Based on what we’re seeing and reading on the internet, people want to know more about NFTs, so Justin and I tried to buy an NFT. Please note we’re not experts and have never minted an NFT. My area of expertise is in payment processing, and I recently shared how to accept payments in the NFT marketplace.
Since we’ve talked about NFTs and other people’s experiences, we decided to mint an NFT and documented the steps we went through, including our brief encounter with the Bored Ape Yacht Club!
Allen Bought an NFT
The first order of business when minting an NFT is creating an account, which I did, connecting the account to my social media, adding and verifying my email address, and connecting my crypto wallet. Then I had to create a Meta mask wallet and connect my crypto wallet to the Meta mask wallet. Then I had to fund the Meta mask wallet with Ethereum. That stopped me because I don’t have any Ethereum, and getting it requires a different set of steps. And throughout the whole process, you have to keep connecting your social media by going to Facebook, clicking on something, and verifying by email.
Signing up isn’t the most straightforward process with two-step authentication emails and text messages, which can get frustrating. Even on the most prominent websites, there’s friction, which I will not name. I mentioned this to someone who invited me to speak at an NFT conference. And I told him, you know what? I did not have an excellent customer experience on that website. And he said when he recently paid for something with Ethereum, it took 5 or 6 days for his funds to transfer to the other person’s wallet, and during that time, the price the guy wanted for the Ethereum had changed, which is another issue.
Eliminating Friction
We have a system where you can put a price on your NFT. Let’s say you want $50 for it, and your buyer pays $50 using whatever coin they want. And then at the end, the person’s either getting the coin value of $50, you know, based on $50, or they will get $50 in cash. Wouldn’t it be great if every transaction could be that clean and simple and not subject to fluctuating prices from beginning to the end of the trade? We price transactions on dollars with our payment gateway, not on crypto.
I searched around some more and registered on another website. They also verified my email with two-factor authentication and codes. Their site also was not easy to log into. It was a complicated process each time to log in. Everything was done through email, and it was kind of hard. Each time I went to log back into the site, it kept sending me back to my email to get some code, and then the code didn’t come, but in the end, I finally got through and completed my purchase. It was priced in dollars, which was nice. And then I saw it was a star for about $20. So, I thought, okay, I’ll put the 20 bucks on my credit card, and BAM! I bought my first NFT.
NFT Marketplace
I’ve talked to other people who are minting NFTs, and they talk about all the costs involved, which we will cover in our next segment. We’ll have our graphic designer create a few digital assets, and then we’ll go to a couple of websites to register and find out the cost of minting the NFT. But I can tell you, the process of buying is much easier than minting.
You can exhibit your NFTs at shows if you want them to be visible to the public and if you’re going to sell to any of them, you could list them for sale. Someone could buy the NFT from you on the platform. I’m sure some fees are involved. We saw one NFT listed for half a million and another listed for $5.5 billion that had a logo with a landscape behind it. Many of the NFTs we saw were static images; others moved, and some are considered art. We saw a piece of music NFT and a music video with Snoop Dogg on it.
Young people today are not interested in antiques or collectibles. I see these antique stores collecting dust; prices are going down. But there’s a new thing, digital collectibles, and this is what we’re going to see with NFTs. I think that these NFTs will be like the unique collectible. I saw an article about clubs in New York that are selling NFTs for thousands of dollars, and if you have this NFT, you’re able to skip the line and get in the VIP line at the club. Once you buy it, it’s like a free entry for life which is a super clever idea.
We’d love to interview you on the B2B vault podcast if you have an exciting project. We have a couple of people in the NFT business lined up to interview, and if you’re part of the NFT police and don’t like something we’ve discussed, feel free to shoot us any information. We appreciate your feedback and strive to be interactive.
If you have an NFT project or a crypto project and want to accept crypto as payment, visit our new website, WorldwideDigitalPayments.com and check us out on social media.
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Have a great day. Carpe Diem
