Solana is the the second most popular blockchain in the NFT space after Ethereum, with several projects launching daily. With Ethereum gas fees remaining high, minting NTFs on Solana remains a trendy and budget-friendly alternative.
Here is a quick tutorial on how to mint NFTs on Solana.
Why Minting On Solana Is Popular
Solana is an extremely fast Proof-of-stake blockchain that supports smart contract and decentralized applications. It’s considered the Ethereum killer because it can process up to 65 thousand transactions per second, for just $0.00025 each. For comparison, Ethereum can process only 20 tansactions per second. .
Using some basic math, you’ll see that Solana is 3,100 times faster and 120,000 times cheaper.
Another advantage of Solano-based NFTs (e.g., minting) is that they take a couple of seconds and rarely fail. With Ethereum’s congested mempool, it can take a long time for minting to complete and iff the transaction fails,, the buyer still has to cover the gas fee.
Step 1 - Use A Solana Wallet
Phantom is the best wallet for Solana tokens, and supports most NFT projects and markets. Think of it as Metamask for Solana: a web browser extension that easily connects you to most Solana dapps.
It features a built in DEX (Decentralized Exchange) for swapping tokens, and a nice Collections section where all your Sola NFTs will be listed.
You can even stake some SOL right in the wallet for rewards. The only real downside to Phantom is that it isn’t available for Android or iOS right now. Hopefully it will be one day!
The next step is very important: save the secret password to a secure location. If your computer doesnt work anymore or if you decide to switch browsers, you’ll want to remember the secret phrase so you can recover your wallet. It’s best to keep backups in multiple locations for redundancy. For example, you could store the secret phase on a USB flash drive that isn’t connected to your computer, or write them down on a piece of scrap paper.
Finally, to mint your Solana NFT you will need Solana in your phantom Wallet.
There are many exchanges to buy Solana, but here are is a quick overview of the most popular ones:
U.S.-based Customers:
If you are not from the U.S. here are some alternatives to try:
Minting VS Buying On Marketplace
Usually projects have a dedicated minting website, and the date and times of mints are announced well in advance Popular collections can sell quickly. If you’re late but still want to get an NFT of that specific collection, your best bet is to look for good deals on marketplaces.
Many people mint NTFS only to sell them as quickly as possible at a profit. Once a mint is completed, you’ll be able to see hundreds of assets appear on marketplaces. But if the mint price is the same for everyone then secondary listings are priced depending upon their rarity or perceived beauty or coolness.
The most popular Solana NFT marketplaces are Solanart., DigitalEyes, and Solsea. They feature largely the same collections, and many individual items are listed on multiple marketplaces, but sometimes at different prices.
I will show you both ways, lets start with minting Soloana NFTs on a website
Option 1 - Mint On The Website
Remember: Mints can be over very quickly! If you want to make sure you get an NFT:
- Make sure your phantom wallet is ready and has enough SOL;
- double-check the launch date and time in Discord (usually shown as UTC time) and then convert it to your local date and time;
- Open the mint site a few moments before the mint begins. Keep refreshing the website and you will see a ‘Mint’ button which you can click to mint your NFT
Once you see a mint button you will be able to select how many NFTs you want to mint (some allow 20 and some limit it to one).
After you selected your desired quantity, click on the mint button and a wallet confirmation will popup where you can confirm the transaction.
Check Your NFT
The minting process normally takes just a few seconds to complete. You might not receive any success notifications at the end. Don’t panic: Click on the Collectibles icon from Phantom (the one with four little squares). You should see the NFT in there.
This is the most thrilling moment: what does your newly created non-fungible token look like?
Find Eye-Catching Solana Drops
To keep up to date with new upcoming NFT projects, visit NFTLaunches Apart from having the largest collection of projects, it features all the key info about each project on the main page: mint date, website address, social media links, number in a collection, and most importantly, the mint price.
