Evolving, Fluid Functionality of NFT Marketplaces
Let me start out by saying, the NFT marketplaces’ functionality are very fluid, so what I’m about to describe today, may change in the days or weeks ahead.
The goal of this post is to familiarize the reader with the Minting process, compare two minting processes from separate NFT Marketplaces, and begin to discuss the portability of NFTs.
- The NFT owner may share a minted item (unique) on one marketplace, and share that minted NFT across multiple marketplaces.
- Import and use NFTs in Massively multiplayer online gaming (MMOG, or more commonly, MMO). Anything from NFT art to a useable NFT sword can be crafted and sold in Marketplaces, and then used within other 3rd party platforms, such as a multiplayer, online gaming engine.
OpenSea.io – NFT Marketplace
OpenSea.io was my first NFT Marketplace experience, and for the most part it was a great experience. VERY user friendly to “Mint” non-fungible tokens (NFT).
An NFT is unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership (as of a specific digital asset and specific rights relating to it).
Merriam-Webster
Getting started was a breeze, setting up an ETH Wallet, and then linking it to the OpenSea platform. From there, you are ready to jump into the marketplace.
OpenSea.io – Minting Process
The Basics
What unique, one of a kind, digital asset do you want to upload to the NFT Marketplace? It could be an Image, Video, Audio, or 3D Model. The File types supported are JPG, PNG, GIF, SVG, MP4, WEBM, MP3, WAV, OGG, GLB, and GLTF. There is also a Max size of a file of 100 MB. Seems kind of small for a high quality video? Besides the file itself, the only other required field is the Title, a single line text field.
The Collection field empowers the person Minting the NFT to group NFTs together. It’s a great way to show off your collection of a particular theme . You need to have created a single Collection / repository to group NFTs.
Optional Fields to expand the Digital Asset
Description is an available field to add verbose details beyond the Title.
External link field is provided, a URL on the NFT’s detail page, so users can click to learn more about it. You can link to your own webpage.
Conformity of Metadata
The following fields represent several ways to add metadata to an NFT. Here is an opportunity for conformity / uniformity across platforms (e.g. NFT Marketplace; E.g.2 Multiplayer Online Gaming)
The Property field enables the person Minting the NFT to add key/value pairs. The user interface “Add Properties” menu popup doesn’t indicate any limitation to the number of Properties a user can add. For each Property, the person minting the NFT must specify two parts to a property, a Type field and a Name field. There does not seem to be any limit to the alphanumeric values that can be set for either of these fields.
Add Properties
Optional Fields Continue
Levels – Numerical traits that show as a progress bar. Levels show up underneath your item, are clickable, and can be filtered in your collection’s sidebar.
Add Levels / Add Stats
Stats – Numerical traits that just show as numbers. Stats show up underneath your item, are clickable, and can be filtered in your collection’s sidebar.
Unlockable Content – Include unlockable content that can only be revealed by the owner of the item. When you are minting the NFT, this field shows as a multiline text field, showing the following hint text: “Enter Content. access key, code to redeem, link to a file, etc.”
Explicit & Sensitive Content – Set this item as explicit and sensitive content.
Hit the “Create” button, and you’ve started the journey to mint an NFT.