As artists, the internet has made it possible to showcase our artwork for millions of people to admire and have different takes on what message the artist is trying to depict through its art piece. But with the new wave of digital artists, authenticating an artwork has become difficult as anyone could easily save, download, and use your creation without giving credit to the artist.
Blockchain technology, through non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has provided a solution. NFTs are unique digital assets stored on a blockchain that certify ownership and authenticity of items like art, music, videos, or even real-world objects. NFTs allow creators to authenticate and protect their work, ensuring ownership and proper attribution. It also enables creators to tokenize their work, enabling ownership transfers and trading on digital marketplaces, with their value determined by market demand.
In this guide, I’ll be explaining and showing you how you can create a digital asset (NFT) using the LaunchMyNFT platform.
LaunchMyNFT is a no-code platform where anyone can easily create and mint a collection of NFTs. It currently supports up to 10 different chains, making it accessible and versatile for creators.
Creating an NFT collection
To get started, connect your wallet, which will determine which blockchain you’ll be launching your NFT on. We’ll be using a Solana-based wallet; hence, the Solana chain is where we’ll be minting and launching our NFTs on.
Next, click on the “create” button and select the “new collection” option if you already have curated digital artwork; otherwise, you can use its AI model to generate digital images.
An NFT collection is a group of unique digital assets with distinct characteristics and metadata.
Next, input the NFT collection details, its name, symbol, description, and launch date, which is the time your NFTs go live for anyone to mint.
Always give some duration for the launch date if you want to give out whitelist positions and set up sale phases.
Whitelist allows creators to make a private list of wallet addresses that will be allowed to mint their NFTs before it is made public.
This can be set up later.
Understanding NFT Standards on Solana
Before launching an NFT, there’s a list of standards it follows depending on the blockchain network you intend launching on and we should know about.
NFT standards on the Solana blockchain refer to the protocols and frameworks that define how non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are created, stored, and managed. These standards ensure interoperability, consistency, and efficiency across different applications and platforms.
Launching an NFT on Solana, the most popular and easy-to-use standard is the Metaplex protocol. It’s the industry standard, has been around for a long time, and has been used by many projects to launch its NFT collections. It offers a set of tools to easily create an NFT depending on its use case.
LaunchmyNft integrates three metaplex tools for launching NFT collections on the Solana chain: metaplex core, metaplex legacy, and compressed NFTs. Each of these tools utilizes metadata, which serves as the backbone of every NFT.
Metadata refers to the additional information associated with each NFT you create, such as its name, description, image URI, and various attributes. This metadata is crucial for defining the characteristics of the NFT and is typically stored in a JSON format.
Metaplex Core: Is the newest kid on the block in the Metaplex toolset. It utilizes a single-account design, which allows for all relevant NFT metadata to be stored in one account, unlike traditional standards, such as SPL Token, which are designed for fungible tokens (like cryptocurrencies), are interchangeable, and have the same value. When used for NFTs, they require multiple accounts (e.g., token account, metadata account) to manage the unique aspects of each NFT.
By using the one-account design, Metaplex Core simplifies the structure of storing all relevant NFT data (including ownership) into one and just focuses on the unique needs of NFTs.
This simplifies the minting process and reduces the complexity and cost. With core minting cost is approximately 0.0029 SOL per NFT.
Core enforces royalties by default, ensuring that creators receive a percentage payments on resales of their NFTs without additional configurations.
Freezing collection: with Core, creators can temporarily disable the transfer or modification of NFTs within a collection. This is done to stop trading of your NFT collections on secondary markets. This can come into play when there is a huge difference between the whitelist cost and the public minting cost.
Metaplex Core is best for artists and creators looking to mint unique digital art with enforced royalties. It’s also suitable for in-game items that require low-cost minting and flexible ownership structures.
Metaplex legacy, also known as token metadata. It’s the oldest standard provided by Metaplex, built on the SPL Token program, and compatible with many NFT marketplaces.
This standard requires multiple accounts (e.g., token account, metadata account, master edition accounts) to mint an NFT. This multi-account approach complicates management and increases costs.
Minting costs are higher, typically around 0.022 SOL for standard NFTs and 0.024 SOL for royalty-enforced NFTs.
Royalty enforcement is optional and can be managed through rulesets that may not always be adhered to by all trading platforms.
You can choose to make the NFTs immutable, which gives a sense of security to holders that the metadata/images would never change. So be careful of any mistake enabling this option.
Reveal later if enabled lets you choose if you want people to not see what they have minted until you reveal the artwork. A placeholder would be used instead.
Metaplex Legacy also provides the ability to freeze NFT collections.
Metaplex Legacy is useful for existing NFT projects that require compatibility with established marketplaces.
Compressed NFT: this is the cheapest tool for minting NFTs, and royalties are enforced by default. Unlike the other two, which store all metadata on-chain, metaplex compressed NFTs utilize a Merkle tree structure to store metadata off-chain. With the word compressed, its not the artwork quality that’s been reduced; instead, it’s its data. By compressing data and storing it off-chain, compressed NFTs drastically lower the costs associated with minting and managing large volumes of NFTs. This makes it feasible to create hundreds of millions of NFTs with significantly reduced transaction fees.
This comes in handy for minting of NFT event ticketing, POAP (proof of attendance), and loyalty programs.
It’s efficient for management of numerous in-game assets while keeping costs minimal and also efficient for large-scale community-driven initiatives, like airdrops or rewards programs, without high overhead.
Based on your needs, you can select one that suits it.
Next is defining the NFT template, which is equivalent to creating a json file that contains all the characteristics of your NFTs. Don't have one; input the required fields.
Here, you give the base name and description of each NFT in the collection you want minted. In Solana, the base name is preceded by a sequence of numbers starting from 0.
Also, input the mint price and percentage of royalties you want (remember this is enforced in Metaplex core and Metaplex compressed NFTs).
Sales split
Creators can add up to 3 wallet addresses that royalty fees from the secondary sale of any of your NFTs will be split among. All wallet shares must add up to 100%.
Also, you can add a maximum of 2 wallet addresses that the mint fees would be split among. The shares must also add up to 100%.
Next, choose the cloud storage where the NFT assets would be stored. By default, Amazon S3 is used, which is faster, but you can choose InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized storage system, if it suits your needs.
Adding your images
Next, upload your images; once uploaded, choose the mint order (random or ordered).
Random minting: When collectors mint your NFTs, they receive a randomly selected NFT from the collection. This means they cannot choose specific NFTs they prefer, which helps maintain fairness and increases the perceived rarity of individual NFTs.
Ordered Minting: Collectors mint NFTs in sequential order. For example, if the first collector mints 5 NFTs, they will receive NFTs #1 through #5. While this approach is straightforward, it can lead to issues where early collectors "cherry-pick" the most desirable NFTs, leaving less popular ones for later buyers. This may reduce the overall appeal of the collection for subsequent collectors.
Next is to have them deployed. Then, launchmynft will set up a mint page for you to share on social media and other platforms.
Mint page
On this page, we can also manage our collection and make modifications such as linking our NFT project Twitter handle, Discord link, adding our profile image, banner, the description that appears on the page, and even additional NFTs.
Creators can add whitelist phases, the wallets that can mint, their price, start and end dates, and set up various sale phases.
Watch the video below showing how to carry out the whole process.
All NFTs created on LaunchmyNFT go directly to NFT marketplaces, such as magic eden and tensor. Creators only need to verify it’s theirs by imputing the collection ID and their verified creator ID.