What is a NFT & a Blockchain?
Virtual art on a blockchain that offers their holder’s utility. Each Non-Fungible Token (NFT) belongs to a project. Most projects aim to have a business-to-business model (b2b). Some projects sell IRL products or offer other projects services for money and then redistribute that income for their holders. There are metaverse projects, gaming projects, television show projects and everything in between.
You can gamble, receive airdrops (free NFTs), get merch, use them as a ticket to an event, stake (locking your picture for cryptocurrency) and much more.
The picture above is my own NFT from a project called Solsteads. Learn more by clicking here.
These pictures are tied to different cryptocurrencies that are bought and sold on different marketplaces such as: Magic Eden or OpenSea.
How to get started
- Make an account to buy crypto. You can use popular exchanges such as: Coin Base or Crypto.com. You can buy all kinds of different currencies on these websites. However, linking your bank account and verifying will take a week or two. If you end withdrawing a lot of profits you will be taxed.
- Download a ‘hot’ wallet (crypto wallet that is always connected to the internet) and send money to it. You need a hot wallet to connect to NFT marketplaces to trade. You need this wallet because all the liquidity in the market is in the exchanges such as Magic Eden or OpenSea, not on the website you buy crypto from. Popular wallets are: Phantom (Solana) and Metamask (Ethereum). To send money to your hot wallet. You can do that buy copying and pasting your Phantoms wallet address.
- Start browsing Magic Eden or OpenSea. They both have Solana and Ethereum NFT’s for sale.
How to make money
There are many ways to make money. You do not need a lot of money to start off.
- Earn whitelist from a project and mint. Getting whitelisted is a term that we use to describe getting on a projects list to have a guaranteed purchase of one of their pictures on their release day (mint day). A project price to mint varies from 0.02 – 10 Solana or more. You can also sell your whitelist spot!
- Buy off secondary marketplaces (Magic Eden) and sell the picture for more than you bought it for.
- Reap the rewards of holding the NFT. Each project is different and tries to give value back for investing into the team. This comes in the form of airdrops (free NFTs), you can sell them on secondary or keep them. They can also give you crypto back weekly.
- Start a project. This requires learning a lot more. Imagine selling 10,000 pictures for $30 dollars each in one day and then getting royalties on each picture sold on secondary marketplaces.
- Work in the space. There are a lot of jobs in the Web3 (NFT scene) space. You can work as a digital artist, a developer, community manager (managing their discord), marketing and much more!
Safety & Security
Getting your wallet drained is very easy. There are scammers daily that will send you links that instantly send all your digital assets to another wallet that you cannot retrieve. You may look at the transaction and see where and what time it was sent. Recently, there was a 5-million-dollar hack in the Solana ecosystem that drained thousands of dollars/NFTs in a day. Read more here.
You need a wallet that is not connected to the internet to be safe (cold wallet). You can buy a Ledger to store your pictures and money off the internet. Every transaction requires you to physically press yes on the device.
Trading NFTs is a risky game. You will lose money, however, the potential to make a lot more back is there.
