What's a good artwork worth in the global market these days? Any established art collector will testify that buying into rare creations and authentic inventions can be quite lucrative.
NFTs are topping the charts in the Art markets today, and they are one-of-a-kind, rare finds of authentic creations stored on the blockchain.
In the NFT Series 1, we dissected what an NFT is, and how it can transform our world as we know it. If you’ve been researching NFT and want to know if they’re worth your last penny, in this article, we will be delving further into how to invest in NFT, where to buy, how to create your NFT and a lot more.
✨How To Invest in NFT
Investing in NFTs is much like being an art collector, you need to have an eye for art, be ready to collect interesting projects and know the big and promising art creators in the industry. You should also understand how NFTs are created to decide if you will invest in generative art collections or original digital copies of real art. So research is very important here.
A couple of ways to invest in NFTs are:
1. Buying and selling at a profit:
The holy grail of investing is to buy low and sell high — BLSH. This applies to NFT and all types of cryptocurrency coins too. The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection is one of the most popular examples of BLSH. Last September, Sotheby’s — a famous art house — auctioned a set of 101 BAYC NFTs at over $24 million out of the 10,000 pieces. One BAYC piece, in particular, BAYC #8817, was sold for $3.4 million making it the most expensive piece in the collection. What made the BAYC piece a profitable investment, however, is that the seller originally bought it for $236 making an astronomical profit margin.
2. NFT staking For lovers of crypto passive income earning, staking is a popular concept. It is said to be one of the safest and low-risk investment strategies with potentially high rewards in the web3 space. NFT staking is also known as NFT farming and it involves locking up your NFTs on a blockchain protocol to farm interest. The staking platform you choose calculates the worth of your asset to determine an Annual Percentage Rate which you will earn for the duration of your stake
3. NFT minting Minting is the process of creating a digital record on the blockchain as a non-fungible token. The web3 space is key to granting open access to everyone, including upcoming artists and content creators. This includes the ability to create your own NFT and sell it. Minting NFT can be very easy, especially on popular NFT marketplaces. The basic requirements involve getting a crypto wallet that is interoperable to make payments for minting fees.
✨Where to buy: NFT Marketplaces NFT marketplaces are the gateway to buying and selling digital assets ranging from art to music and the entire virtual world. NFT marketplaces are the Amazon of the digital world. There are dozens of NFT marketplaces, many of which cater to a specialized sector or niche.
* OpenSea In terms of NFT sales, OpenSea is the market leader. OpenSea has a wide range of digital materials available on its platform, and signing up and browsing the broad choices is completely free. It also helps artists and creators, and it provides a simple approach to NFT minting. The famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Cryptopunks are housed on this platform.
* Rarible Rarible, like OpenSea, is a big marketplace for all kinds of NFTs. On the site, you can buy, sell, or create all kinds of art, movies, collectables, and music. However, unlike OpenSea, you’ll have to purchase and sell using the marketplace’s own token, Rarible (CRYPTO: RARI).
* SupeRare SuperRare, like Rarible, is creating a marketplace for digital producers. Collectors can purchase artwork using Ethereum on the site, which includes art, films, and 3D imagery.
* Foundation To use Foundation, artists must be invited by the Foundation community to join the platform, and buyers only need an Ethereum-funded crypto wallet to get started. Foundation isn’t the ideal place to start if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to start making your own NFTs, but the marketplace offers plenty of artwork that can be seen in a basic fashion.
* Nifty Gateway Nifty Gateway is an art curation platform powered by Gemini, a crypto exchange platform owned by the Winklevoss twins. Nifty Gateway has sold the work of some of the most well-known digital artists, including Beeple and singer/musician Grimes. Any NFTs purchased through Nifty are hosted by Nifty Gateway and Gemini, rather than being stored in your own wallet.
* CNFT CNFT.io is the first Cardano-based NFT marketplace. Before its launch, Cardano NFT transactions were carried out using discord escrow services. The Cardano network is faster, cheaper and consumes less energy than Ethereum. These benefits make CNFT a much cheaper alternative to Ethereum’s many NFT marketplaces as it costs a lot less to execute smart contracts. NFT investors are better able to make a profit or manage their losses when flipping NFTs. It can also help artists gain wider exposure simply by having much lower barriers to entry.
✨What exactly do you own when you buy an NFT? NFTs can be linked to a digital or physical asset as well as a license to use that asset for a specific purpose. The extralegal nature of NFT trading frequently results in an unofficial transfer of ownership of the item with no legal basis for enforcement, often resulting in little more than a status symbol.
Although NFT ledgers claim to give a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership, the legal rights that an NFT conveys can be ambiguous. NFTs do not block the creation of NFTs with identical related files, nor do they restrict the sharing or copying of the underlying digital data. They also do not impart the copyright of the digital files.
Unless the copyright ownership is explicitly transferred, the original owner of an NFT may manufacture new NFTs of the same work. In this respect, an NFT is essentially a separate proof of ownership from copyright.
Create your own NFT
The first step to creating your own NFTs is researching what NFT marketplace you want to deploy it on. Your chosen marketplace should have a step-by-step guide for uploading your digital file to their platform
Generally, you will need a few things to get started.
Your digital artwork — could be a picture, song or collectable
Specified cryptocurrency — to pay the minting fee
A cryptocurrency wallet — to store your crypto
A blockchain platform (marketplace or minting sites) — This is where you will create your non-fungible token.
Once you have created your NFT, it is time to decide how to sell it. Depending on your chosen marketplace, you can either;
Sell it for a set price: If you set a preset price, you’ll be able to sell your NFT to the first individual who is willing to pay that price.
Set up a timed auction: A timed auction will allow individuals interested in your NFT to submit their final bid within a certain amount of time.
Set up an unlimited auction: There is no time limit on an unlimited auction. Instead, you have complete control over when the auction ends.
Conclusion NFTs can cost anything from a few dollars to a few million. And while they are amazing new technology, the age-old rules of investing still apply. Investing in assets because they are NFTs is a bad idea. Make sure to understand the value and risks of every investment before you spend your hard-earned money on it. With so many NFTs on the market right now, it can be difficult to decide where to start. This guide shows you the best methods and platforms with which you can take that first step to making money from NFT ownership.
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