How to Mint, Buy, Sell NFT Art

Since it trended years ago, NFTs have created a new avenue for artists, celebrities and people from around the world to earn - and for many, to earn big money. This has become another source of revenue for creators, curators and traders. Online marketplaces and even top auction houses have curated and sold NFT art and other digital assets like video clips, memes, photographs and audio files.

These digital items can be turned into NFTs or non-fungible tokens through a process called minting - which means the data of the digital asset, such ownership and other NFT details will be securely stored on the blockchain.

Minting is a service offered by NFT platforms and marketplaces, which demand a fee or a percentage from the sale of the asset. The asset's ownership and other information then becomes immutable after minting, and cannot be tampered with.

Sellers or creators can put their NFTs on online marketplaces to be directly purchased by the public according to a fixed price, or they can have it auctioned. OpenSea, Rarible and NBA Top Shot are some of the well-known online NFT platforms, while popular auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's have also become involved in the NFT business. One successful example of this is Beeples' NFT art Everydays: The First 5000 Days, which was sold at Christie's for $69 million.

One must be aware that doing research is imperative before minting or buying an NFT, because NFT marketplaces focus on selling different kinds of non-fungibles. Some are into virtual wearables, while some sell NFT art, sports moments, or video clips. Choosing a platform depends on what one is actually looking to mint/sell or buy.

Whether a person is selling or buying NFTs, they will be asked by their chosen platform to open a digital wallet and use cryptocurrency, although some permit the use of credit card for these transactions. NFT platforms like FabriikX allow the person opening the account to use a credit card to purchase BSV, which can then be used to mint or buy NFTs. Fabriik has a non-custodial wallet that cannot be accessed by anyone aside from the account holder.

Similar to the process of traditional auction, when an NFT is placed for live auction, bidders can submit their offer and will get a notification if another bidder has a higher offer for the token. The interested party may cancel their bid while the auction is ongoing or live but not when the auction has already ended.

A notification will also be sent to the auction winner or top bidder so they may claim the asset through the purchase page. To avoid losing the NFT to another bidder, the NFT should be claimed within 24 hours.

Once an NFT has been purchased, the payment will be sent to the seller's wallet after a verification process. Payment for NFTs that are not offered for auction is transferred instantly to the seller, though it may take a few minutes depending on the speed of the transaction in that particular platform.

There have been cases where buyers lose a lot of money when transactions failed due to congestion on the network, which has notable happened on the Ethereum network during the NFT sale of Mila Kunis' animation Stoner Cats. The total loss incurred due to failed transactions, which are non-refundable, amounted to $790,000.

NFT transactions are transparent, and it is important to track these transactions and check if the transaction went through and if the payment is actually sent to the wallet of the right person.