How to Make Money from Gifs and Memes: a Guide to NFT Art

The cryptocurrency market is constantly evolving and is always providing new ways to make money for everyone. NFTs (non-exchangeable tokens), are one of those ways. Although they have been around for several years, the boom in NFTs started recently and is continuing right now. Here’s how to make money with NFTs.

What is NFT?

To understand how to make money from NFT, you need to understand what noncurrency tokens are. Despite the fact that they belong to the cryptocurrency market, a token is not a cryptocurrency, although it can be sold and bought, just like crypto, for the same cryptocurrency or fiat on special platforms. A token is a record in the blockchain that confirms a user’s digital balance in an asset, i.e. it acts as a security in the blockchain. Token transactions are usually carried out by smart contracts – virtual contracts whose terms are automatically executed. Tokens can be exchanged with each other, they are equivalent.

Top 5 Best NFT Marketplaces

But a non-fungible token (Figure 1) differs from a conventional token in that it exists in a single copy, so it is not exchangeable, unreplaceable by another token of the same kind. The uniqueness of the token allows it to be used as proof of ownership of a digital object.

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On NFT platforms, you can get an NFT token from almost any digital object. In addition to being proof of copyright, NFT tokens can also be sold. And, since a blockchain entry cannot be changed or deleted, the copyright remains with the author even if he sells the token. That’s why NFTs appeal to artists, musicians, collectors, and users looking to make money from NFT tokens.

Where to sell NFTs?

There are special NFT platforms for selling irreplaceable tokens. You can upload digital content, make a token out of it, and put it up for sale. You can also buy a token and resell it. Among NFT-platforms there are centralized, decentralized, for free registration or by invitation, more oriented to art-professionals and beginners. Among the most promoted in the ranking of NFT exchanges include NBA Top Shot, OpenSea, Binance NFT and Featured.market, SuperRare, Mintable, The Sandbox, Foundation NFT, Rarible.

For example, NBA Top Shot (https://nbatopshot.com/) (Fig. 2) is an NFL project for reselling video clips of NBA games. The snippets range in value from relatively inexpensive to “cards” worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The video cards are bought in packs or on the marketplace, and they are subsequently sold.

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OpenSea NFT (https://opensea.io/) a decentralized platform for creating irreplaceable tokens, selling tokens and buying, you could say it is a classic exchange for NFT art. The exchange also resells game values, domain names. The platform runs on blockchain Ethereum in the wallet.

Binance NFT (https://www.binance.com/en/nft/home) is a centralized NFT platform (registration required) and Featured.market is a decentralized application (without registration) to it. The exchange runs on Binance Smart Chain, and transactions on it are cheaper than on most platforms that run on the Ethereum network. The platform supports standard NFT functionality – token creation, selling, buying token, reselling.

SuperRare (https://superrare.com/) (Figure 3) specializes in selling high-quality, exclusive art content for art collectors, running on the Ethereum blockchain. Anyone can apply to trade their artworks on the exchange, but you can become a member with the approval of the platform or by invitation. If you manage to become a member of this platform, you will only be able to sell your creations on it.

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Mintable (https://mintable.app) Ethereum blockchain exchange and Zilliqa online store, mostly for beginners. Therefore, it is relatively easier to learn and manage than other platforms. The NFT University section, which explains what NFTs are and why they are needed, also contributes to this.

The Sandbox (https://www.sandbox.game/en/) is another type of NFT platform, a game where you have to build worlds, and you have to buy and sell objects for this purpose on the NFT Marketplace. The platform requires registration and a wallet for ETH and SAND (in-game currency) cryptocurrencies. In addition to the ability to buy in-game items, SAND holders can use them to vote in the management of the platform.

Foundation NFT (https://foundation.app/) NFT-platform, to become a member of which as an author, you can only by invitation, already working on this NFT-exchange. The exchange offers the classic functionality – creation of NFTs, selling, buying.

Rarible (https://rarible.com/) is a decentralized NFT project with an internal RARI token. Here you can create a token, sell it, buy it. The author can show an art fragment before the sale and release the token only when the buyer confirms the purchase.

There are several other popular NFT-platforms, which differ in some respects. To work on exchanges, you will first need to activate cryptocurrency wallet, the most common ones are MetaMask. In order to create a token, not all exchanges need to have cryptocurrency in a wallet, but for transactions coins will be needed, because it will be necessary to pay commissions. By the way, it will be necessary to clarify the amount of commissions and in what cases they are charged.

How to earn on NFT-tokens?

NFT platforms were originally created for this type of income, such as the creation of NFT visual content – pictures, gifs, memes – and their sale. But you can digitize and try to sell almost anything that can be digitized – sound, text, video, a set of pixels, objects that physically exist and objects that exist only virtually.

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The algorithm for creating NFTs on the platforms is about the same: the author logs into his account, uploads his object, gives it a name, describes the object, sets a price, and submits it for moderation. If the artwork complies with the rules, after a while it is uploaded to the listing for review by potential buyers. The author can set the price fixed or auction price, and sometimes the price can be offered by the buyer and the seller will agree or not.

You don’t have to be a great artist to try to sell your content. One of the first NFT projects, CryptoPunk, proved that you can make millions by selling a set of pixels that remotely resemble a human face (Fig. 5). It is possible that someone will come up with a similar genius idea, but it is unlikely right now. But the fact is that you can try to sell art of almost any quality as an NFT token – one or an entire series. To see for yourself, just browse the online store of any NFT exchange.

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Another thing is that most of the content offered by the average novice author, a non-professional, is inexpensive and does not buy often. In addition, most exchanges will need some investment to start this type of trade, plus you will need to pay commissions. That is, NFT is a type of earnings, which, like any other, requires a rational attitude, calculation of costs and revenues and time.

You should also keep in mind that now the NFT boom is slowly subsiding, platforms are saturated with content, you need to offer something really original or generate fairly high quality content regularly and constantly, and not expect quick and big profits. Earning NFT tokens is not the easiest thing to do, and it will get harder over time, especially for newcomers.

But if the creator of the token is a professional creator, especially if he is already at least somewhat known to connoisseurs, then the chances of successful regular sales increase dramatically. There are even more chances for good promotion if one invests in marketing. News that some author has sold some NFT for tens of thousands of dollars or even a million (Fig. 6) is just such a case. Such cases are few and can be seen as an incentive to work in the NFT market, which can become the main channel for selling digital art or digitized physical art objects.

The point is that the entry to the NFT market is very democratic – you don’t need to make any connections, negotiate with galleries, look for a place where you can sell a painting at a profit, hire an agent, and so on. And in order to develop in the NFT market it is enough to have a cryptocurrency wallet, some money in it and an account at the NFT exchange – and you can offer content in any quantity at any price.

The good thing about NFT sales is that it is an international market. It is possible that the artist from the first NFT painting posted will get fame and good sales. Another additional plus is the growth of cryptocurrency prices in the long run, selling at one price, after some time this amount will increase on an uptrend.

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How to start earning from NFT tokens more? Simply by reselling content – objects that may have collectible value, game items, the same basketball cards and NFTs of other authors (the authors also get some profit from reselling). Basically, it’s a business like any other – you have to buy digital objects in the form of tokens on the NFT platform and sell them at a higher value. This would require more investment than making the tokens yourself.

First, for the purpose of resale, because you will have to buy initially valuable objects, not cheap pictures of novice authors – not only in the expectation of a quick resale, but also to increase the price of the asset over time. Secondly, a one-time sale is unlikely to bring a significant profit, and the case, put on stream, requires constant investment. An additional difficulty is that in this market you have to know what you need to resell, whether it’s art or basketball.