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Does Minting an NFT Cost Money?

Throughout the past few years, we have seen an exponential increase in the overall popularity as well as value surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These tokens are now minted on a variety of different blockchain networks due to the rapid increase in popularity, as more creatives than ever before are monetizing their art through the usage of blockchain technology.

However, there is one question on the mind of most newcomers, and that is, does minting an NFT cost money? As a means of answering this question, today, we will be going a bit deeper into the world of NFTs to find out.

Minting NFTs Explained

A non-fungible token (NFT) is essentially a blockchain-based token that serves the role of proving ownership of a digital item, which can be an image, video file, or even a physical asset through the utilization of the blockchain network it is minted on.

Minting an NFT refers to the process of converting digital files into crypto-collectibles, or digital assets, which are stored within a specific blockchain.

What happens here is that the digital items, or files, are stored within a decentralized database or distributed ledger, where they cannot ever be edited, modified, or deleted later on. Throughout the minting process, the creators of the NFTs can even schedule royalties from each following sale of the NFT after the initial one, which means that this will be a commission they can receive every single time their NFT work gets sold to someone else or even traded on the secondary market. 

When it comes to the length of time required to mint an NFT, this is something that is difficult to estimate. However, there have been numerous platforms, tools, and NFT marketplaces that were developed as a means of making the NFT creation process quick and easy.

The process of creating an account or logging into an NFT marketplace only requires a user to install a MetaMask wallet, which is an Ethereum wallet. This is due to the fact that the majority of the NFTs, which are minted today, are minted on top of the Ethereum blockchain. There are, however, multiple other blockchain networks on top of which a creator can mint their NFTs.

Turning the digital content into an NFT, or uploading the file to an NFT marketplace, and listing it for sale, is similar to a process of, for example, uploading a YouTube video or a music file to Spotify. The only difference here is that it is based on blockchain technology, and the creator can monetize their content a lot easier. The file has to be uploaded in formats pre-specified and supported by the platform, which can be in the form of a PNG, JPG, GIF, MP3, or MP3 file, after which it is assigned a title, a description, and royalties, and eventually gets listed up for sale.

Make sure to learn what VQGAN stands for if you are interested in creating and minting NFTs, especially if you would like to create your own NFT’s but find that making art isn’t among your current skill set. 

Through the utilization of VQGAN+CLIP from NightCafe Studio, you can easily create incredible artworks from nothing more than a text prompt. This text-to-image artificial intelligence (AI) will produce amazing artworks without any coding required, which you can easily mint on any blockchain network. 

Does Minting an NFT Cost Money, and How Much Does Minting an NFT Cost? 

Minting an NFT on any blockchain network out there will have some costs associated with it. As Ethereum is by far one of the most popular NFT minting blockchains currently available, we will be using it as an example, but keep in mind that this is similar for other blockchains as well.

Most NFTs and NFT marketplaces are stored and even hosted through the usage of smart contracts which run on top of a specific blockchain network, in this case, Ethereum.

Using the Ethereum blockchain for creating an NFT, buying, selling, or transferring an NFT as well, has a cost associated with it. In the Ethereum blockchain, this cost is called a "gas fee" or "Gwei." As for the cost of minting an NFT, this is something that is ever-changing, depending on the demand, network congestion, and the type of consensus the underlying blockchain utilizes as a means of securing itself. 

However, the cost of minting an NFT falls under three categories that you need to be aware of.

First, there are the gas fees that are required for transacting and storing your NFT on the blockchain. Next there are the account fees, which are charged by the NFT marketplace which you have chosen to use. Finally, you have the listing fees, which are a charge for the sales listing.

These prices will differ from one blockchain platform to another. There are price differences between transactions on a single blockchain as well, and all of them are dependent on multiple factors; including the amount of data used, the speed of the transaction, and the time of day at which it is minted.

The cost of minting an NFT, as a result, ranges widely. When we convert the cost to fiat currencies, the price can range from $1 to $500 or even more; though some blockchain networks promise a minting cost of just a few cents. 

On Ethereum, for example, there is a gas limit of 21,000 and a base fee of 100 gwei, alongside a top 20 gwei. This means that the total fee is 2,520,000 gwei, which is equivalent to 0.00252 ETH. This would be equivalent to $7.92. However, you can sell your NFTs, which will recover some of this cost. Check out our article on how to make money with NFTs to learn more

Note that Ethereum is by far the most expensive blockchain platform anyone can mint on. Solana, Polygon, Cardano, Binance Chain, Tezos, and WAX are all alternatives that provide much lower prices.

The Future of Minting NFTs

In order to mint an NFT, all you have to do is upload your file and assign a title, description, and royalties, after which you can click on a "Mint NFT" button or "Put up for Sale" button, depending on the platform. This simplification has played a key role in getting as many creatives into the NFT sphere as possible, and this will likely grow. As the NFT industry evolves, the price of minting an NFT will decrease tremendously as well.

Create jaw-dropping art in seconds with AI

This is the most fun I've had on the internet in a long long time

u/DocJawbone on Reddit

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