For the past few months, we have been hearing a lot about the word web3. Experts are hinting that this is the beginning of a new era wherein decentralisation and transparency will the the key factors powered by Blockchain technology.

One of the amazing products that this technology brings to us is NFTs a.k.a (Non-fungible tokens). I'll not spend time explaining what they are and how they work. You can read this amazing article.

Earlier this week, I minted my own NFT for free and in this article, I share the steps I followed so that you can get one for yourself too! 👇🏾

Let's begin 🙌🏾

1. Create a Metamask account

In order to login into Opensea, you do not need a username/password combo or an email. You need to login by linking the account with a crypto wallet.

MetaMask is one such wallet which you can create for free. If you do not want to download or install anything, just add this extension to your Chrome browser and get started. After adding the extension, follow the steps to get your MetaMask account by generating your passphrase and noting it down in a secure location.

2. Switch to Polygon network

Most of the people are not aware that the MetaMask wallet allows users to hold tokens on several networks apart from the main etherium network (Etherium mainnet). As the cost of Etherium is very high and we do not want to spend a huge amount of gas fee (the cost of minting) while creating our NFT, we will switch to the Polygon network (Matic mainnet). Here's how to do that:

Click on the dropdown that says Etherium Mainnet and click on Add Network

In the page that comes up, fill in the following details:

Network Name
Matic Mainnet

New RPC URL
https://rpc-mainnet.maticvigil.com/

Chain ID
137

Currency Symbol
MATIC

Block Explorer URL
https://explorer.matic.network/

Click save, and then select the newly added network from the dropdown which earlier showed Etherium Mainnet, which should now show Matic Mainnet.

3. Get some MATIC flowing

Once we switch the network to the Matic mainnet, we can also add some token into it by using some faucets. Faucets are free sites that provide a very small amount of tokens to you for free so that you can get started. Here are the links to two faucets:

• Matic.supply
• Macncheese.finance

Visit these links and follow the steps mentioned there which usually includes supplying your MetaMask ID and you will see the MATIC tokens in your wallet within a few minutes.

4. Create an OpenSea account

Now that we have the MetaMask wallet set up, and some MATICs flowing in, let us link it to our Opensea account.

Visit this link and click on MetaMask:

.

Select the MetaMask wallet that we created just now and provide the required details to create the Opensea account. At the end of this step, your Opensea account would be ready.

5. Mint an NFT

Now to the juicy part: Actually minting the NFT. The tough part is already over and this is quite straight forward.

Click on the Create button near the top right corner which takes you to this interface.

On this form, first upload the piece of media that you want to convert into an NFT. It could be an image, a gif or even a piece of music. I chose an infographic which I created in order to explain the concept of Habit Loop from the book Atomic Habits.

Next, provide all the mandatory information.

It is important to switch the network to Polygon from the dropdown near the bottom so that you can avoid huge gas fees.

Click Create and watch as your NFT is minted on the Polygon network in the next couple of minutes.

Once done, you can view the NFT product page which would look something similar to mine

And that's it! Congratulations! 🙌🏾

You've successfully minted your first ever NFT.

If you wish to sell this NFT, then click on the Sell button near the top right and follow the steps.

Do share your creations in the comments below so that I can check them out. See you in the next one.

Cheers!