After creating my first NFT collection Welcome to Shiden and after selling the collection of 200 NFTs in under four hours, I was 5 cm taller. But what is joy if you can’t share it with your friends? I rush to send messages to a couple of my normie friends and most of them were like: you did what? What is NFT? Who bought this? Well my friends, known and unknown, this article is for you. The attempt to help everyone who wants to enter the world of NFT but does not want to spend money on it. Your investment will be your time (about 1h), and just like with any learning, this might open a new page in your life, might give you some entertainment or you might forget about it in an hour.
You will be watching some videos (optional), installing a browser extension, connecting to the blockchain, minting NFTs, flipping NFTs.
1 Watch a couple of YouTube videos on NFT. Nothing fancy, just simple explanations. For example (30 mins):
2 Install Metamask. This is a browser extension and it is the entry key for your web3 and crypto activities. With Metamask you will be able to login to crypto sites, receive/send tokens, buy crypto stuff like NFT.
Your tasks:
- Download MetaMask and watch the 2 min intro on the MetaMask site.
- Watch MetaMask tutorial (optional) like the one from my favorite YouTuber CoinBureau (20 min)
NOTE: after installing MetaMask, if you can’t find the little fox icon next to your browser address bar, click on the puzzle icon and pin the MetaMask extension.
3Connect to Shiden Network. Shiden is the smart contract platform on the Kusama relay chain. That sounds complicated, but all you need to know is that the NFTs that you will be minting are living on the Shiden blockchain and that transactions are super cheap. To connect to Shiden simply go to the Astar portal, click connect Shiden Network (Kusama) button, choose MetaMask as a wallet and this will automatically set up Shiden Network in your Metamask settings.
If you are already skilled with Metamask you can update network settings with the following data:
Settings -> Networks -> Add Network
Network Name: Shiden
New RPC URL: https://rpc.shiden.astar.network:8545
Chain ID: 336
Currency Symbol: SDN
Block Explorer URL: https://blockscout.com/shiden
4Get SDN tokens. SDN is the native token on Shiden Network and we’ll use these tokens to mint NFT and pay network transactions. If you already have SDN tokens feel free to skip this step. Since you have already connected to Shiden Network in the previous step, go to the Faucet tab and fetch 0.002 SDN. It is not much, but it will be enough to pay the transaction fees and to buy this educational NFT.
5 Mint your NFT. NFTs are also blockchain tokens that get “minted” once they are created. Go to this minting website, click connect button and allow MetaMask to connect to Shiden. You are now ready to mint your NFT. Click the Mint button, confirm the payment with the MetaMask, and voila! You got your NFT. This NFT now lives on the Shiden Network as a token.
Let’s find where it is and how it looks.
NOTE: you are limited to mint only two NFTs.
6Visit the NFT market. Let’s use TofuNFT as the NFT marketplace to browse NFTs that live on Shiden. Again connect your MetaMask, register with some basic info, and explore the site. Go to the discover section and check hot collections.
Usually, the collectible NFTs will have attributes that determine their rarity. Check the rarity for some NFTs by clicking on the image. Check here to see an example.
Now, in the upper right corner click on the colourful icon, and in the drop-down menu pick ‘My NFTs’. Check your NFT to see what you minted and check the attributes to see how rare the item is.
Let’s put your NFT in action! If you minted a super rare NFT you might even earn some tokens. Just because you minted it for free does not mean you can’t sell it for more. Put some reasonable price like 1 or 10 SDN or if you got 3 or 4 same monsters, go wild. Come back in a few days and check how the sale is going.
NOTE: once you sell this NFT you will be able to mint new one from the same collection if there are more un-minted ones.
If you liked your NFT journey please share it with your friends and join our NFT community on Discord. Thank you!
About Astar
Astar Network (previously known as Plasm) is a dApp hub on Polkadot that supports Ethereum, WebAssembly, and layer 2 solutions like ZK Rollups. Astar aims to be a multi-chain smart contract platform that will support multiple blockchains and virtual machines. Polkadot Relay Chain doesn’t support smart contracts. That’s why it’s important for the ecosystem to have a parachain that enables this for all developers who want to build in the Polkadot ecosystem. Astar is here to provide the best solution for all developers by supporting EVM and making a parachain where EVM and WASM smart contracts can co-exist and communicate with each other.
Follow us
Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Github
Learn and Mint Your Free NFT was originally published in Astar Network (Previously Plasm) on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
