There are many digital wallet options, but some of the most popular are Coinbase, MetaMask and Rainbow. You will need to buy some Ether to cover the cost of the final step: “Minting”, a process that involves uploading the NFT to a market and defining the rules in a smart contract. Minting requires the payment of “gas”, the floating price for writing data to a blockchain. At the moment, it costs approximately between 0.022 and 0.056 Ether ($ 40 to $ 100) to coin an NFT, but that changes from minute to minute.
At this point, you will need to have selected a market, where you will connect your digital wallet and coin your NFT. There are more than a dozen NFT marketplaces, but so far, OpenSea, NiftyGateway, SuperRare and Zora have proven to be the most popular with musicians.
Launched in 2017, OpenSea is the first established NFT market. It fits as the “eBay” of the NFTs, as the platform is open to all types of tokens, from domain names to art, and anyone can sell on the platform, so far including superstars like Kings of Leon and Shawn Mendes . In December, OpenSea promoted itself as the first market to allow creators to coin and sell NFTs for free (read more about it here).
Then there is the Nifty Gateway, a curated market that was acquired by the first twin crypto investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in 2019. So far, new artists have had to sign up to post their work on Nifty, which has worked with names like deadmau5, Grimes and Steve Aoki. It is one of the only NFT markets that accepts payment by credit card (allowing even fans with limited knowledge of cryptocurrency to dip their fingers into the collection).
The fast-growing Zora was founded last May with an emphasis on giving creators ownership over their works, and has been making waves in the music space ever since. In February, the platform collaborated with record label and management company IAMSOUND in an NFT art exhibition showcasing original works by artists such as Mura Masa, Toro y Moi and Yaeji (including that digital pet fish, which sold for more than $ 27,000). On March 10, Zora (where the coinage is now Open to the public) worked with a group of 20 emerging artists, including VÉRITÉ, to launch the Catalog, a specific NFT market for music that allows artists to sell music as NFTs and receive 100% of their initial sale.
The three-year SuperRare – home to works by 3LAU, RAC, Lil Miqeula and more – is another heavily curated platform, which integrates a small number of artists each month through an online application form. And there are even more markets to explore: Check out Origin, Foundation, Blockparty, Emanate, Rarible and Dapper Labs to get started.