What are Non Fungible Tokens? How to create NFTs?

Introduction

Welcome to the exciting world of Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs for short! If you're new to this, don't worry; we're here to guide you through it all.

In this guide, we're going to talk about NFTs and walk you through the process of creating your very own NFT. Regardless of your background or technical expertise, this guide is here to help you bring your creative ideas to life in the world of digital assets. Let's start with this exciting journey.

What are Non-Fungible Tokens?

NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are like digital certificates that prove ownership of something unique. Unlike other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, NFTs can represent one-of-a-kind things, like special pieces of art or rare collectibles.

How do NFTs differ from Cryptocurrencies?

While Bitcoin and Ethereum are like digital money that can be exchanged for other currencies or goods, NFTs have their value based on their rarity and uniqueness. They are unique and can't be swapped for something else on a one-to-one basis.

Use Cases of NFTs

NFTs find their way into various aspects of our digital lives. They can be beautiful digital artworks, cherished collectibles, or even plots of land in virtual worlds. Think of them as digital treasures with immense potential for creativity and ownership. You have something unique and distinctive in the digital world when you own an NFT.

Types of NFTs

NFTs have a wide range of applications, from digital art to collectibles and even virtual real estate, and their type depends upon their application. Some of the applications of NFTs.

1. Art and Collectables

NFTs bring up a whole new world when it comes to Art and Collectibles. Think about owning a piece of digital art that not only looks great but also comes with a digital certificate guaranteeing its authenticity. Artists from all around the world are now displaying their work in this unique style. It's like having a virtual gallery at your disposal.

2. Virtual Real Estate

Virtual Real Estate is like owning a piece of the digital world. It's an exciting area where NFTs are changing how we define ownership. Just like owning physical land, we can develop, trade, and even create experiences on virtual land. It's like being a digital real estate tycoon in the digital real estate market, with limitless opportunities for innovation.

3. Gaming Assets

Gaming Assets have seen a true revolution with NFTs. In the past, in-game items were just that - items confined to the game. But now, they can be truly owned. Just think of having a rare, powerful sword in a game that you can sell, trade, or even showcase outside of the game environment. NFTs are giving players a whole new level of investment and engagement in their favorite virtual environment.

4. Intellectual property and Licensing

NFTs in Intellectual Property and Licensing are helping artists and creators in a great way. Now, they can use NFTs to prove they own their work and control who can use it. This means they can get paid fairly for their creative efforts and get the recognition they deserve. It's like a digital revolution for artists' rights, making sure they're properly credited for their work.

How to create NFT?

NFT creation in today's world is an easy task. All we need to do is have a basic understanding of blockchain, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and wallets. In this section, I will guide you through creating your very own NFT in an extremely easy manner.

Getting Started with NFT Creation

To start creating NFTs, we will need an established blockchain environment like Ethereum, Binance, or Polygon and a tool to write and deploy smart contracts, which we will be deploying to create NFTs. In this tutorial, I will be moving forward with the Polygon blockchain and REMIX IDE as tools that will help me in deploying the smart contract to the blockchain. We will also be a cryptocurrency wallet with some funds in it to deploy our smart contract and create NFT. I will be using Metamask. You are free to use any cryptocurrency wallet. To learn more about Remix and how to create our own cryptocurrency wallet, you can read my previous article on How to Use Remix IDE to Create and Deploy Smart Contracts.

After we are ready with our wallet and IDE, let's start with creating the smart contract for NFT creation.

Creating Smart Contract for NFT Creation

Now that we have a solid understanding of blockchain and the basics of NFTs let's dive into the heart of NFT creation - writing a smart contract.

What is ERC721?

ERC721 is a standard for representing ownership of non-fungible tokens. Unlike cryptocurrencies, each token is unique and indivisible. This protocol is widely used for NFTs, ensuring that each digital asset is distinct and can be owned by a single address.

Choosing a smart contract creation approach

You have two main options here. You can either write your smart contract from scratch or use a trusted library like OpenZeppelin. OpenZeppelin provides battle-tested, community-reviewed security patterns for smart contracts. This tool simplifies the process, making it more accessible, especially for beginners.

