TL;DR - Watch the video at the end of this article!
In this article I’m gonna show you how you can create (or deploy) your own NFT smart contract on Ethereum with zero coding using Manifold, mint your NFTs in this contract and put them up for sale on OpenSea and Rarible.
Owning your own smart contract is very important for creators! By creating your own smart contract, you can retain the ownership and attest the provenance of your work. Let’s get into it.
Creating an NFT Smart Contract
The 1st step is to go to https://studio.manifold.xyz/home. Connect your Metamask wallet and click on “New contract”. Now we have to insert the name of the contract, the type of the contract (ERC-721 or ERC-1155), and your token’s symbol. I’ve already made an article where I explain the differences between these 2 contract types.
Next, you need to insert an ASCII Mark, which is a type of signature used to visually identify your contract.
The good thing is that Manifold provides a link to a tool, where you can create one in an easy way. Just choose the font and the text, copy the design, and paste it on the contract.
Press "Preview ASCII Mark with Frame” and, if you are happy with the result, press “Deploy on Goerli”.
Testnet Deployment
Goerli is an Ethereum testnet. It’s a test environment for Ethereum developers to test their contracts before launching them on mainnet, which is the actual network. If you identify any mistakes while the contract is still on testnet, you can make the necessary changes. On the other hand, if the contract is already deployed on mainnet (meaning the actual Ethereum network) no changes are possible. To deploy on Goerli, we’ll need to first change the network on Metamask, and get some testnet ETH, which we can get for free on this website (shown below). Connect your Twitter account and wait for confirmation.
After you get some ETH in your wallet, you’ll now be able to deploy your contract on Goerli. Confirm the transaction on Metamask and now we just wait for the contract deployment and confirmation.
Mainnet Deployment
Now that our contract is deployed on testnet, we can move on to deploying it on mainnet, but before we do so, make sure that all the information included in the contract is correct. You won’t be able to change it afterwards. If everything is correct, just click on “LFG”.
Switch the network to Ethereum mainnet and click “ok”. Confirm the transaction on Matamask, and notice that you need to pay gas fees at this stage. Make sure you have enough ETH in your wallet to pay for this and the other fees that will be required to actually mint the NFTs.
Now we wait for the contract to be deployed…and that’s it! Our contract was created and now lives in the Ethereum blockchain! At this point, our contract is empty. We need to start minting NFTs into it.
Minting NFTs
So first, let’s start minting them on Goerli testnet to make sure everything is correct and be sure we are not minting any wrong file. Just click on “Mint a token on Goerli”.
Here, you can organize how your collection shows, by “Token ID Ascending”, “Descending”, etc.
Now let’s click on “Create” and choose between single token, batch of tokens, Edition and you can even create a public page. In this case, I want to mint 7 different files in this contract, and they’ll all be unique pieces, so I’ll choose the “Batch of tokens'' option, since it allows me to mint multiple files as NFTs, in only 1 transaction, saving A LOT in gas fees.
Include the Artwork Title, Artist Name and a Description of the Artwork, that’ll show on all the NFTs. Then click “Confirm”. Now we can upload all the files we want to mint as NFTs. This process can take up to a few minutes, depending on how many NFTs you are minting.
Choose which information you’d like to show on the NFT’s metadata, and click “Submit”.
Now let’s mint these NFTs on the Goerli testnet. Choose the recipient, if that yourself or if you wish to send it to someone else, or Airdrop it to someone, and click “Mint”.
Confirm the transaction on Metamask again, and that’s it, your NFTs are now minted on testnet. Before we move them to mainnet, let’s check each of these NFTs and see if all the information is correct. In my case, here, I want to include my website, so I have to include this information in all of them, one by one.
When ready, click "Go back" and “Mint to Mainnet”. Again, choose the recipient, and then click “Mint”. First, your files and their metadata will be uploaded to Arweave, and this process can take a few minutes. While we wait, let me just give you a quick explanation of Arweave.
Arweave
Arweave provides a data storage service, where you can store documents and applications forever, across a distributed network of computers. Arweave wants to permanently store data through unique incentives built around its $AR cryptocurrency. Its design enables people who store data and participate in the decentralization of its network, to receive revenues in $AR.
Storing files on Arweave or IPFS is much safer than storing them on centralized providers like Google, for example. If anything happens to that provider’s infrastructure, the data and files can be lost forever. This is why most NFT’s metadata and files are stored either on Arweave or IPFS that are distributed file storage systems.
Moving on, since we chose the batch minting option, we need to sign a transaction that adds this extension to the contract. This also requires gas fees, as well as creating the series (or your collection) on this extension. And that’s it! You can now check your OpenSea or Rarible profile and your newly minted NFTs will show there.
Now, before we put our NFTs up for sale, we need to set the royalties on our contract. To do that, "Go back", click on the contract, set royalties, and include the wallet address to which the royalties should be sent to, and the percentage of the royalties you wish to get from every resale. This will also require paying gas fees.
Selling NFTs
To put our NFTs up for sale on OpenSea, first, make sure your wallet is connected to the platform, click on the NFT and click on “Sell”. Choose the type of sale, the price in ETH, the duration and you have the option to sell it as a bundle and even reserve it for a specific buyer.
Notice that there’s a service fee of 2.5%, so you gotta take this into account. When you sell this NFT, 2.5% of the sale price will go to the platform. Now click on “Complete Listing”. To list your NFT for sale you’ll also need to pay some gas fees, so click on Confirm. Click on the arrow to sign the message…and your NFT is listed on OpenSea! You need to list each one of them separately, so you gotta repeat the same process for all of them. Now let’s repeat the same process, but this time we’ll put them up for sale on Rarible. Access your profile on the Rarible website and click on the NFT you want to list. Click on “Put on sale”, choose the type of sale and insert the price in ETH. Notice here that the service fee is 1%, so you’ll get 99% of the selling price if your NFT is sold here.
Click “Confirm”. Again, to list the NFT you need to pay some gas fees, so click “Confirm” again on Metamask. Click on the arrow and sign the message. Now your NFT is listed on OpenSea and on Rarible! Bear in mind that this doesn’t mean your NFT could be sold twice. Once the NFT is bought in one of these marketplaces, the ownership of that NFT will change and it’ll be delisted from the other marketplace.
Final Thoughts
Before finishing this article, I just wanted to point out that, although deploying your own smart contract is the best option for creators, it is more costly. As you could see throughout the video, I spent around $20-30 to complete the entire process, and since gas prices fluctuate, it could get more or less expensive depending on how busy the network is. So before doing it yourself, make sure you have enough ETH in your wallet and that it makes sense to you financially. You don’t wanna end up spending more money than you should, so just be careful and check the gas price beforehand. You can do it on Manifold’s website, as shown below.
