State of the Mint 2021
Anecdotal overview of chains and platforms for NFT art.
Preference of minting platforms has become a FAQ in chat… so I thought I’d write it up and get my substack out of slumber 😜
Gasless Minting
Accomplished by the platforms storing your assets on their centralized systems until they change hands. At that point a transaction (including the minting fee) will take place.
OpenSea (ETH)
💚 Cheap minting/transfer. One time approval transactions for OpenSea to create your storefront and sell on your behalf.
💚 Split profits between storefront and artists minting on it.
💚 Gasless minting available to everyone, no approval required.
💙 Only 1:1 mints at this time (to avoid spam).
💔 No royalties.
💔 Discoverability is poor on OpenSea, takes extra hype effort to be noticed.
💭 Horizon: UI for adding collaborators to your storefront for profit split (currently requires an email to the OpenSea team).
Cargo (ETH)
💚 “Magic minting” credit card onramp makes it dead simple for new artists.
💚 Batch minting can create 1000s of tokens with a single transaction, great for releasing a series of work.
💚 Split payments AND split royalties.
💙 API focused, unless you’re a developer setting up shop most of the functionality is hidden.
💔 Every mint on the platform requires you to spend Cargo Credits. The price is reasonable right now, but building out a platform where that price could change at any time makes me nervous.
Alt Chains
Traffic is high on ETH, driving costs of using the chain through the roof. These options are either less popular or new, but all solve the issue of prohibitive costs for minting and transfer.
Paras.id (NEAR)
💚 Cheap minting/transfer.
💚 Skeuomorphic card display is nice!
💚 NEAR chain onboarding is easy, their focus on UX is paying off.
💙 Small market means lower volume and fewer buyers but also means you’ll be more visible.
💙 Requires approval from the platform to create cards. CODAME has an expedited onramp to paras.id which helps.
💔 No splits OR royalties, no trades or airdrops, only 64:89 aspect ratio art.
💭 Horizon: I still haven’t exchanged NEAR for fiat. GIF support in 2021. Printing of cards that you own is also being explored 😍
AtomicHub (WAX)
💚 Cheap minting/transfer.
💚 Trading, can send offers to anyone.
💚 Dispensers/Airdrops are possible.
💔 on/off ramp is a hassle for WAX(E/P).
💔 Lots of reading required to grok schemas/templates to mint & do airdrops.
💭 Horizon: blindbox/packs (currently takes custom code).
CounterParty (XCP)
💚 BTC sidechain with reasonable minting/transfer fees.
💚 Dispensers are possible (kind of like your own storefront, anyone can send XCP and it will automatically give them your NFT).
💔 Onboarding is difficult, best bet is to get on a telegram group and stumble through the process of your first mint.
💔 No single place to render all your XCP assets because each project is using it’s own standard, but between MafiaWars, FreeWallet, Freeport, xchain.io, etc you’ll be able to see them.
💭 Horizon: code updates expected to ease some rough edges in the next few weeks but that won’t help the fragmented ecosystem.
Ethereum Old Guard
And by old I mean the defacto platforms that sat on the tips of tongues over the last year as I got into blockchained art. My hope for all of these platforms is that they will diversify the chains they are compatible with.
Async.art
💚 Artworks on the platform can be interactive, driven by data, and ever-evolving in ways that appeal to many of the CODAME artists already working in dynamic new media.
💚 My Canvas is a new~ish feature that allows artists to create simple template based work without any code.
💚 Async Art Bot is a fun way to track changes to layers on the platform.
SuperRare
💚 Best ratio of serious collectors to artists, thanks to an involved application process, rigorous vetting, and only allowing for 1:1 mints.
💚 Publishes editorials to help grow your audience, here’s a write up of my Lofi Uncanny series.
💚 Generally the higher average price per sale on the platform means that transaction fees aren’t as intimidating to buyers.
KnownOrigin
💚 Strong sense of community thanks to their weekly discord voice chats.
💚 Excellent BehindTheScreens Youtube series brings a much needed focus back to the artwork and artists. Catch Lisa, Sven, and I making an appearance during the CODAME ART+TECH Festival to hype up the Festival Grounds in NewArt.City & Sven’s latest environmentally conscious pieces.
💚 Collaborative minting feature to split payments.
Rarible
💚 Most contemporary interface of the platforms.
💚 Social features for liking and following.
💚 Rewards transactions on platform with it’s own RARI token.
💙 Royalties, but no collaborative minting or splitting.
Cross Platform Resources
ArtGalleryAuctionHouse on telegram is an inclusive community. You can auction from any platform/chain there but there is no historical record of sales/work/etc. Check if an auction is underway before spamming your latest mint 😉
NFP Podcast by DKleine cuts through the shill frothing to touch base with artists on the meaning of their work. I was honored to spend time chatting with DKleine for his Dec 6th episode!
Rare.Estate can render art from your XCP and ETH wallets, but doesn’t talk to WAX or NEAR. I’ve been using pinterest as a stop gap for displaying what I’ve created across the platforms, but it’s a manual process.
Next Moves
Mintbase will be supporting NEAR any day now, excited to try that out after success with Paras.
Ephimera (ETH) is a “lens based arts” platform set up from the start to support the structure of a curator/gallery/collective (CODAME) representing artists. We’re lining up artists now if you do photography or video work!
BeyondNFT is in beta on a MATIC test network. It could be an AsyncArt alternative that doesn’t require vetting to mint.
Terra Virtua is minting augmented reality NFTs which would be an ideal way to release my photogrammetry scans from Weekly Beats 2018, but they’re only aligning with big brands at the moment.
What’s Missing?
Leave a comment with things you want that or that I’ve missed!
You guys really need to include Portion.io here. As someone who has been an avid collector of NFT's, they're some of the oldest in the space and recently launched their v2 marketplace with some pretty sick features. Definitely should be here!
Another to investigate is nftshowroom on HIVE. Diversity is strength!