How to create and mint an NFT

Minting an NFT means writing a new record onto a blockchain that says this item exists and you control it. On a modern network that costs a fraction of a cent and takes a few minutes.

The technical part is genuinely easy now. The parts that matter — where the file lives, what the metadata says, what royalty you set, and whether anyone wants the thing — are less discussed and more consequential.

Step 1 — Prepare the work

Export at a sensible resolution. Something in the region of 2000–4000 pixels on the long edge is plenty for most still work; there is no benefit to minting a 200MB file and most platforms will reject it.

Keep your master file. This matters more than it sounds. What you mint is a reference to a file, not the file itself. If your only copy is the one you uploaded to a platform and that platform closes, you have lost the work. The blockchain record will still exist, pointing at nothing.

Consider what the piece looks like at thumbnail size. Most people will encounter it at 200 pixels wide in a grid, not full-screen.

Step 2 — Choose a chain

This is the decision that determines your costs and, to a degree, your audience.

For a first mint, choose anything except Ethereum mainnet. You learn exactly the same things for a rounding error instead of a meaningful sum. Mainnet is a decision to make once you have a reason for it — typically an established collector base that expects it.

Step 3 — Set up and fund a wallet

Same as for buying: install MetaMask or Rainbow, write the recovery phrase on paper, store it properly, never type it into a website. The wallet security guide covers this in more depth, and it is worth reading before you hold anything of value.

Fund it with a small amount of the network’s native token. On a layer 2, a couple of dollars covers many transactions.

Step 4 — Choose your minting route

Three broadly different approaches, in increasing order of control.

Marketplace minting tools

The marketplace provides a form: upload, title, description, mint. Simplest possible route, and perfectly adequate for a single piece.

The trade-off is that you are often minting into the marketplace’s shared contract rather than your own. Your work sits alongside everyone else’s under one contract address, which limits how it can be presented and ties it somewhat to that platform.

Good for: trying this once, single pieces, learning the mechanics.

A creator platform

Tools like Manifold deploy a contract that is genuinely yours, without you writing Solidity. You get your own contract address, real control over metadata and royalties, and work that is not tied to one marketplace.

Good for: artists who intend to keep minting, and anyone who wants their work under their own contract.

Your own contract

Write an ERC-721 or ERC-1155 contract, usually extending the OpenZeppelin implementations, and deploy it yourself. Complete control over mechanics, supply, reveal logic and royalties.

Good for: developers, and collections with mechanics that off-the-shelf tools cannot express. If this appeals, smart contracts explained is the starting point, and there are development courses worth considering.

Step 5 — Metadata and storage, which is the part people get wrong

The metadata is a small JSON file describing your token: name, description, a link to the image, and any traits. Both the metadata and the image have to live somewhere, and where they live determines whether your piece still exists in five years.

• IPFS — content-addressed storage, where the address is derived from the content itself. Durable as long as at least one node keeps the data pinned. Use a pinning service, or pin it yourself. This is the current sensible default.
• Arweave — pay once for storage intended to be permanent. More expensive up front, fewer ongoing worries.
• A web server — works today, and stops working the moment the domain lapses or the bill goes unpaid. Avoid this. A great many 2021-era projects now point at dead URLs.

If your minting tool offers a choice, choose IPFS or Arweave. If it does not tell you what it uses, find out before you mint. This is the single most common structural flaw in NFTs created by people who were told minting was easy — because the easy route often defaults to the fragile option.

For traits, keep them consistent. Background: Blue and background: blue are different traits to a marketplace’s filter, and inconsistency across a collection looks careless in a way that is visible to buyers.

Step 6 — Set a royalty, with realistic expectations

You will be asked for a royalty percentage on secondary sales. The convention is 5–10%.

Here is the part that is often left out: royalties are not enforced by the blockchain. They are a payment marketplaces choose to route to you, and several major venues made them optional. A substantial share of secondary volume now pays creators nothing.

So set a royalty — 5% is the sensible default — and do not build any plans on the income. The royalties guide covers why this happened and what, if anything, can be done about it. If you are splitting royalties with collaborators, the royalty split calculator will save you an argument.

Step 7 — Mint, then verify properly

Confirm the transaction and wait for it to settle. Then check three things, not one:

1. The block explorer. Does the token exist, with the owner you expect?
2. The metadata link. Click through to it. Does it resolve? Is it IPFS or a web URL?
3. A second marketplace. Does the token render somewhere other than where you minted it? This catches metadata formatting problems that the minting platform’s own preview hides.

That third check is the one people skip, and it is the one that catches the errors.

What happens next, honestly

Very little, usually. This is the part that beginner guides tend to end before reaching.

Most minted NFTs never sell. Not most in the sense of a slight majority — the overwhelming majority. Minting publishes the object; it does not create demand for it. In a market where total trading volume fell around 37% in 2025, the competition for a much smaller pool of buyers is intense.

The artists who sell are, with few exceptions, artists who had an audience before they minted anything. The NFT was a way to sell to people who already wanted the work — not a way to find those people.

If you are minting to learn how this works, it has already succeeded the moment the transaction confirms. If you are minting to sell, the honest advice is that the audience is the project and the mint is a detail. That is slower and less exciting than the 2021 framing, and it is what actually held up.

What to do after

• Keep your master files, backed up somewhere that is not a platform.
• Pin your IPFS content, or pay someone to.
• Record the transaction details for tax purposes — minting is generally not a taxable event, but selling is, and you will want the cost basis.
• Read scams and red flags. Creators are targeted too, usually through fake “your collection has been selected” messages.