A detail taken from a collage “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” by digital artist BEEPLE, which is being auctioned in Christie’s, an unknown location, in this undated Reuters flyer.
Beeple | Christie’s Images Ltd. | via Reuters
You’ve probably heard a lot about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) lately.
Beeple’s artist Mike Winkelmann made headlines earlier this month when he sold an NFT for $ 69 million. But people spend millions of dollars on all kinds of collectibles, from sports trading cards and highlight reels to digital houses, augmented reality sneakers, and music.
I will show you how to buy and sell them.
An NFT is a new type of digital asset. Ownership is recorded on a blockchain – a digital ledger similar to the networks on which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are based. Each NFT is unique and cannot be duplicated. So you can think of these as unique digital items that no one else owns. Sure, people might have a picture of a piece of art that you bought as an NFT, for example, but they don’t own the original. That makes them alluring. And the chances are that because they can be rare, you can sell one for more money later. Just like with the fine arts.
You can use different currencies to buy NFTs. For example, NBA Top Shot allows you to buy them with a credit card. However, other platforms require you to use cryptocurrency.
Now I’m going to show you how to get into the NFT craze with the popular OpenSea platform. I will also show you how to convert digital assets to NFTs and sell them in case you are an artist looking to sell something.
Where can I buy NFTs?
OK, you’ve heard of all of these artists and people selling NFTs. You want to start your own collection. Where do you start
You can buy them online through various marketplaces. OpenSea is big, and you consider it an online gallery where you can browse digital art, trading cards, and other collectibles.
It works like an auction house where you bid on items and hope you’ll be the winner, but some offers like “Buy Now” at a set price. I’m going to show you how to buy NFTs on OpenSea here in the guide, but there are a few things we need to do first.
How to Create a Digital Wallet to Buy NFTs
Install the MetaMask digital wallet in Chrome.
Before you begin, you need to add money to a digital wallet that you can spend money from.
OpenSea uses Ether, which is a cryptocurrency that you need to buy. Think of this as an arcade: you go in and want to play some games. But before you can play the games, you need to buy some tokens. Same idea here, but the tokens are called ethers, and instead of buying lots of tokens, you will likely start small with fractions of ether. As of March 23, a single ether is worth approximately $ 1,706.
OK, so back to that digital wallet. OpenSea suggests using a plug-in for the Chrome browser called MetaMask, but it supports many other digital wallets.
It took me about 30 seconds to install the OpenSea plug-in and set a password. Let’s do this now.
- On the OpenSea website, tap the profile icon in the top right corner.
- Click Get MetaMask.
- Select “Install MetaMask” for Chrome (or the supported browser of your choice). This will install a Chrome plug-in.
- Choose Get Started.
- Select “Create Wallet”.
- Select “No thanks” for sharing feedback.
- Create your password.
- Write down the secret phrase he gives you. This is very important and your backup to access your account. Don’t lose it.
- Tap Next and confirm the secret phrase.
- Click “Next” to link your OpenSea account to the MetaMask digital wallet you just created.
- Click Connect again.
Ok, now you have a digital wallet connected to OpenSea. Now you need to buy some ether to spend on NFTs.
How do I buy ether
You need a digital wallet to buy NFTs.
You can use a variety of apps to buy cryptocurrencies. Coinbase is very popular. Robinhood too. Let’s use MetaMask to buy ether for the sake of simplicity, since we already use this as a digital wallet and have already connected it to OpenSea.
In the last step we installed the MetaMask plug-in for Chrome. We can use the same plug-in to buy ether. To do that:
- Tap the little puzzle piece icon in the top right corner of Chrome at the end of your URL field.
- Click the MetaMask fox icon.
- Tap on “Buy”. (Select “Deposit Ether Directly” if you already have some in another account.)
- Click “Continue to Wyre”.
- Choose how much ether to buy. There is a $ 5 transaction fee and a $ 4.88 network fee. So buy all of the ether you need now to avoid additional transaction fees. Get used to these fees, there are more when you buy something.
- Click next.
- Enter your payment information and phone number.
- Tap on “Submit”.
- Enter the payment authentication code you received on your phone.
- Authorize the purchase by entering the six-digit pending Wyre transaction code in your bank account.
Now you’ve bought some ether. In a few minutes it will be available in your MetaMask account. That means you’re ready to buy NFTs.
How do I buy NFTs?
Here is a CryptoKitties NFT to collect.
Now you can bid on and buy NFTs. Let’s go back to OpenSea. You can have a look around by tapping Explore. You can find all kinds of images for sale, whether it’s rotating objects, blinking icons, or just text phrases.
You may come across something that you want. Let’s say we like this CryptoKitties picture (above) called “Zuzu Meowfluff”. It’s priced at 0.005 ether, which is roughly $ 8.96 at the time of writing.
To buy it I only have:
- Tap “Buy Now”.
- Select “Checkout”.
- Click on “Submit”.
- Next, I need to confirm a “gas charge”. This is required by the Ethereum network to process the transaction and costs me $ 18.18. The full transaction costs $ 26.68.
I now own the Zuzu Meowfluff CryptoKitties NFT.
But I don’t collect these. So let’s sell it. I will also show you how to make and sell your own NFTs.
How to Create and Sell NFTs
I sold an NFT for a photo I took of Porto, Portugal.
You have cool digital art, or maybe a Zuzu Meowfluff that you want to sell. Let’s make this an NFT and list it for sale now. I used Rarible because it was just a little cheaper and easier to set up, and it links to OpenSea when someone searches it.
- Go to Rarible.com and tap “Create” in the top right corner.
- Create a single one or several (the latter for a collection of e.g. photos or trading cards that you have created).
- Choose Choose File to upload a PNG, GIF, MP3, or other file type. The maximum size is 30 MB.
- Enter the desired price or let “offer for sale”. I am going to list this picture from Porto, Portugal that I took for 0.5 ether. After a 2.5% service charge, I get the equivalent of $ 826.91. If this thing ever sells. Seems reasonable.
- Enter a name for your NFT and a description.
- Set your license fees. You will still get paid if it is resold in the secondary market. This is based on the current sales price.
- Select “Connect Wallet Ad Create”.
- Plug in your wallet that we set up in the previous section above. So tap on “MetaMask”.
- Pay the “gas” fee to edit the listing. In this case, it’s $ 75.64, or 0.044091 ether.
- Click on “Start” to sign the sales order with your digital wallet.
- In the MetaMask popup, click Sign.
That’s it! Now it’s listed. In this case, I can find it on Rarible or OpenSea by searching for “Porto, Portugal”. Offers are displayed on the sales page. If it is ever sold, the money will be transferred to my digital wallet. Then I can use them to buy other NFTs or withdraw money using an app like Coinbase.
CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report.
