How to create an NFT For Free?

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Over the past few years, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have grown in prominence thanks to billions in trading volume and a sharp increase in celebrity endorsements, which have propelled artwork to the forefront of mainstream media sources. You can mint (make or manufacture something) and submit your artwork to a blockchain by directly creating NFTs on NFT platforms.

For novice developers seeking to experiment with NFT, the minting expenses might be a substantial deterrent. The good news is that you may create your first NFT for free, avoiding all the expenses related to NFT minting. If you are a newbie and wish to explore the world of NFTs without incurring many risks, creating your NFT for free is great. So, we'll demonstrate how to create an NFT for free in this article.

How to create an NFT For Free: Steps by Steps

1. Determine the NFT type you want to create

NFTs are frequently connected to a work of digital art. It may be a picture, a piece of music (like a song), or even a little film (like an animated GIF). The objective is to produce an original piece of digital media that you can sell, much like when selling paintings at an art gallery.

NFTs are advantageous to creators since they are distinctive and one-of-a-kind. Nevertheless, if you don't possess the rights to the media, making an NFT from it may be illegal.

2. Choose the Blockchain

The NFTs can be stored on multiple blockchains platforms. Choosing the NFT that best suits your needs is crucial since the blockchain will retain a permanent record of it.

Ethereum Network: The most well-liked NFT blockchain, Ethereum, has thousands of NFT collections. Ethereum NFTs use the ERC-721 standard to record the NFT's information on the blockchain. This standard, created by the ERC-20 smart contract, specifies the minimal interface for trading and distributing gaming tokens. It includes ownership information, security information, and metadata—all necessary for trading and distributing gaming tokens.
Polygon Network: If you're searching for an Ethereum substitute, Polygon is a Layer 2 answer. You may use this to launch your smart contracts on the polygon network instead of deploying to the Ethereum network. Additionally, utilizing Polygon on OpenSea has no upfront gas expenditures.
Solana Network: After Polygon, Solana is the blockchain that is most similar to Ethereum. Solana was designed to be a quicker, more affordable substitute for Ethereum. Transaction costs are less than $0.01, and more apps are beginning to embrace NFTs. The consensus algorithms used by Solana include proof-of-history (PoH) and proof-of-stake (PoS), and its transaction speeds are substantially higher than those of Ethereum.

3. Create a wallet to store your NFT

Once you've chosen a blockchain, you'll need a digital wallet that works with that blockchain to keep your NFT. Download the crypto wallet app, fill out the username and password fields, then offline backup both your private keys and recovery phrase to establish a wallet.

Several well-known wallet applications support several blockchains:

MetaMask: The Ethereum and Solana blockchains are supported by the widely used cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask. It comes with a separate mobile app and a browser add-on.
Coinbase Wallet: The digital wallet provided by Coinbase may be used to hold both the Solana NFT collections and ERC-721 NFT tokens. You may download it as a browser extension or a mobile app.
Ledger Nano X: You may keep your NFTs in a secure hardware wallet; the Ledger Nano X is compatible with Ethereum, Polygon, and other NFTs.

4. Choose an NFT Platform

There are several platforms for NFT creation, but the better ones include a full market for listing and selling NFTs. Typical NFT platforms are:

OpenSea: OpenSea is by far the most widely used NFT platform. OpenSea is the leading platform for Ethereum-based NFTs, with more than $20 billion in trade activity since its introduction in 2017 and more than 2 million NFT collections posted. In July 2022, OpenSea also started supporting Solana NFTs.
Rarible: Today's digital asset makers and artists will value the Rarible NFT marketplace's various advantages. The token is also a solid means to provide platform-based NFT traders an incentive to create market liquidity. On Rarible, NFTs can be purchased or sold using RARI tokens. A community-run NFT marketplace called Rarible has its own governance token. Compared to OpenSea, it offers additional tools to track artwork. Therefore, in this essay, we shall mint NFTs using Rarible.

Two Ways to Mint an NFT for free

There are now two methods for producing NFTs without paying fees, including lazy minting and creating NFT for free using Polygon Blockchain.

Lazy Minting

The costs of minting NFTS are still there even with lazy minting. Lazy minting is based on the premise that NFT makers can mint NFT without having to pay a charge up front. On the other hand, the buyer is the one who pays the fees at the time of the transaction. The lazy minting is offered by OpenSea, Rarible, Binance NFT, Nifty Gateway, and other NFT marketplaces. Lazy NFT minting is the same as conventional NFT minting. In this post, we'll describe lazy minting using Rarible as an example. If you want to avoid paying transaction fees, you may "lazy mint" on Ethereum. If you do, there won't be any costs associated with minting your NFT. However, keep in mind that your initial consumer will pay more for hastily created NFTs. Therefore, if you pay minting costs, it will be simpler to sell your NFTs once you've established a sizable NFT community.

