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Hi everyone, Jordan here.

Over the weekend, I wrote this piece for our premium subscribers. While our website will be up soon and everyone will be able to get a better idea of what we publish behind our paywall, I wanted to give you a taste of what the content looks like. We love doing deep dives on everything from Buy Now Pay Later to Crypto to early stage fintech funding. Let me know what you think of this piece on Twitter, and always feel free to reach out with ideas of what you'd like to see in the future.

This is the first time I’m doing this… and hopefully not the last since that would mean my wife (Julie) shut me down. I’ve been inspired to sit down and write as I’ve learned more and more about the new internet / get rich quick sensation - NFTs. Non-fungible tokens, as they’re formally known, are a new unique digital asset. I say they’re unique because they are tokens that are not interchangeable and they are immutable.

Unlike the online tokens that we have come to know over the years, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and even Dogecoin, no two NFTs are the same, and one cannot be directly exchanged for another. Furthermore, the ownership of each individual NFT is perpetually recorded on the blockchain. To sum it up, a NFT is 1 of 1 and their scarcity has made them increasingly valuable. Over the past two months, I’ve seen countless articles describing the NFT mania. However, what I have yet to see is an illustrative walk through of the NFT creation process and ultimately how one could be packaged for sale (please bid on my NFT).

Why would I want to create a NFT?

As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have recently exploded in value and as more and more people have joined the creator economy, it seems like NFTs are a product of our time. For instance, a gentleman that I largely know nothing about, except for the fact that he picks fights with very dangerous men, Logan Paul, managed to raise $3.54M by selling 1,772 NFTs for 1ETH each on a site called Bondly. Did I mention he grossed $1M in sales within the first hour?!

Another early fan favorite is NBA Top Shot. This site effectively allows users to purchase NBA moments. For example, a few weeks ago, a tokenized 13 second clip of NBA star Zion Williamson blocking a shot in his first game as a professional sold for $100K. There are reports that NFTs such as these could now be worth millions.

Adding an air of legitimacy to this moment, Christie’s became the first major auction house to list a purely digital tokenized asset. In a collection called “Everydays — The First 5000 Days,” Christies packaged 5,000 digital images created by the artist, Mike Winkelmann a.k.a. Beeple, into a single collage. This month it was announced that this image and its unique token sold for the astronomical sum of $69.3M! This makes Beeple the third most expensive living artist, behind only Jeff Koons and David Hockney. Further illustrating the desire to own this NFT is the sheer number of individuals who placed a bid - 350 over the 15 day auction window. Though Beeple had made his artwork available online for free, by packaging them together and tokenizing the collage, allowing for there to only ever be one true owner (at a time), Christie’s created scarcity and fervor, which propelled this piece to almost unimaginable heights.

Even Beeple couldn’t believe it:

Reading these stories deepend my curiosity and sparked my creative juices. It became clear to me that in order to truly understand the phenomena, and to try and become the fourth most expensive living artist, I must set out on a journey to create, mint, and (hopefully) sell my own NFT. I’ll explain each step as I went through them. The first is the idea.

The Idea

Just as thousands of American’s flocked to California during the gold rush, millions of people are heading to the Internet in an effort to become the next Beeple (or Logan Paul, I guess). After seeing that nearly $70M price tag, it’s not hard to understand why. With hundreds of NFTs being created each day, I knew that in creating my own, I would need to stand out from the crowd by eliciting a type of visceral reaction from prospective buyers. NBA dunks make us say “damnnn!” the nyan cat makes us feel… I just don’t know. I wanted my NFT to transport each individual back to a particular moment in time, likely one where they were sitting at an elementary school desk doodling during class… My NFT is the infamous S (in FTT colors, of course).

