OK, I did it! I minted my first NFT. Technically, I “froze” my first NFT. It is not listed for sale which means it is not “dropped.”
On the OpenSea platform, before you can drop (make your NFT available for purchase) you need to first “freeze” the metadata. This means the media file of the artwork, as well as all the associated information, are officially uploaded and stored on the blockchain. No changes or edits can be made afterward. If you need to fix a mistake even just a typo, you will need to “burn” (destroy) the “token” (artwork).
I chose to mint my first NFT on Ethereum (Eth/Ether) because Ether is second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization right now. I feel that market size gives it a little more long-term stability. The problem with the current version of Ethereum, of course, is the high “Gas Fee” which can often go over 100 GWEI (one billion GWEI = one ether). The Gas fee has been low recently because the world economy was impacted by the war between Russia and Ukraine. I decided to take the leap at this time to take advantage of the low Gas fee, which was around 25 GWEI when I pressed the submit button.
The two key strategic decisions that need to be made before a mint are edition number and the percentage of the artist’s royalty. I decide to go with 1/1 for the edition because that’s what I am used to as a painter. I set the artist’s royalty at 7.5%. Not really sure what is the right percentage here. But, since Open Sea charges a 2.5% transaction fee, I figured that totaled up to 10% which is a nice round number.
I picked Vis-à-Vis to be the first minted “token” in my NFT because it is a meaningful piece of artwork in my career. Vis-à-Vis was the second painting that I ever sold as a professional artist. The collector, Steve Butz, wrote me a very nice letter after purchasing it. He detailed his thoughts and observations about this painting in the letter, and his final sentence was: Thank you for being an artist. I will never forget how those words touched my heart and gave me the courage to continue pursuing a career as an artist.
Right now, I am super nervous and excited at the same time starting a new journey. It is a newbie thing. I will probably never feel like this again.