How To Buy NFT Tokens

Non-Fungible Tokens or NFT tokens are cryptocurrencies that are sold on NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea. Similar to any marketplace, NFT marketplace allows you to open an account, fund the account and buy and own NFTs. Keep in mind, there is a cost associated with buying NFTs. Reason? Each NFT must be created unique and requires work from creators. Not only that, the content of the NFT must also be unique. For example, if an artist makes a unique art that takes him days and weeks to make, converting that into an NFT means all the work he has done in days and weeks.

If you are new to NFTs, please read, What is NFT? Everything You Need To Know About NFTs.

When a cryptocurrency like BTC and ETH are created, they are created in millions and billions. As a matter of fact, some tokens, and coins such as Dogecoin and SHIBA coin are even created in unlimited supplies (in trillions) and can keep creating each year.

However, like other crypto tokens, NFTs use blockchain to create and store. The underlying value of a cryptocurrency is its use on the platforms. NFTs do not have an underlying value like BTC or ETH or a use case such as money but their real value is the data stored in them. More valuable and in-demand the data, more valuable the NFT will be. The data can be an image, art, video, music, or even voice.

Let’s take an example of this below tweet.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet was sold for $2.91 million to @sinaEstavi.

A Lebron James NBA highlight was sold for $200,000. The following dunk video of Kevin Durant is being sold for more than $1 million.

CryptoPunks has digital characters that have been sold for more than $1 million dollars each.

Why would you want to buy or sell NFTs?

So, if there is no underlying value of NFTs then why would one want to buy NFTs? The purpose of buying NFTs is like buying and owning collectible cards, arts, or a signed photograph and either own it if you really want it or sell it when the value goes up. A majority of people buy NFTs so they can sell it for higher prices and make profit from it.

Let’s say a high school player has the potential to play in NBA. It’s a good idea to create player highlights, dunks, or shots as NFTs and sell them.

How to buy NFTs?

If you want to buy an NFT, there are several public platforms that offer to buy, sell, and trade NFTs. These platforms are called NFT marketplaces or NFT providers. NFTs can be purchased using cryptocurrencies that are supported by NFT providers.

Step 1. Buy Cryptocurrency

First, you need to buy a cryptocurrency such as ETH, BTC, and STRAX. You can buy these cryptocurrencies on popular crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, Binance.us, or Robinhood. These crypto exchanges allow you to use a credit card, debit card, or bank account to pay for crypto. Buying and selling on crypto exchanges is not free. There is a fee for every transaction and these fees can be as little as 1% to even up to 4%. So, do your own research before you buy any crypto. To learn more about the most popular crypto exchanges, check out Top Crypto Exchanges In US.

Step 2. Create an NFT Marketplace Account

NFTs are sold on NFT marketplaces. There are several popular NFT marketplaces where you can buy and sell NFTs. Your next step is to create an account with one of these marketplaces. Keep in mind, not all NFT marketspaces sell all kinds of NFTs. Each NFT marketplace is different and offers different types of content. For example, NBA’s Top Shot offers you to buy NBA highlights and other NBA players’ content. Most popular platforms to buy and sell NFTs are Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, Foundation, OpenSea, Rarible, and Mintable. There are some specialized platforms that allow only certain NFTs including NBA Top Shot, CryptoPunks, CryptoKitties, and Hashmarks.

Step 3. Fund Your Account

Once you know what kind of NFT do you want to buy and which NFT marketplace offers that service, you will have to fund the account. You can simply transfer the crypto to your account. You have to make sure the marketplace supports that crypto. For example, if a marketplace is Ethereum based, you want to fund your account with ETH.

Keep in mind, there is a feed to buy NFTs. Each marketplace has its own fees and its not one size fits all. Before you buy NFTs, you may want to check what kind of fees a marketplace has.

Once your account is funded, most of these marketplaces allows you to connect your popular crypto wallet to these marketplaces. For example, OpenSea marketplace lets you connect with MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, TrustWallet, Portis, and dozes of other crypto wallets.

Once a wallet is connected, you can easily use the wallet funds to trade.

Step 4. Buy NFT

You can now buy NFTs, mint them, and trade them.

