The existence of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) is likely to continue to increase in 2022. Quoting data from Statista.com, on January 15, 2022, the number of NFT sales on the Ethereum blockchain for 30 days reached around 44.6 thousand transactions.
However, the recent increase in the number of NFTs transactions on the blockchain impacts the gas fee that the NFT creators must pay. The great news is lazy minting is here as a solution for minting NFTs at no cost.
What is NFT at a Glance?
In short, NFT is a new way for artwork and other collectables to become verifiable digital assets and trade in blockchain-based marketplaces.
Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, NFTs cannot be exchanged or replaced with other identical assets and have the same value. In contrast, NFTs are unique assets, so no NFT items are alike.
NFTs create scarcity among available assets. This asset even provides a certificate to prove its authenticity to the collector. NFTs can take the form of GIFs, tweets, virtual trading cards, virtual real estate, in-game items, and much more.
What Is Lazy Minting?
Before knowing what lazy minting is, we will discuss one of the most common problems in the blockchain industry, namely the congested network, as more and more people perform transactions on the blockchain. This condition had an impact on increasing gas fees when minting NFTs.
The gas fee itself is a fee that the creator or the one who made the NFTs must pay in exchange for the computational energy needed to process and validate transactions on the blockchain. So, in other words, to mint NFT works, you have to pay a fee to replace the miner’s computing resources on the blockchain.
The more computing power required, the higher the transaction volume on the blockchain, the higher the gas fee to be paid. Previously, many creators were willing to wait until late at night to mint NFT with the lowest possible free gas cost.
To overcome the higher gas fee, you can try lazy minting. Lazy minting is when an NFT is available ‘off-chain’ or outside the blockchain and is only minted after an NFT sale.
By using lazy minting, the creators don’t have to pay a gas fee upfront for minting their NFTs. In contrast, the gas fee is paid after an NFT work is purchased and transferred ‘on-chain.’
Thus, the responsibility for NFT minting is placed on the buyers, not on the NFT creators.
Apart from being cost-effective, this method can also reduce unnecessary computing power because only the NFTs that are sold will be minted.
Lazy Minting vs. Paid Minting, Which One Is Better?
Similar to lazy minting, a paid NFT minting is the process of printing digital art assets into NFTs.
Mining schemes have similarities to the processing of coins or crypto assets. Generally, a digital artwork will be printed on the Ethereum blockchain. Once the work has been successfully minted on the blockchain, it will become an immutable official NFT.
Usually, in the NFT mining process, creators will be charged a fee as a form of incentive to miners for helping to enter their transactions into the blockchain.
In some cases, the gas fee will be determined by how fast the NFT minting process you want. So, the faster the NFT minting process, the higher the gas fee you have to pay.
The gas fee will later be measured in GWEI. GWEI is the gas unit used in the Ethereum blockchain network. One GWEI is equal to 0.000000001 ETH.
The minimum amount of gas required to process transactions in the network is 21 thousand. The way to calculate the NFT gas fee is to use the formula below.
Here is the formula for calculating the NFT gas fee = minimum gas x gas price in GWEI.
How much Is The Minting Fee in Three Popular Marketplaces?
In addition to having a different mechanism, the amount of the NFT minting fee in each marketplace will also be different. Several factors affect the price of gas fees in the NFT minting process, namely data size, project quality, transaction speed, and other factors.
Foundation Marketplace
The Marketplace Foundation will generally take 15 percent of the final sale price of the NFT asset. However, gas fees can become more expensive if users simultaneously make transactions on the platform.
Rarible Marketplace
Rarible is a platform that has a lazy minting service for every user. In addition, the platform also has a paid minting service for its sellers.
Rarible will charge users a service fee of 2.5 percent of each sale. However, users can also pay the entire fee of 5 percent of the final price.
OpenSea Marketplace
Unlike Foundation and Rarible, the OpenSea marketplace will charge sellers two fees before selling on the platform.
The first fee is for initializing an account which is priced between USD70 and USD300. Then, you will be asked for a second fee for access to OpenSea, around USD10 to USD30.
Lazy Minting Step-by-step
Along with the NFT trend, many NFT marketplaces currently offer a more economical or free method of minting.
To do the lazy minting, you can do it on the OpenSea or Rarible. Below is a guide on the lazy minting NFT on OpenSea and Rarible.
OpenSea
- Connect your ETH wallet to your OpenSea account. There are several wallet options that you can choose from, such as MetaMask.
- Create an OpenSea Collection by clicking create the collection in the OpenSea dashboard.
- Set up your first NFT collection on OpenSea. Check the logo, banner, name, and description.
- Next, select the blockchain of your choice. To make your minting process free from a gas fee, you can choose the Polygon blockchain for minting.
- Start minting your NFT by clicking the “Collection” and “Add Item” options to get started.
Rarible
- Go to Rarible.com, click “Sign In,” then connect your wallet.
- Click “Create” and fill in all the information about your NFT.
- There are plenty of choices of NFT minting. Choose “Free minting.”
- Click “create item” and sign free authorizations with your wallet.
- All set! Your NFT will be minted.
Once the purchase happens, the NFT will be minted to your wallet and automatically transferred to the new owner. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, right?
Please note that the lazy minting feature is currently available on the Rarible default collection only. This feature will apply to owned collections soon.
