🍬Minting your work

Learn how to tokenize your work

Introduction

Minting your work refers to the act of uploading the artwork you would like to sell and to link it to a token, representing, in a way, its certificate of authenticity or your signature. The first step will be to set up your wallet and get some ETH, the cryptocurrency used to pay fees to mint, list, accept bids, and more on Ethereum-based platforms.

You can check out our guides to setting up a wallet and to getting your first ETH. Then, you’ll be able to select the marketplace on which you’ll list your work. We’ll explore the advantages and disadvantages of each major marketplace and how to mint and list on them.

Choosing a marketplace

Minting your work on the right marketplace is crucial to your success in the space. As we have seen in our "Main marketplaces" guide, each one has a different curation process, different price mechanisms, different audiences, and more. Let’s review what you should consider when selecting your marketplace:

SuperRare

SuperRare is the largest and oldest running NFT platform dedicated to original cryptoart, with +$270M in total sales and more than $150M earned by artists since 2018. Each artwork on SR is an original and authentic 1/1 produced by a top digital creator, then tokenized for easy ownership and trading. The innovator of perpetual artist royalties, SuperRare is a user-controlled & curated marketplace governed by $RARE token holders, with a mission to revolutionize the economics of human creativity by building a new art market that anyone can access. Curation is decentralized on the platform, with artists being onboarded by curators at both SuperRare Labs as well as SuperRare Spaces, who are independent galleries on SuperRare voted in by $RARE token holders.

SuperRare is a network of, by and for creatives, focused on shepherding the digital renaissance as an emerging global art movement that will radically alter our relationships to and participation with digital art.

Nifty Gateway

Nifty Gateway is a selective marketplace for crypto art artists. Some of the top crypto artists, renowned contemporary artists, and even music stars have made drops on the platform. The selective process allows every drop to generate significant buzz and revenue for the platform and the artists. The Nifty drops give a lot of freedom to the artists who can do open editions, drawings, silent auctions, ranked auctions, and more. It’s not uncommon for artists to add quizzes or requirements like owning one of their pieces to enter drawings. As opposed to other platforms on this list, Nifty Gateway handles the minting process for the artists.

Foundation

Foundation is a great marketplace to get started or to test out new collections that don’t necessarily match the style you have developed on another marketplace. There are no requirements to be an artists on the platform as it's open and free for everyone to use. Foundation only supports 1/1 pieces with a reserve price so if you are planning on minting a larger series you might want to look for another platform. You can check out this guide to minting artwork on Foundation.

MakersPlace

MakersPlace offers a great alternative to Foundation and SuperRare with more freedom regarding drop formats and a great collector audience. MakersPlace is well curated and requires an application process. Artists can create open editions, multiple editions, and 1/1s which can help to grow their collector base.

KnownOrigin

KnownOrigin offers a great alternative to Foundation and SuperRare with more freedom regarding drop formats and a battle-tested platform that was the launchpad for some of the top artists in the space. KnownOrigin is a well curated platform and requires an application process. Artists can create multiple editions, and 1/1s which can help to grow their collector base. You can check out this guide to minting artwork on KnownOrigin.

OpenSea

OpenSea is a platform open to all creators where anyone can list any NFT. Artists who want to experiment with large editions or are struggling to find an invitation to Foundation can start on OpenSea. While it’s a great marketplace for collectibles, collectors do not value crypto art on OpenSea the same way they value it on the other major platforms because of its uncurated nature. Though, the marketplace has some interesting advantages like the ability to bundle NFTs, the ability to sell in custom currencies, and industry-low fees. You can check out this guide to minting artwork on OpenSea.

Rarible

Rarible is a platform open to all creators where anyone can list any NFT. Artists who want to experiment with large editions or are struggling to find an invitation to Foundation can start on Rarible. While it’s a great marketplace for collectibles, collectors do not value crypto art on Rarible the same way they value it on the other major platforms because of its uncurated nature. Though, the marketplace has some interesting advantages like the ability to bundle NFTs and daily rewards in RARI, its native token, to its active users. You can follow the steps here to mint artwork on Rarible.