NFTs have become one of the hottest crypto trends of 2021, with overall sales up 55% already since 2020, from $250 million to $389 million. Here’s how you can create, purchase and sell these popular digitals assets.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are unique collectible crypto assets, have been around as early as 2012 when the concept of Bitcoin Colored Coins first emerged.
These coins were simply satoshis – small fractions of a bitcoin – marked, or “colored in” with distinct information that could link the coins to real-world assets, such as “this satoshi represents $500 of John Doe’s New York office building.”
For the most part, however, Colored Coins were used to create and trade artwork like “Rare Pepe” digital cards on Counterparty, a peer-to-peer trading platform built on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain.
These cartoon frog images adapted from a viral internet meme were some of the earliest examples of unique digital artwork tied to crypto tokens. This paved the way for the ideation and creation of new non-fungible token standards – a set of blockchain building blocks that allow developers to create their own NFTs.
NFTs can be used to represent virtually any type of real or intangible item, including:
Artwork
Virtual items within video games such as skins, virtual currency, weapons and avatars
Music
Collectibles (e.g. digital trading cards)
Tokenized real-world assets, from real estate and cars to racehorses and designer sneakers
Virtual land
Video footage of iconic sporting moments
How to Buy NFT
If you want to know how to buy NFT, then you need to follow certain steps. Before you can buy any NFT, you need to figure out where NFTs are being sold in the first place.
As it’s a blockchain-based token, there are marketplaces where you can buy and sell NFTs. So, before going further, we’ll point out some of the popular marketplaces for you.
Where to Buy NFTs
Various marketplaces online can offer you a platform to buy and sell NFTs. But not all marketplaces offer the same type of collectible or arts. Therefore, based on the marketplace you choose, you can purchase a certain type of collectible. Most of these marketplaces have a wide range of NFTs that you can buy, but every platform works a bit differently.
If you are confused about where to buy NFTs, then here are some of the marketplaces that you can use to buy and sell NFTs:
OpenSea
OpenSea is a wonderful NFT marketplace that uses Ethereum. More so, users can use crypto to buy non-fungible tokens. It offers a lot of collectibles, starting from artwork to video games. However, to use this platform, you will have to get a blockchain wallet like Metamask. OpenSea supports a lot of blockchain wallets such as Metamask, Trust, Coinbase, Argent, and so on. This is one of the top platforms where you can buy NFTs.
SuperRare
SuperRare is another good platform for buying NFTs. Here, all of the pieces are unique, and people can sell and buy all the tokens from their platforms. More so, this platform uses the Ethereum network, so you need to buy Ether in order to purchase any piece of item from this site.
CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks is one of the rising stars at the moment. It’s a bit different than other NFT marketplaces. In reality, these are mainly 24×24 pixel images. All of the images are generated automatically, using algorithms.
Most of these images are girls and guys that look like punks, but there are rarer items such as zombie punks or Alien punks. Anyhow, all of the punks have their very own portfolio where you can see their characteristics and ownership status and whether they are up for sale or not.
This is somewhat similar to CryptoKitties, where every single item is unique. Similarly, here every single punk is different. In this marketplace, you can buy punks, bid on them, and auction them at a higher price.
Rarible
Rarible is quite similar to OpenSea and plays an active role in token-based blockchain digital transformation. In this marketplace, you can also create, buy, sell, bid on art pieces.
All you have to do is take your digital content and create an NFT on this platform and auction it. People who want to buy these digital images can bid on them, and the highest bidder gets the ownership of that image.
Also, you can create more than 1 NFT for a single image for selling purposes and sell it multiple times. More so, you can even receive a percentage for resales.
Sorare
Sorare is specifically geared towards soccer cards. This platform offers buying and selling of limited-edition digital soccer cards.
At present, there are 125 clubs enlisted in the marketplace, and they are adding more and more every week. If you are a soccer fan, then Sorare is the perfect NFT marketplace for you as you can buy your favorite players’ soccer cards.
Now that you know where to buy NFTs let’s move on to your account.
Creating and Funding Your Account
You can choose any NFT marketplace and create an account. However, before you can buy or even sell anything, you need to connect to your blockchain wallet. As most of the NFTs are Ethereum-based, most of the marketplaces accept Ether as a viable payment.
To buy Ether, you’ll need an account in crypto exchange and then send the crypto to your blockchain wallet.
Once you have enough funds, you can go ahead and connect your wallet to the NFT marketplace account. There, you are done! Now you can buy NFT anytime you want!
Blockchain Wallets
Well, as you already know, to buy and sell NFTs, you need to have a blockchain wallet that possibly supports ERC standards such as ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards. Both of these are specially geared for NFTs. However, ERC-1155 is fairly new, so some of the popular wallets still may not support it.
Anyway, to help you out, we’ll list some of the blockchain wallets that you can use to store your NFTs and other cryptos in order to buy NFT. Most of the NFT marketplaces support these wallets.
MetaMask
MetaMask is one of the popular decentralized finance applications that use the Ethereum network. In reality, you can use this wallet as an extension to your browser, such as Firefox, Chrome, and so on. Using Metamask, you can access your funds and other Ethereum based tokens.
If you are a blockchain developer, you can also access the test network using MetaMask. Furthermore, MetaMask lowers entry barriers for people interested in Ethereum by offering an abstraction to the users. You can store your NFTs in this too.
More so, all your private keys are fully encrypted and stored on the device. You can access the keys whenever you want and accept or reject your NFT sales.
Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase wallet is another popular one among the NFT platforms. It supports multi-coins, any kind of digital collectibles and offers secured storage. There is one definitive change here.
Instead of using only addresses, you can transact using your Coinbase wallet name. In reality, it comes in a standalone app format, which makes it even easier for you to use as you can install the app on your mobile devices as well.
Buy Your NFT
This is the last step you need to take in order to buy NFT. Once you are done with funding your wallet and account, the buying process is quite simple.
Most of the NFT marketplaces have auction mode, where you can submit your bid and wait for a certain amount of time to see if you got the piece or not. Sometimes an auction can go on for days, and if you really want to buy a piece, you’ll have to outbid the highest bidder.
On the other hand, buying an NFT from the primary marketplace is a best practice as the resale value is quite high when you put it up for sale on another platform.
Well, there are certain downsides to it as well. In any case, it’s hard to predict how the evaluation of the NFT will be as the demand can increase or decrease at any moment.
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