In 2020, in the Ethereum network alone, the total value of NFTs issued reached $340 million. We are at the end of the tenth month of the current year and this number amounts to 14.5 billion dollars.
Yes, you read that right. There are still 2 months left and I’m only talking about the value of NFTs minted in Ethereum. So who would want to be left out of such a move? Few people. So, what do you need to know to be part of it? Well, for starters, how to successfully mine an NFT.
In this article, I will review the salient points to keep in mind when integrating yourself into the world of digital art by successfully mining a NFT.
I will start by defining what it is we are going to “minting”. Then I will take the time to attack that verb. “Mintear” became popular in the ecosystem, through a literal transcription into our language of the English word “mint” with the addition of the syllable “ear”, to give it a verbal nature. The Spanish language is still struggling to find a translation that meets the exquisite palates of the cryptos in linguistic matters.
This acronym represents three words, Not Fungible Token. The fungibility of a token indicates that it can be exchanged for another token, which has the same value. For example, no one pays attention to “when a BTC was mined“, since all of them, as long as they are BTC, represent the same value.
In the case of NFTs, the letter “N” in the acronym indicates the opposite. These are tokens that have unique and unrepeatable characteristics that mean that they cannot be exchanged among themselves, given their very nature.
From this definition we can also conclude that its value is purely and exclusively subjective. We must not lose sight of this simple sentence that will help us to understand the past, present and future of this market.
What do we find built around these NFTs? Metaverses or parallel worlds, games in which money is earned, representation of real assets in the blockchain and infinite possibilities. However, the bulk of those 14.5 million dollars, are related to collectible images, created on the blockchain, whose subjective valuation, reaches astronomical levels.
And how do these digital images come to generate a market of 14.5 million dollars a year? The first step is to mine them.
These collections of images are the result of, in most cases, collaborations between programmers and artists. The former are in charge of writing the code to host the NFTs on the blockchain, while the latter group is in charge of the image design.
This is where we, the users, come in. We speculate on the value that this image may have, we gather the necessary cryptos and we get ready for the famous “mining” of NFTs.
So what do we do when we mine? Technically, we interact with a smart contract. From our wallet we send the amount of tokens that the “minting” function requires, we pay the corresponding gas, like a good son of a bitch, and we pray for the transaction to be completed.
If the latter happens, a random algorithm “decides” the characteristics of our NFT. So we wait to see if our NFT will have mustaches, 3D glasses or a T-shirt with the logo of the network from which we purchased it.
From the user’s point of view, to mine an NFT is to perform the necessary action to create it, to bring it to “crypto-life” and enjoy it in our wallet while we await the possibility of obtaining an economic benefit.
Now that we have defined the verb and know what the result of putting it into practice will be, let’s learn what is necessary to do it successfully.
