Dear Bankless Nation,

It’s been a big week for NFT releases. Specifically, NFT creator tooling releases.

There’s been a flurry of movement on this infra front in recent days, so let’s catch you up on the new happenings here for today’s post!

-WMP

New NFT Minting Infra 🔥

1) create.fun 🎉

Mint aggregator platform mint.fun just expanded its horizons by unveiling create.fun, a streamlined do-it-yourself NFT creation interface.

Why it matters:

Previously focused around simplifying the NFT collector experience, mint.fun is now venturing into the creator tooling space.

This evolution offers artists a direct way to tap into the platform’s considerable user base of collectors. For example, over 450k addresses have minted mint.fun’s !fundrop rewards NFT to date.

For your radar:

mint.fun also just introduced Levels, a new tiered reward system based on user activity on its site. It resets every month and offers different benefits depending on one’s tier, i.e. Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond.

Collectors whose !fundrop passes are Silver Level or higher will earn ETH mint rewards for every mint on mint.fun. This added motivation for collectors means the time is ripe for artists to experiment with create.fun.

How to use create.fun:

• 📝 Sign in — Connect to mint.fun by providing a verification signature with your wallet.
• ⏯️ Get started — Press the “Create” button at the top of the platform, which will take you to the mint.fun/create interface.
• ✍️ Prepare your NFT — Input your project’s name, choose your deployment chain, set your NFT price, upload your desired file, etc.
• 🏁 Finalize — Click the “Create project” button and approve the creation transaction with your wallet to finish!

2) OpenSea Studio 🌊

NFT marketplace giant OpenSea just introduced OpenSea Studio, a no-code hub designed to help creatives mint and manage NFTs on their own independent smart contracts.

Why it matters:

Previously, artists on OpenSea minted their NFTs into a collective “shared” smart contract. The arrival of OpenSea Studio marks a shift toward creator-owned smart contracts created and managed per collection, a model popularized by Manifold in recent years.

Additionally, OpenSea’s twist on this system allows collectors to purchase from drops via credit or debit card for an added layer of accessibility.

For your radar:

In the months ahead, OpenSea Studio will introduce further functionalities, like enhanced storytelling features (“immersive video/image/text modules, improved roadmap and FAQ, featured NFTs,” etc.) and support for NFT editions.

The launch of OpenSea Studio also marked the end of lazy minting on OpenSea, a process that let creatives launch NFTs without upfront gas costs. Existing lazy-minted NFTs remain transferable on OpenSea, though they are no longer editable.

How to use OpenSea Studio:

• 📝 Sign in — Connect to opensea.io/studio by providing a verification signature with your wallet.
• ⏯️ Get started — Press the “Create” button at the top of the page, which will take you to the opensea.io/studio/create interface.
• 💻 Deploy your smart contract — Select whether your want to create a collection of NFTs for a community drop or mint a specific supply to your wallet, then follow the provided steps to deploy your NFT’s smart contract.
• ✍️ Prepare your NFT — The process will be different here depending on whether you’re minting to your wallet or launching a community drop; either way you’ll proceed by selecting your new contract (if you have multiple), uploading your file(s), and filling out all the provided fields with your project’s info.
• 🏁 Finalize — Click the “Create” button and approve the creation transaction with your wallet to wrap up.

3) Zora goes free 🆓

Zora, a decentralized creativity protocol, just unveiled an upgrade that allows creators to release NFTs for free on its Zora Network L2.

Why it matters:

While OpenSea just sunset its lazy minting system, Zora introduced its own. Typically, deploying NFTs onchain has required an upfront gas cost, which has previously proved to be a big barrier to creatives who are newcomers to crypto. As such, altogether Zora’s arguably the easiest place to mint an NFT right now.

In this new system, the first minter pays the gas cost for deploying the NFT while minting the first edition. In return, this first collector earns Zora Protocol Rewards, receiving 0.000111 ETH for every subsequent mint of that edition.

For your radar:

This innovative model streamlines minting for creators and also rewards collectors who help bring new works onchain. This incentivized win-win approach is poised to bring a new wave of users to Zora.

Since this lazy minting system is only available on the Zora Network L2, at least currently, it gives the NFT-centric rollup a significant unique selling point amid the early L2 boom as well.

How to create NFTs for free:

• 📝 Sign in — Connect to zora.co by providing a verification signature with your wallet.
• ⏯️ Get started — Click the “+” Button in the top right corner of the page to initiate the creation process, this will take you to zora.co/create.
• ✍️ Prepare your NFT — Upload your desired file, choose an existing collection to add to or create a new one, select Zora Network as your deployment network, input the project name, etc.
• 🏁 Finalize — Click the “Create” button and approve the creation with a gasless verification signature from your wallet; remember, the NFT won’t actually be minted onchain until the first collector comes along.