Creating my NFT

With the idea solidified, it was now time to put it on paper - or my iPhone. In creating this NFT, it was imperative that those bidding remember how cathartic it was to draw those initial sets of 3 parallel lines, slowly connecting line with line, ultimately forming the majestic S. The beauty of a NFT is that they are not confined to one type or format. Therefore, instead of simply creating a jpeg, I animated my doodling to evoke peak sentiment. Though I am certain that Beeple and many others in the creator economy devote tons of time to perfecting their craft before moving forward with minting, my .gif digitally manifested itself in a matter of minutes, and quite frankly, I was impressed (*pats myself on the back*).

Minting the NFT

This is where the magic happens - literally. Minting is the process when a piece of digital art is added to the blockchain. Similar to how metal coins are minted and can only then be placed into circulation, a NFT is only tokenized once it has undergone this process. It was also where things got more complicated.

With no idea where to go to actually mint my NFT, I turned to the one logical source: Google. I initially came upon Mintbase and began using it as my tool to enter this fascinating new world. Mintbase is a platform that allows users to easily create and sell their products, and the first few steps were fairly easy to get through. You are asked to connect a mobile wallet, in my case Coinbase Wallet. Afterwards you’ll be prompted to create a store. This is arguably the most important step in the process of minting a NFT. A store is where you actually create your smart contracts: the items that can eventually be sold… If you’re willing to pay the gas fee.

As I learned, a gas fee is the toll booth each creator must pass through in order to have their store hosted on the blockchain. Though one may only wish to mint a single item, this fee is still consequential. In my case, I was asked to pay 0.6ETH (~$1,260 at time of writing).
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Though I firmly believe in my creativity and that my NFT is surely the way I’ll put my children through college, this entry fee was too big of an ask. It was at this point that I went back to old faithful, Google, and did a much more direct search: “mint NFT free.”

I quickly came upon OpenSea - marketed as the “Largest NFT Marketplace” where one can “buy, sell, and discover rare digital items.” Most importantly though, they allow you to create a store for free! Voila! The only prerequisite to launching your own store is linking your crypto wallet. In OpenSea’s case, they only allow MetaMask. Easy enough! After much trial and error, I had finally found a way to mint my NFT and was one step closer to securing my destiny!

Attempting to sell the NFT

Here we are. The final phase. Now that my store, The Big S, is live on OpenSea, I finally have the ability to list my NFT for sale. In so doing, I can select from a number of options:

While selling at a set price is all well and good, after seeing the success that my friend Beeple had in his auction, I’m ready to watch my NFT 🚀🚀. We are so close!

Though I mentioned above that OpenSea allows you to create your store for free, after attempting to post my listing, I was told that in order “to allow OpenSea to sell items in your account, you must first complete a free (plus gas) transaction.” Great! I had come so far to only once again be confronted by the toll booth. Two choices: turn back now, or pay the fee… Hell with it, glory awaits.

Trudging ahead, I confronted a new obstacle: getting ETH into my MetaMask wallet in order to pay the gas fee. Long story short, purchasing ETH proved to be an arduous affair, one that ended with a less than ideal execution price. But all that mattered was that my NFT was listed. The auction will be live until 3/20, check it out!

Conclusion

Hopefully I'll be writing to you in a week from a private island that I went to with all the proceeds from my NFT. But regardless, this process was eye opening.

I was able to dive into the inner workings of the NFT mania, and I can see what all of the hype is about. It was fun and empowering to have complete control over the creation, packaging and ultimately the entry price for my own piece of art. It is truly a 1 of 1 digital item and I am proud of it. At the end of the day though, I think the most important thing for any NFT isn't what's being sold, but the marketing behind it.

Much like a good ol’ SPAC, if I were a Chamath or a TikTok star given a humongous platform to market my piece, I might see those rocketship returns. However, I’m a simple man, who has spent the past year inside a 1 bedroom Brooklyn apartment - I’ll take what I can get.

Jordan Greenberg is the Head of Partnerships at Fintech Today, where he manages all advertising, fintech partnerships and corporate subscriptions. Previously he was a professional athlete, touring the country and managing the University Club's Squash Program in NYC. In his free time, he likes to tour his new home city of Austin with his wife and goldendoodle Tux.