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October 6, 2021

Best API to Mint NFTs – Full Guide

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Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, represent one of the most well-known use cases of blockchain technology. In fact, everyone from artists to celebrities and athletes to movie stars are releasing their own NFT tokens and NFT collections. As such, the general public is starting to become more familiar with the concept of this digital ownership of unique tokens. This is, in turn, driving greater tokenization of art, collectibles, tickets, and more. While we are still far from mainstream adoption, this particular crypto branch already offers countless opportunities for developers that can create quality NFT dApps. Moreover, developers utilizing the right tools to help them speed up the development process will benefit the most. Therefore, learning about the best API to mint NFTs may be one of the key points on your blockchain development path.

It wasn’t long ago that the entire Web3 development process was challenging, mainly because proper tools didn’t exist to help with the backend coding. However, now we have several reputable platforms offering a wide range of solutions. While most of these solutions focus on providing nodes, one platform took things to a whole new level, and it offers the entire arsenal of powerful tools to equip blockchain developers fully. This ultimate Web3 development platform is Moralis, and it offers an impressive Web3 SDK, including the best API to mint NFTs, which will be the primary focus of this article. So, if you’re serious about NFT development, create your free Moralis account today! 

What are NFTs?

Before we dive any deeper, let us first cover the basics. So, let’s start by answering the question, “what are NFTs?”. In short, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique crypto assets. As the word “non-fungible” suggests, there are no two or more NFTs alike. Even if they are copies of the same item that they represent, each still has unique properties. As such, NFTs are perfect for digital art and collectibles. Moreover, they already offer a wide range of other (more serious) use cases, such as certification and ownership representations.

In the case of digital art, NFTs are essentially jpeg files; however, it’s the minting process on a specific blockchain that converts a regular digital file into an NFT. That process assigns ownership and many other properties that can be further utilized. For instance, an NFT can have a sort of commission or tip property assigned to it. This means that the original owner gets a predefined percentage of any future purchase of that NFT automatically. That way, an artist can be rewarded as his piece gains in value over time. This is just one of many excellent functionalities that NFTs offer. As such, the use of NFTs also brings a whole new approach to ownership, transparency, and elimination of the (oftentimes) dishonest middleman by ensuring automated fair transactions (with the use of smart contracts).

What is NFT Minting?

The process of creating NFTs took on the same wording as the process of creating physical coins. While coins are minted by stamping metal, NFTs are minted by converting digital files of different formats (PDF, JPEG, PNG, MP4, etc.) into unique blockchain assets. 

Moreover, to “mint” an NFT is to create a transaction on a particular blockchain (the most commonly used one is Ethereum), which attributes unique properties to the NFT and stores that data and the file we were converting into an NFT on the blockchain. Thus, “NFT minting” is also known as the process of validating information. Once an NFT is minted, it comes with an array of data, including:

  • Ownership information of the NFT
  • Contract type for the NFT
  • The time of NFT creation (minting)
  • All the NFT’s metadata
  • Token address, ID, hash and URI

Thus, using a proper API to mint NFTs is important so that all of the above information is properly automatically incorporated without any tedious backend coding.

Let us also point out that minting an NFT and creating an NFT are technically speaking not one and the same. While minting an NFT refers solely to the process of transacting a digital file to the blockchain, the process of creating an NFT also includes the creation of the digital file itself. However, you’ll see the two terms often used interchangeably. In case you want to learn more about how to create your own NFT, make sure to check out our five-step guide. 

API to Mint NFTs Explained

An API, or an “Application Programming Interface”, allows pieces of software to communicate with each other. Thus, it enables a range of different instructions to be translated in a way that ensures mutual understanding. As such, APIs enable consistent coding and predictable deliverability of replicable functions on every request. Moreover, APIs are usually a part of every decent SDK. If you’re not sure what the differences are between SDKs and APIs, make sure to check out our article covering Moralis’ SDK in further detail. In that article, we have a special section explaining just that.

When we talk about an API to mint NFTs, we essentially refer to the above-explained concept of APIs applied to this particular use case. As such, the best API to mint NFTs enables you to implement minting capabilities into your NFT dApps with maximum ease. 

