Dear Bankless Nation,

Business-wise, OpenSea and Rarible have already accomplished the stuff of dreams, and these NFT platforms are undoubtedly only getting started.

However when it comes to minting, OpenSea’s and Rarible’s “shared” ERC1155 contracts opt for ease and accessibility at the expense of 100% non-fungibility (not in the case of 1/1s, sure, but in the case of editions, yes).

Different tools for different occasions, right. There’s certainly a place for these types of shared contracts in the NFT ecosystem. Yet it’s also true that more than a few NFT aficionados prefer the provenance and uniqueness guarantees afforded by ERC721 tokens minted directly by their own creators.

All that said, one project I’ve been trying and enjoying lately and that might interest you too is Zora, an open-source and decentralized protocol that “extends the base ERC721 NFT Protocol, enabling markets to be owned directly by token creators.”

In today’s Metaversal, then, let’s give you the skinny on how to start minting your own ERC721s via Zora. ☀️🌛

-WMP

The Zora 101

Just like we call DeFi apps money lego projects, you can think of Zora as a cryptomedia lego project.

That’s because Zora’s NFT minting and marketplace protocol is open and permissionless, making it a “primitive to be composed and built on” as the project’s documentation notes.

Accordingly, you can use Zora to directly mint and manage your own NFT storefront and builders can readily create more cryptomedia infrastructure atop or around it.

How to mint an NFT on Zora

1. Start out by making sure you have one of the supported wallet types, e.g. MetaMask, WalletConnect, or Coinbase Wallet. 

2. Get some ETH ready in that wallet to cover your minting costs. 

3. Navigate to zora.co and click “Sign In” in the upper-right corner of the page (note: this may read as “Connect Wallet” if it’s your first time signing in).

   

4. In the ensuing “Connect Wallet” prompt, select your wallet option of choice. Your wallet will prompt you with a signature request. Press “Sign” to sign in with your wallet. 

5. Once you’re signed in, you should see a “Create” button in the page’s upper-right corner. Click on that. You’ll arrive at this minting interface:

   

6. Upload your desired files through the upload dashboard. Press “Continue” when ready to move on.

7. You’ll input the details about your NFT on the ensuing info page. Triple check everything is how you want it, because if there are any mistakes you will literally have to burn, or destroy, the NFT and then totally redo it. 

8. On the next page, you’ll be asked to set your royalty percentage. This is how much you’ll make back any time your NFT sells on the secondary marketplace. So let’s say you set your royalty at 10% and then your piece resells for 1 ETH one day. You’ll automatically get 0.1 ETH in your wallet as a royalty from that. Input your desired royalty amount and press “Continue.”

   

9. You’ll be asked to “Finalize and Publish” the piece. Yeet.

   

10.  Let the upload complete. Now your wallet will prompt you to finalize the minting transaction. When I last checked it was ~0.023 ETH to mint. Take this price into account later when listing your NFT so you can cover your minting expenses if you’d like. Press “Confirm” to complete the mint!

11. Once that transaction finishes, your NFT will be created and will show up on your Zora profile page shortly!

Action steps

• 📰 Read Zora’s protocol docs to learn more about how the project works.
• 👀 Check out the Zora NFT Validator tool.