This guide will help you understand how to get started with Mintology, create your first project, and configure your smart contract settings using Mintology’s no-code Gasless Smart Contract generator.
Creating a Project On Mintology
If you have not yet created a project on Mintology, you will need to do so in order to create a smart contract. A Mintology project is a container for your NFTs and API calls, and will act as a filter for your analytics dashboard.
The only required fields are your project name and description. Your project description will only appear inside your dashboard and can be updated at any time, so you can use this field to store internal notes for yourself or your team.
How to Create a NFT Smart Contract
On the project creation modal, you will also be able to set up a dedicated NFT smart contract for your project by choosing the option ‘Dedicated Gasless Smart Contract’.
A Gasless Smart Contract is an ERC-721 smart contract built with Mintology’s proprietary gasless minting technology. It allows its owner to mint NFTs on the Ethereum network without incurring any gas fees.
Setting up your Dedicated Smart Contract
To create a NFT smart contract, you will need to configure the following:
1. Blockchain
Mintology supports NFT minting on both Ethereum and IMX. Ethereum is the recommended blockchain for business and enterprise as it is the most secure and reputable blockchain. Thanks to Mintology’s gasless minting smart contracts, it’s also now as cheap to mint on as any other side chain. However, if you expect a lot of transactions for your use case (e.g. gaming), then you might want to consider using the IMX layer 2 solution. For more detailed information on the pros and cons of both Ethereum and IMX, you can read this article.
2. Royalties
This is the amount of royalties you will receive on secondary sales of your NFTs. Adjust the slider or simply enter the amount in the input box on the right. You will be able to track all secondary sales of your NFTs inside your analytics dashboard on Mintology.
3. Crypto Wallet
Enter the wallet address that royalties should be paid out to. If you are creating your project on behalf of an organization, ensure that the wallet is owned by somebody with permission to hold those funds. It doesn’t matter what wallet you use, as long as its Ethereum compatible.
4. Total Supply
The maximum number of NFTs that can be minted from a smart contract is known as its total supply. Putting a limit on the total supply is useful when you want to ensure the scarcity of your NFTs. Some famous NFT projects like Bored Apes and others have a total supply of 10k. This protects buyers from supply dilution. If your NFTs are not meant to be investments, or if you are unsure how many NFTs you want to make, then you can go ahead with the unlimited option.
Using the Mintology Shared Contract
The Mintology Shared Contract is a gasless smart contract with an unlimited total supply that is free to use for all Mintology clients. If you don’t care about having a dedicated contract and storefront, or if you would like to mint some test NFTs, you may use this contract instead. Because this contract has already been deployed, customization is not possible.
Deploying a Smart Contract on Mintology
Once you have created a project, you will be directed to that project’s settings page. Here, you can deploy your smart contract by clicking deploy button, as indicated by the green arrow in the image above.
And that’s it! You’re now ready to start minting those sweet NFTs.
Additional things to note:
1. If you want to create generative images for your NFTs, you will need to do so BEFORE deploying your project. You will only be able to create/edit NFTs that are made from single images after your smart contract has been deployed.
2. A Dedicated Gasless Smart Contract costs $300 to deploy. Why? Although NFT minting is gasless, there is still a charge incurred by the Ethereum blockchain for deploying the smart contract in the first place. This deployment cost fluctuates depending on network congestion. We are able to keep prices low for you by setting a target price to deploy at, but this means mean you may have to wait a few minutes for your contract to be deployed.