Creating an NFT For Free on Rarible

1. Create a Rarible Account

Use your web browser to navigate to the Rarible website.
On the Rarible webpage, select the "Connect Wallet" tab in the upper right.
For access to Rarible's website, you must choose a bitcoin wallet. You can use either your Trust wallet or your MetaMask wallet.
To finish the online login procedure, click the "connect" option.
Following this procedure, you may move on with designing your NFTs

2. Transform your artwork into NFT

The Rarible website will direct you to a page where you can select whether to generate a single NFT or an NFT collection once your MetaMask wallet has been linked.
Choose the single NFT creation option (You can pursue an NFT collection once you are familiar with minting NFTs.)
You should now be prepared with the artwork that will become an NFT. It may be a picture, music, movie, work of 3D art, an avatar, a ticket, or the name of your website.
Upload the media file by choosing "choose file."
The price at which you want to sell your NFT can then be decided. As well as these choices, you may also post your NFT on the market without having an auction or selecting the coin you wish to accept in exchange for it.
Select "Free Minting" once you have looked through all of the alternatives.
You must then provide further information about your NFT, such a name, a description, your intended royalties, and other facts.
To finish creating the NFT, click the "create item" button.
After that, pop-ups will appear to let you know that your NFT creation is proceeding. However, Rarible will first create a contract with your wallet to register your NFT before the creation procedure is finished. When this Rare contract displays, click the "sign" button on MetaMask.
You've made your first NFT for free!

Creating an NFT For Free Using Polygon Blockchain

Using Polygon Blockchain is the second way to create an NFT for free.

A blockchain made exclusively for Ethereum is called Polygon. It works with all existing and upcoming Ethereum infrastructures. Because of its fast transfer rate, cheap transaction costs, and compatibility with all kinds of blockchain networks, Polygon outperforms Ethereum NFTs. On the Polygon blockchain, it is also straightforward to produce new NFTs, purchase them, and modify who owns them.

While it would seem like a clever solution to remove the cost of NFT creation for authors by moving NFT minting fees to the consumer, it is still not fully free. An entirely free solution is to do away with minting costs using the Polygon-Matic blockchain. The Polygon blockchain does not charge transaction fees for the registration of NFTs. So how can you use the Polygon blockchain to generate an NFT? You must first have a MetaMask wallet and make certain changes to your MetaMask wallet, though.

1. Add Polygon Network to MetaMask Wallet

Click on the MetaMask extension icon in your open browser. It can be at the upper right corner of your browser, near to your menu button or under the extensions menu.
Enter your password to open the wallet after that. In the top-right corner of MetaMask, choose "Ethereum Mainnet". After selecting it, select "Add Network" from the menu.
You'll see the MetaMask dashboard after clicking the "create network" button in a new tab. You will be prompted by the extension to provide these data in order to characterize your network.
Fill up each column with the specific information listed below:
- Network Name: Polygon
- New RPC URL: https://polygon-rpc.com
- Chain ID: 137
- Currency Symbol: MATIC
- Block Explorer URL: https://polygonscan.com/
To finish the registration process, click “Save” button

The Polygon blockchain has already been loaded to your MetaMask wallet. Finding an NFT producer that takes Polygon and produces NFT for free is the only thing left to accomplish. We advise utilizing OpenSea for this. To begin, though, you must first create an account.

2. Create an OpenSea account

Open MetaMask browser and head to the OpenSea website (opensea.io)
Click the “Create” button in the upper right corner.
You will now be prompted by OpenSea to choose a wallet for registration.
Then click on MetaMask to choose it. The extension will then ask for your approval.
Click the "next" button, then the "sign" option to establish your account.
Make sure your Matic/Polygon account is shown in lieu of the Ethereum account by checking this again.
If your MetaMask add-on was still using Ethereum at the previous stage, you may quickly switch to Polygon.
To achieve this, use the "Ethereum Mainnet" option from the drop-down menu that displays after choosing the MetaMask extension.
Your newly opened customized Polygon network is now visible here. Click the name of the network to sign up for it.

3. Create NFT For Free

Once your account is complete, OpenSea will send you an invitation to submit your media content. Avatars, 3D art, and pixel art are all acceptable here.
Click the blank box next to the upload choice to add a media file.
After filling in these details, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. Here, select Polygon rather than Ethereum from the drop-down selection under the blockchain section.
Click the "create" button to store your NFT after that.
Once the NFT is ready, list it on the market by selecting "sell" from the menu in the top right. Keep in mind that you won't be able to modify it after it goes on sale.
On the listing dashboard, you may input the item's price in Ethereum. OpenSea now only allows you to list it for a six-month period due to its extreme popularity. If you wish to sell more than one copy from your NFT supply, you may also set up bespoke amounts.
Select "Complete Listing" from the menu once you've completed the last few entries.
You must consent to a transaction and execute a contract with OpenSea in order to list the NFT. For either of these, there is no cost.
When the MetaMask pop-up window displays, click "unlock" first, followed by "approve." Second, choose "sign" from the MetaMask pop-up menu and "sign" on OpenSea.

Your NFT will be offered for sale on OpenSea right away, with the price you assigned to it and the moment it was made visible.

Final Words

The process for new NFT makers to build a free NFT has been thoroughly explained in this post. An NFT may be created without having to pay any costs. However, if you want to sell your works, you must make sure that they are distinctive and beneficial to your intended market.

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