Non-fungible tokens are all the rage; here’s how to mint an NFT

SINGAPORE – Singer Madonna grabbed the headlines in April when she bought a Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token (NFT) for 180 ether, a cryptocurrency worth US$560,000 (S$777,000) at the time.

NFTs are digital assets that exist on decentralised online ledgers called blockchains.

What Madonna bought was the image of a cartoon ape.

The next month, she worked with digital artist Michael Winkelmann to release her own NFT series titled Mother Of Creation.

These are three digitally rendered videos that recast her as a nude woman giving birth to flora, fauna and technology.

NFTs have risen in popularity in recent years as investment assets, digital collectibles and proof of ownership of real-world objects, with content creators, artists and celebrities joining the scene in recent times. About US$25 billion worth of tokens were sold last year.

Mr Winkelmann, who is known as Beeple, has also created other NFTs, including one which was sold to a Singapore-based buyer last year for about US$69 million worth of Ether then.

In Singapore, influencer Irene Zhao has reportedly sold more than 1,100 NFTs – showing her in various poses – for a total of about $7.5 million in cryptocurrency.

How do you create an NFT – also known as minting – and sell it?

Here is a quick guide from The Straits Times on how to do so on NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Obtain a cryptocurrency wallet

As most NFTs are sold for cryptocurrency, consumers looking to mint an NFT should first have a cryptocurrency wallet.

This wallet is a device or program that stores the passwords which give owners access to the cryptocurrencies they own.

Physical wallets commonly look like USB thumb drives, while online wallets exist as software or apps.

An example of an online wallet is MetaMask, which is available as both an Internet browser extension and an app.

The wallet allows users access to the Ethereum blockchain, where a majority of NFTs exist, and its native cryptocurrency Ether.