What is minting an NFT

What is the purpose of minting?

You may have heard people ask, “Why can’t I just screenshot an NFT?” Minting is part of the answer. When you mint an NFT, it becomes stored on the blockchain, where its authenticity and ownership is established. And because the blockchain record can’t be edited, minting is the start of that NFT’s immutable history.

Minting for creators

As a creator, minting your work allows you to establish provable scarcity, verified ownership, and ongoing creator earnings. For the first time, creators can publish limited edition digital works, whose authenticity is validated on the blockchain. Ownership is undisputed and public, allowing creators to build special communities and perks for those who hold their NFTs. Creators can also set “creator fees” to earn on every secondary sale of their NFTs, and these fees are automatically programmed and executed by the NFT’s code. On OpenSea, creators can receive up to 10% of every sale after the initial sale.

Minting for collectors

Minting NFTs isn’t just for creators, however. NFT projects will often offer early access to their NFTs via a mint. When you mint an NFT from a project, you’re the first ever owner of that NFT, since the mint is when it’s written to the blockchain. Oftentimes, participating in a project’s mint is like buying a pack of Pokémon cards: you don’t know if you’ll end up with something rare.