Its been a while, but I’ve been busy elsewhere.
During the Covid-19, while staying at home, working at home, eating and sleeping, freelancing a bit during the lock downs and surfing the web for countless hours, some new opportunities emerged.
New social media: TikTok, Discord, Telegram became very popular.
New cryptocurrencies and tokens appeared every day (there are more then 9000 in existence in the moment). Prices of crypto rises sky high. Some even “to the moon” (remember Shiba Inu and Doge, and all the variations derived that are long forgotten now?).
At that time, somewhere in March 2021, I’ve learned about existence of NFTs (The Non Fungible Tokens). A new way to earn crypto, no expensive hardware needed, no mining at all, close to zero investment. Perfect! I had to try this!
Have do my homework first. Researching the essence of digital creations and idea behind releasing digital creations as NFTs instead of simply selling it specialized places like Creative Market, DeviantArt or similar. After a week of extensive research, and by extensive I mean browsing and reading related articles and visiting 100+ sites daily across 14 hours each day for a week, I was ready to jump into the world of NFTs.
Or I thought I am!
Freelancing in graphics and animated GIFs creation gave me a certain headstart.
Have joined Opensea and stuck with the gas fees. I was not counting on the gas fees to be a problem. But, they were enormous. And I need Ethereum, which I don’t have at the time. Didn’t own any crypto at the time except perhaps a long lost access to a bitcoin wallet opened few years earlier. I remember that I’ve downloaded a whole blockchain then but sold the laptop and the paper wallet (a paper with the QR code on it was useless without the recovery phrase, was trashed).
So, have to look for the alternatives. Mintable offers a lazy mint option, meaning you don’t have to pay the gas at the time of minting the NFT. The gas fee will be paid when a sale is made. Great!
Have created several graphics and mint the NFTs. But there were no sales!
Had to do a little promotion. Tried to do it for free on social media.
Facebook was my first choice. There were active groups around NFTs in global with lot of resources to learn from, tools to use, and links to markets and NFT projects I’ve never heard before. BAYC, MAYC and other ape like collections together with the Punks and Hash Masks ruled.
There were hundreds of giveaways, whitelists and airdrops in related Facebook groups. Unfortunately almost all collections were still on Ethereum (other blockchains didn’t get the pace yet).
And then, one day a sale was made. Actually not one of my own, but a piece I’ve made for my cousin was suddenly sold for 150$ in ETH out of the sky. My cousin split the earning with me so I can jump into the world of NFTs on Opensea finally!
But, once again the gas fees were sky high, few hundred bucks just to mint a single NFT!!! I don’t have that much ETH (and I still don’t) nor eager to spent it on paying a gas fee. It was a better solution to join Binance and trade there instead (which I did and quadrupled my investment a few months later when Shiba Inu rise its value x8 times in a single day and then dropped to a previous state and still sits there).
Had to change my strategy.
I’ve turned back to freelancing. Freelance marketplaces welcome NFT creators, graphic designers, SEO stuff, shillers and everything NFT related stuff. That was an opportunity not to miss. I was lucky enough to land a couple of projects on Upwork (that helped me survive the months of Covid-19 lockdowns).
Meanwhile I was working on my own projects, creating random custom JPEGs, PNGs, animations, memes etc.
Have been active on Facebook, regularly sharing stuff in groups and also on Twitter. Made a few new connections with other NFT creators and like minded NFT enthusiasts who saw the potential of this new trend at that time.
Growth my Twitter up to 18000 followers BTW.
Playing around on TikTok with mediocre success.
Joined Telegram, but except the chat, channels and groups (without being able to post there) are a dull place.
Have used Discord as a game chat before, but other than that it was just a face lifted mIRC from the 20 years ago. Didn’t get there were NFT communities at all. Months later some begin to show, built and oriented to a certain single NFT collection.
Bored doing nothing, have decided to do something!
In March, two years ago, I’ve opened a blank OpenOffice Writer and start typing. In two days I had a short 14 pages quick guide how to start with NFTs. I have no NFT sales, but a book ready to be published on Amazon Kindle, which I did. It has all the experience and ideas I’ve came across from my research, acquaintances on social media, friends and followers till the moment it was published.
Still no NFT sales though, but the book had some readers and views on my NFTs grew a little.
Soon Polygon was announced to Opensea. There were no gas fees on Matic blockchain!
It was time to build a collection. Or maybe a couple more.
Already have created some 100+ JPEGs, motion videos derived from them, some animated gifs I’ve created to kill the boredom during Covid.
Connected my Metamask on Opensea and created a new collection and start minting on Polygon/Matic immediately some 100 video backgrounds. These are always on demand for Youtube BTW.
Few months later, my laptop was a victim of a ransomware and I’ve lost my wallet (once again) and access to my collection too.
I had to start all over once again!
Graphics were ready. Most of the pieces are unique 1/1 radom graphics ranging from photos, still JPGs, abstract art, animated gifs, pixel art, video backgrounds in HD to 3D and game assets. I’ve set the price low (maybe to low) but in my opinion:
Art should be available and affordable to everyone
I‘ve set the new underpriced collection and start minting items on Polygon. Still minting unique items in this ever growing collection of mine.
Meanwhile started a new one, a bit practical. You can buy a token and ask your name to be turned into Chinese and minted as NFT. A thank you (in Chinese) was given as a gift in many NFT giveaways.
I went a step further and started a third even more practical collection with just a few items that can be used IRL. By purchasing an NFT item, you get lifetime free access to a downloadable resource or online tools to boost your own creativity and get things done for free online.
In BTW/BTW (in between by the way) may lay the future of NFTs:
- Creating NFTs and add something useful in unlockable content is always a great idea
- Selling physical items together with NFTs
- Paid memberships
- Items that are usable across multiple blockchains and metaverses
Hope this helps in making your next great nft collection. Oh, something new may land on Opensea soon, so keep your eyes open and stay updated.
