Schooled by Breach is a weekly newsletter where Breach writer, Adetomiwa talks to people with experience about pressing crypto questions, learns a lesson and shares the findings with you. Crypto can be easy, so let’s figure it out together. Out every Friday!
TL;DR: Minting NFTs is not as hard as the apps make it seem. “If you have a laptop and can follow instructions, you’ll be fine”, says NFT artist Haneefah Adam. To get started, it’s best to join NFT communities, gather some gas fee capital and, perhaps most importantly, remember to take it at your own pace.
Who else is guilty of trying to convince their loved ones to turn every hobby into a money-making venture? Not just me, right? Good, because I’ve been told that it can be quite annoying 😭. But I don’t intend to stop (sorry to my friends).
One person I’ve been pushing hard is my cousin. He’s an accountant but also a pretty great digital artist. I’ve said to him a million and one times, “Lami! Sell this art”. He finally caved last week, and we’ve been exploring the best way to do it. One thing that keeps popping up? NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
So, I decided to help him find the easiest way for someone with no crypto knowledge to get into NFT art.
For help, I reached out to Haneefah Adam and Iman Hassan, two digital artists who became NFT artists late last year.
Here’s what they told me:
- Learn at your own pace
Iman and Haneefah emphasised doing your research. Both are pretty busy people. Haneefah is a full-time artist and mother of two toddlers, and Iman is in the university, so they didn’t put too much pressure on the learning process.
- Take community seriously
Iman and Haneefah both agree that one of the best ways to avoid information overload is to join NFT communities.
In Iman’s case, she reached out to an NFT artist she knew on social media, who added her to a group chat of seasoned NFT artists. After about three months of reading their conversations, she felt ready to get her hands dirty.
Haneefah followed Twitter communities and lists “to see how the whole eco-system works”.
Iman agrees. She says she advises people who want to get into NFTs to take Twitter seriously “because the NFT space there is pretty tight, and you learn a lot from their conversations”.
The community can also boost your sales as you have direct access to active buyers.
- Learn actively
💡 NFTs are typically sold on three blockchains: Ethereum, Cardano and Solana, through marketplaces like Opensea, Solsea, Galaxy of Art, etc. and while Ethereum is the most popular, some artists have found their communities within the others.
Iman initially listed her NFT on Cardano, but she soon found that it wasn’t for her. She wanted a platform that would expand her sales prospects so she opted for Opensea, where Ethereum is one of the core currencies. In Haneefah’s case, she chose Opensea because she found it easy to navigate the platform
- Have some starting capital and a recovery plan
To list your NFT, you’ll need to pay gas fees. The gas fee is essentially a service charge to the blockchain minting your NFT. Once it’s done, your NFT can go public.
Iman says she sold her first NFT within minutes of listing it. She has since found a YouTube video on how to cut down your gas fees, which she intends to use moving forward.
- Have a plan for your capital
Haneefah had the capital when she listed her first NFT, so gas fees weren’t an issue for her. She however initially lost a fair bit of her income in transferring from her Ethereum wallet to her local account. She decided the best thing to do would be to reinvest the capital into her work and only withdraw whenever she has racked up enough.
Lami wanted to know if selling NFTs is worth the hype.
Iman says auctioning her work as NFTs has made her more confident: “Selling my work as NFTs has given me more confidence in the prices I call,” Iman said.
For Haneefah, it’s about artists getting credit for their work. “I’ve always wanted artists to be fairly compensated,” she says, noting her frustrations with how often people steal from digital artists. However, she added that NFTs don’t completely fix the theft, but they have “at least created a way for [digital artists/creators] to monetise their passion”. This in itself spells exciting future possibilities for creators all around the world.
Breach Picks:
Here are links to articles and websites mentioned in this newsletter (ICYMI 👀)
- Deep dive into NFTs by Breach
- Haneefah’s instagram and first NFT sale
- Iman Hassan’s Twitter and first NFT sale
- A YouTube link on how to cut your gas fees (Courtesy of Iman Hassan)
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