managing your wealth
efficiently and effectively. It is not only important to consider tax implications but also properly track
your financial performance to assess where you need to improve. Properly educating yourself on
accounting for these transactions will help you understand your performance and growth in this
space.

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FINAL WORD

As mentioned, this guide is not an exhaustive tutorial but hopefully will be useful in helping me develop more guides like this in the future,
provides a good introduction into the world of NFTs for creatives but I will leave that up to you. This revised guide was only possible
interested to dive in and helps answer some of the questions you may because of the success of the first edition. The download link asks for
have. Obviously the realm of NFTs and blockchain technology can be an email, but I personally promise that the emails collected will never
leveraged by more than just creatives as the possibilities for use is really be used for any other marketing or distribution purposes nor will be
limitless at this point, but to keep it simple for this guide I have only sold off to any third party.
discussed the aspects for individuals in the creative industry. I have
tried to include as much information without bias as possible; however, Thank you for taking the time to read this guide. I truly hope you have a
I wrote this based on what I know and there may be aspects or features wonderful experience in the world of NFTs and if you want to share any
that are missed out or not discussed here which may be necessary for exciting projects you get up to, please feel free to DM me. I cannot wait
you but features I have not come across. If you have any you find and to see what you get up to with just this base knowledge.
want to discuss, I would love to learn about them as well.

If you are interested in learning more or have questions about any

particular steps along the way, you can always reach out to me and I’d
be happy to assist or point you towards the right resources. Please refer
to the contact information on the next page.

I hope this guide has been useful for you and if you would like to help
me out, I ask that you share this with others who may be looking for the
same information and is interested in getting started with their NFT
journey. In fact, make it an objective of yours to also bring others into
this ecosystem.

It is up to you but if you are looking to share this guide with a friend or
someone looking to learn about NFTs, if you can share the download
link instead of the file directly, it would be greatly appreciated. This is
because it allows me to keep track on the number of downloads, which

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sukrit Srisakulchawla
www.sukritsrisakulchawla.com Sukrit is a tax consultant with a focus on M&A and
Foundation Profile: https://foundation.app/@sukrit International Tax Structuring based in Thailand. Sukrit
has advised on domestic and international tax topics,
OpenSea Profile: https://opensea.io/sukrits_25 efficient tax structuring, and performing tax due
diligences to a range of local and multinational
Find me on: companies across various industries. He graduated
from Northeastern University with a Bachelor’s in
Twitter: @sukrits25 Business Administration with a dual concentration in
Instagram: @sukrits_25 Accounting and Finance.

Sukrit is also a photographer, with a focus on travel

Other Guides: and lifestyle. Sukrit has worked with various clients
• Principles of Accounting, Finance and Taxation for providing a range of photography and social media
Non-Fungible Tokens services, notably in the hospitality and travel industries
but also in entertainment, technology, fashion, and
lifestyle sectors and has served as brand ambassadors
to a select few.

Sukrit has been recognised for his work by Instagram,

Boston Magazine, Masala Magazine, and Northeastern
University. He has also been featured on Fox25 Boston
/ WFXT for winning the IGersBoston Photo of the Year
in 2017 and received the Thai Indian Youth
Achievement Award for Visual Arts in 2018.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Special thanks to the following legends who helped peer-reviewed this guide or its earlier edition.

Jonas Hornehoj Ev Tchebotarev

Instagram: @jonashornehoj Instagram: @ev25.4
Twitter @JonasHornehoj Twitter: @tchebotarev
Foundation: https://foundation.app/@JonasHornehoj Sloika: https://sloika.xyz/tchebotarev.eth
OpenSea: https://opensea.io/JonasHornehoj OpenSea: https://opensea.io/tchebotarev.eth

Ty Bowmaker
Instagram: @captyvate
Twitter @captivate
Foundation: https://foundation.app/@captyvate
OpenSea: https://opensea.io/Captyvate

Micheal Allen
Instagram: @mykro
Twitter: @mykro_0
Foundation: https://foundation.app/@mykro
OpenSea: https://opensea.io/mykro

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GLOSSARY (1/2)

Term Description
NFT A non-fungible token (currently for any digital file)

Collection A body of different pieces of work put together

Editions The scarcity of a single piece of work

Open edition Pieces of work without any set scarcity

Blockchain A system in which a record of transactions made in cryptocurrency are maintained across several computers that are
linked in a peer-to-peer network

Copyright The exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or
musical material, and to authorise others to do the same

Smart contract Programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met

Royalties Typically, a royalty is an amount paid by a third party to an owner of a product or patent for the use of that product or
patent. In the case of NFTs, it is the amount owed to the original creator or artist as a percentage upon future sale of the
work.

Crypto wallet A digital wallet which gives the cryptocurrency user their private access to the blockchain and allows the users to store
and retrieve their digital assets

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GLOSSARY (2/2)

Term Description
Seed phrase A series of random words generated by your cryptocurrency wallet that give you access to the crypto associated with that
wallet (as a master password)

Hot wallet A cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the internet, is accessible online, and is generally used to facilitate
cryptocurrency transactions between the owner and end-users

Cold wallet A cryptocurrency wallet that cannot be compromised because it is not connected to the Internet

Minting A process of tokenizing your digital art into an NFT on the blockchain

Standalone A unique piece of work which does not sit in a series or a collection

Gas A fee to conduct a transaction or execute a contract on the blockchain

Lazy-minting Showcasing the NFT passively while not tokenizing it onto the blockchain until the point of sale or “just-in-time” minting

Floor An established lower boundary on the price of an NFT in the market, applicable mostly to collections

Primary The market between the originator or creator and the first collector

Secondary The market where NFTs are resold between collectors

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