Some platforms have bidding options and let you bid for an NFT while others have a set price, and you can just buy an NFT for that price.

Where can I buy NFTs?

There are dozens of NFT marketplaces where people can buy and sell NFTs. Some of these NFT platforms are common to all kinds of NFTs, and some of them are specialized to a specific type of NFTs. For example, NBA Top Shot only sells NFTs that are created from NBA (National Basketball Association) content only.

Here is a list of the most popular NFT platforms based on their public traffic ranking from Google and other SEO tools.

1. OpenSea
2. NBA Top Shot
3. Rarible
4. Foundation
5. NiftyGateway
6. Sorare
7. SuperRare
8. Valuables
9. Cryptopunks
10. CryptoKitties
11. Hashmarks

OpenSea

OpenSea (https://opensea.io/) is the world’s first and largest NFT marketplace that allows people to discover, collect, and sell NFTs on Ethereum blockchain. OpenSea is located in New York City and was founded in the year 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah.

OpenSea users can create their own marketplace and set their own fees using the OpenSea software. All projects must be ERC-721 compliant.

OpenSea is the largest NFT marketplace and first NFT based unicorn after it raised $100 million series B funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion recently.

NBA Top Shot

NBA Top Shot (https://nbatopshot.com/) is an NFT platform that was launched in July 2019 by the NBA in partnership with the NBA Player Association and Dapper Labs that allows people to collect, buy, and sell NBA’s official licensed highlights, photos, and videos as NFTs. A Lebron James NBA highlight was sold for $200,000.

More than 600,000 people have already sent more than $300 million on NBA Top Shot and have collected NFTs.

Currently, a Kevin Durant’s dunk is being asked for over $1 million.

Rarible

Rarible (https://rarible.com/) launched in 2020 by Alexei Falin and Alex Salnikov is an NFT marketplace that allows users to mint, buy, and sell digital collectibles without any coding skills. Rarible has its own ERC-20 token, RARI that is used for transactions. Rarible supports ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards for multi-edition mining, custom on-chain collections, and creator verification and moderation. Rarible has raised more than $15 million in several funding rounds.

Foundation

Foundation (https://foundation.app/) launched in Feb 2021 is a platform where creators can create NFTs and sell them.

Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway teams up with top artists and brands to create collections of limited edition, high quality Nifties, exclusively available on the platform. Each collection is opened at a specific time (a drop), and is only available for a limited time. Nifty Gateway is also a centralized, USD based marketplace for buying and selling Nifties.

SuperRare

SuperRare (https://superrare.com) is a digital art collection marketplace. The platform allows live auctions and bidding and once purchased, the NFTs are stored in your collection.

Valuables

Valuables (https://v.cent.co/) specialized in minting and trading rare tweets. Valuables is the platform where Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for $2.9 million. The platform allows its users to bid on tweets.

CryptoPunks

CryptoPunks developed by Larva Labs is a collection of 10,000 uniquely generated characters. No two are exactly alike, and each one of them can be officially owned by a single person and by using NFT stored on Ethereum blockchain, a person has the proof of ownership of that character. Not only can you buy punks on this platform, but you can also sell the punks you own. CryptoPunks is developed on Ethereum blockchain that is ERC-721 compliant.

SoRare

Sorare is a platform for fantasy football players where players buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team with digital player cards. The platform uses Ethereum based ERC-721 token to create non-fungible tokens (NFT). The platform was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort.

CryptoKitties

CryptoKitties allows you to collect, breed, and sell digital virtual cats. You can also breed virtual cats. Each cat on the platform has unique features and skills. The platform is based on Ethereum blockchain and uses ETH as a digital currency to buy and sell virtual cats.

Haskmarks

Hashmarks allows art creators to sell their art and buyers to buy and own art on a blockchain. A piece of digital content on Hashmarks is called a Hashmark and each Hashmask is owned by one user only.

The NFTs are stored on Ethereum blockchain and hosted on IPFS.

Summary

In this article, we learned how and where to buy NFTs. We discussed the reason to buy NFTs. We also learned about the most popular platforms to buy NFTs.

Note: This article is for informational purposes only and shall not be used as financial or investment advice. All images used in this article are copyright of their respective owners.