If we opt for OpenZeppelin, we will benefit from a framework that provides pre-built implementations of popular standards like ERC721. This means we do not have to start from scratch, saving our time and ensuring security. One can leverage their library to create a robust, fully functional smart contract for their NFT project.

In this tutorial, I will be using the pre-built implementation from OpenZeppelin to create the smart contract.

Let's start by creating our smart contract. Follow the steps mentioned below.

Step 1. Visit OpenZeppelin

Go to www.openzeppelin.com. Here on the homepage, under the product section that you can find in the navbar, select contract library.

Scroll down to the contract wizard panel.

Step 2. Select the standard and the properties of your contract.

Select the standard ERC721 and the basic properties that you want your contact to have.

Here, we selected

• ERC721: This standard is selected as it signifies that the contract is following all the functions and events specified in the ERC721 standard, which is used by contracts specialized for NFT creation.
• Name and Symbol: This is the name and symbol for the NFT contract. It does not affect the name that the NFT creator wants to give to their NFT. You can choose any name and symbol for your contract.
• Minatable and Auto Increment IDs: This feature specifies that new NFTs can be created using the contract, and the ID for the new NFT will be incremented by 1 for the previous NFT stored in the contract.
• URI Storage: This feature specifies that the NFT created using this contract will have URI storage available. In the URI storage, we store the hosted link of the JSON file, which contains information regarding our NFT.
• Ownable: This shows that the NFT and contract are ownable by their creator.

Step 3. Open the code in Remix IDE

Copy the code to the clipboard and paste it into your REMIX IDE, or directly open the contract code on REMIX. Name the contract file with the same name as the Name of the Contract you provided in the previous step. In our case, NFTContract and with extension .sol.

Adjust your Rermix compiler version with the source file version and compile the contract code.

Step 4. Deploy the contract

After the successful compilation of the contract, it's now time to deploy the contract to a blockchain network. I suggest you use a test network like Goerli Testnet, Polygon Mumbai, etc, to test the working of your contract and later deploy it on the mainnet when you are satisfied with the contract's functioning.

Connect your wallet with Remix and deploy the contract.

Here, we are deploying the NFT contract to the polygon testnet chain. Confirm the transaction to deploy the contract.

Step 5. Create an NFT metadata

Now, our contract is ready, which will help us in creating NFTs. To create our NFT on-chain and make it visible to a marketplace, we first need to create an NFT metadata.

Let's select a random image from the internet that we like and create a JSON file with the key pairs of Name, Image, and Description.

For this tutorial, I will be using an image and JSON file that I already have hosted with the below-provided key-value pair.

"name": The NFT name

"image": the link to the image

"description": The NFT description

After the metadata is created, host the metadata to some URL. We will be using this URL as the URI for the NFT.

Step 6. Sign a transaction to create NFT

After you are ready with your metadata.json file URL, it's time to create the NFT.

Remix provides us with a user interface to interact with the deployed contract. We can find the recently deployed contract by scrolling down on the Deploy & Run Transactions tab.

Interact with the safe mint function, which is used to create new NFTs, fill in the parameters, and transact.

Here

• to: the address of the NFT Owner
• URI: the hosted link of the NFT metadata

After signing the transaction using your wallet, you can check the transaction hash on any block explorer like Polygon scan.

Step 7. Check the NFT on OpenSea

After we have created our NFT Contract and created and deployed our first NFT, it's time to visit it on a marketplace.

OpenSea provides us with a testnet marketplace where we can search for our NFTs.

Visit testnets.opensea.io here and search for your NFT Contract using the contract address. You can see all the NFT Items created using your NFT Contract.

Note. It may take some time for your NFT and NFT contract to be visible on Opensea. Please keep patience.

Click on the NFT Image to view the NFT Details.

Congratulations, with this, you have successfully created an NFT.

Summary

In this article, we have introduced NFTs and provided a step-by-step tutorial for creating your own. NFTs represent unique digital assets and have various applications. The article covers blockchain basics, smart contracts, and cryptocurrency wallets, focusing on using the Polygon blockchain and REMIX IDE. It emphasizes the importance of ERC721 and suggests using OpenZeppelin for contract creation. The process involves deploying a smart contract, creating NFT metadata, and interacting with the contract.