Make an NFT and Upload your MetaData to IPFS

The non-fungible token (NFT) business has exploded in popularity in recent years. It started off as a wacky concept, but then, all of a sudden, boom! It quickly rose to prominence as the next great thing. People are still digesting the concept of blockchain, but the industry is finally ready to take it to the next level.

Figma CEO Dylan Fields sold a piece of NFT art for $7.5 million in February 2021. Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, sold his first tweet (and the first tweet on Twitter) for $2.9 million. The figures are befuddling, particularly for such a young art style. So, while we can’t guarantee you’ll make that much, we hope you’ll be interested in learning how to create and sell your own NFT.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the procedures of creating an NFT and uploading the metadata to IPFS.

What is an NFT?

We can create tokens and use smart contracts to deploy them on a blockchain.

A fungible token, such as a dollar or Bitcoin, can be exchanged for other fungible tokens. Everywhere, the value is the same. Bills, for example, are fungible in actual currency. A ten dollar bill can be traded for ten one-dollar bills in this manner. Because one ten-dollar bill is not more valuable than another, they are interchangeable.

Non-fungible tokens are distinct from fungible tokens in that they are not interchangeable. Land and properties, for example, are non-fungible. Because one piece of land may have many natural resources while the other does not, two pieces of land may not be worth the same amount of money. That’s non-fungibility; prices are influenced by external forces.

So, how does all of this connect to the blockchain? ERC-20 tokens are fungible tokens on the blockchain. The Ethereum Foundation produced the ERC-20 standard, which is used to design a token. Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), BitTorrent Token (BTT), and many more prominent tokens have been developed.

These tokens are digital currencies that can be traded in the same way that actual money can. You can trade a real-world item, such as a car, land, or other items, for any of the tokens.

The ERC-721 standard, which recognizes ownership, is used to produce NFTs. This ERC-721 token is used to store collectible ownership on the blockchain. Anything can be considered a collectible, including deeds of ownership, houses, works of art, and so on.

Because they are simple to store, share, and sell, images, and more specifically digital art pieces, are popular collectors NFTs.

How to Create an NFT

Selecting (or producing) the image we wish to own is the first step in creating NFTs. To save the image, generate the JSON NFT metadata, and publish the metadata to IPFS, we’ll use IPFS.

Images, on the other hand, are not saved on the blockchain; only their references are. An NFT has a unique ID (the token’s hash), a URI (the token’s location), and the owner’s address. These are kept in the blockchain in a tabular manner, as follows:

The URIs in the table above only include the token’s URI. This URI directs you to the token’s IPFS storage location. More information about the token, such as its description or symbol, should be included.

Why should metadata be generated, you might wonder. Why not use the blockchain to store the image? That is technically possible, but it will necessitate the storage of a vast amount of data on the blockchain.

Remember that before data can be stored on the blockchain, gas fees must be paid. Assume you have a single, modest image with a file size of 4.1MB. Thousands of dollars in gas fees will be incurred. You can imagine how costly storing every image you want on the blockchain will be.

This is when the JSON metadata comes to the rescue. The metadata refers to the picture or token’s details, the token is uploaded to IPFS, and the metadata references the IPFS URI.

What is IPFS?

IPFS or InterPlanetary File System is a decentralized file system for sharing and storing files. IPFS is uniquely identifying each uploaded file in a global namespace, as stated by DataDrivenInvestor. Linking the NFT information to the location where the asset or artwork is housed is critical for our NFTs.

IPFS is similar to Google Drive and Dropbox, but not identical. Google Drive and Dropbox are centralized storage solutions, which means that the photos on the servers are under the authority of the website’s owners and can be changed at any time.

For example, this is a Google Drive image of a yellow house. This image is stored in a centralized storage system, allowing the image’s owners to alter it whenever they want. The link’s content can now be changed to an image of a green home (or anything else) while keeping the same URL.

As a result, we can see why a centralized storage system is bad for NFTs. Because IPFS is decentralized and not beholden to a single entity, these issues are avoided. Furthermore, because the URL of a file under IPFS is linked to its content, no changes may be performed without updating the URL.