NFT mint (minting)

Minting calls a function on an NFT contract that creates a new token, assigns it a unique ID and records the buyer as its owner. Collections launch with a mint phase in which tokens can be minted for a fixed price, a Dutch auction that starts high and drops, or for free plus gas. Creators can also mint one-off works themselves on marketplaces or platforms.

Mints became events in their own right during the 2021 boom. Popular collections sold out in minutes, minters often flipped tokens immediately on secondary markets, and some collections priced at a fraction of an ether traded at many times that soon after. Allowlists, staged sales and bots shaped who could mint, and mint revenue funded the project's team and treasury.

Most minted collections later lost much of their value, and mint hype was frequently manipulated. Fake mint sites are one of the most common phishing traps, draining wallets that connect and sign. Buyers should only mint from links on official channels, check the contract on a block explorer and understand that a mint price is not a fair value.