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  • Writer's pictureMariana Sanchez

How to mint an NFT (in your own smart contract) on Foundation


TL;DR - Watch the video at the end of this article!


As I have already mentioned a few times before in previous posts, the best and safest place to mint your NFTs is on your own smart contract, or collection. Today, we have many tools that allow us to create one with 0 code! No need for any programming skills. I’ve already shown you how to deploy your Ethereum smart contract on Manifold, and now I’m gonna show you how to do it on Foundation.


Foundation is one of the top NFT marketplaces. It was initially a somewhat curated platform, meaning you had to be invited by another artist on the platform in order to be accepted. Since May 2022 it opened its doors to all creators and has been releasing some pretty cool features.


In this post, I’m gonna show how to create your own Ethereum smart contract (or Collection), mint NFTs in it and put them up for sale on Foundation!


Creating a Collection


The first step is to access foundation.app and connect our wallet. To create a Collection, we’ll click “Create” and click “Collections” in the sidebar.


Create an NFT collection
Create an NFT collection


We’ll have to include a:

  • Collection Name: which is the title and identity of our Collection, and its NFTs.

  • Collection Symbol: a symbol that acts as a token name on the blockchain for this Collection’s NFTs.

NFT collection name and symbol
NFT collection name and symbol

These details are recorded on the blockchain and will represent our work, so make sure to double check that they’re correct and free of errors as you won’t be able to change these details later.


If everything is correct, click on “Continue” and sign the transaction in the wallet. This will require paying gas fees.


NFT smart contract has been deployed!
NFT smart contract has been deployed!

After doing that, your contract will be deployed!


Customizing your Collection page


We can now go to the Collection page and start customizing it. Click on “Edit Collection” and we’ll be able to add a logo, a banner, and a description to our Collection.


Customize NFT collection
Customize NFT collection

Now we’re ready to mint an NFT to our collection!


Minting an NFT


On the Collection page, click on “+ Mint NFT”, and we’ll be able to upload the NFT file. Foundation currently supports PLAIN, JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG, GLTF, GLB, MP4, and MOV file types, up to 50MB file size each.


Mint NFTs to collection
Mint NFTs to collection

NFT assets uploaded to Foundation are kept on IPFS, which is a peer-to-peer data storage system. I’ve already talked about the importance of using IPFS to store NFT files in a previous post, so make sure to check it out!


Storing files to IPFS
Storing files to IPFS

After uploading our file, we’re able to add the NFT’s title and description. We can also create a split, in case we want to split the fee or the royalties with someone else that also worked on the NFT.


Mint an NFT
Mint an NFT

NFT fees split
NFT fees split

Make sure that everything is correct before minting, because these details will be recorded on the blockchain and we won’t be able to change them later. Click “Preview” to review your NFT’s assets and other details


After doing that, click “Mint NFT'' and sign the transaction in the wallet. This process will also require paying gas fees to complete the transaction.


Now we wait for our NFT to be minted, which can take a few seconds.


NFT has been minted
NFT has been minted

When this process is done, we’ll see “Your NFT has been minted” on our screen, which indicates that the minting transaction has been completed on the blockchain and our NFT is now minted.


Listing the NFT


It’s now time to list our NFT.


Click “Sell NFT” and it’ll direct us to the List for sale page. We’ll be able to choose between:

  • Buy Now, where you can quickly set a price and the NFT can be instantly sold.

  • A live auction where we have to set a reserve price.


Sell NFT options
Sell NFT options

In this case, I’m gonna Click “Buy Now”. Enter the desired Buy Now price and click “Set price”. Note that Foundation charges a 5% sale fee, so we’ll actually receive a little less than the set price once that NFT is sold.


Set NFT price page
Set NFT price page

Confirm the transaction in our wallet and pay the required gas fee to complete the transaction and set your price.


Buy now price is set
Buy now price is set

Now our NFT is listed and ready to be sold!


If you find this tutorial useful, make sure to like it, comment below and share it with your friends!



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