Best API to Mint NFTs

There are multiple chains on which one can mint NFTs today; however, Ethereum remains the most popular option. As such, ERC-721 and ERC-1155 token standards are what Moralis focuses on as far as the NFT API goes. Aside from providing you with the best API to mint NFTs, Moralis offers an extensive set of code snippets, allowing NFT developers to add a full array of NFT functionalities to their decentralized applications. 

At this point, you may be wondering, “why not use a marketplace to mint NFTs?”. Using marketplaces, such as OpenSea, for minting NFTs is definitely an option. However, since the main purpose of blockchain is decentralization, using centralized platforms to mint NFTs doesn’t line up with the vision behind blockchain technology. Moreover, these types of marketplaces have their additional fees. Therefore, minting your own NFTs in a decentralized manner is the way to go, at least in our opinion, especially if you are a developer as it involves some coding. This might be a tedious and complicated process if you were to follow the common path of running your own RPC node and building the infrastructure around it. However, by using Moralis’ API to mint NFTs, things are made a lot simpler. 

Furthermore, having access to the best API to mint NFTs enables you to easily add NFT minting functionality to any Web3 application, whether it be an NFT game, an NFT wallet, or an NFT marketplace. That way, you ensure that your users can mint NFTs right there on your platform. In short, Moralis’ NFT API represents the best API to mint NFTs, or work with NFTs in general.

With that said, let’s take a look at an example project.

Moralis’ API to Mint NFTs – An Example Project

Herein we’ll build a Web3 application that will enable you to mint NFTs. This way, you’ll be able to see the best API to mint NFTs in action and, at the same time, level up your NFT development skills. Moreover, you’ll get to see how various Moralis tools, including its way of interacting with IPFS (the leading solution for decentralized storage), simplify the development process. Of course, you can also avoid using IPFS, but this means that you will limit yourself to a more centralized method, which exposes your project to a single-point-of-failure risk. As such, we’ll focus on the decentralized way for this project.

Here’s what our finished dApp’s interface will look like:

It will enable users to log in using a username and an email address and authenticate themselves using MetaMask, as the “Connect MetaMask” button suggests. Then, they’ll be able to name the NFT, add a description, choose a file, and finally upload the file and mint the NFT. If done correctly, this kind of message will appear at the bottom:

The Best API to Mint NFTs in Action

In order to achieve the above-presented results, we will create a Python flask app. The app will trigger all the associated code, including “index.html” and “logic.js”, which is what we will focus on. 

The “index.html” file is the one that will ensure that our dApp looks like the one presented in the image above. It will enable users to interact with our decentralized application and mint their NFTs. However, it’s the “logic.js” file (using JavaScript) that’ll ensure everything runs smoothly. Moreover, it’s the “.js” file we use to insert the code snippets provided by Moralis’ documentation, including the API to Mint NFTs. 

Here’s how our “index.html” file will look like:

Here are the details of our “.js” file:

Thanks to Moralis and its API to mint NFTs, we’re able to get the logic of our dApp with as few as 71 lines of code.

Moreover, we need to point out that the top two lines are vital for every project using Moralis. They ensure you access to the entire arsenal by connecting to your Moralis server. To learn about these initial steps in more detail, see the “Moralis Setup” subsection below.

Furthermore, minting happens by interacting with a smart contract. However, for the sake of this project, we didn’t want you to deal with creating your own smart contract. As such, we’ve covered that aspect with the code on line four. Thus, you can put your primary focus on the use of Moralis’ API to mint NFTs.

In addition, you can access the complete code for this project at GitHub

Moralis Setup

There are four steps to complete to obtain a Moralis server’s ID and URL:

  1. Create Your Moralis Account – In case you do not have a Moralis account yet, make sure to create one now. The best part is, it’s completely free! Just follow the link, enter your email address and create your password. Then confirm your email address (you’ll receive an email with a confirmation link). For those of you, who already have an active Moralis account, just log in
  2. Create a New Server – Once you’ve logged in to your Moralis account, you need to create a new server. Just click the “+ Create a new Server” button in the top-right corner and then click one of the options from the drop-down menu that will appear (see the image below). We recommend starting with the “Testnet Server” option.

Next, enter the required details: server name (it can be anything you want), select region, network, chain(s) (you can select one or multiple options), and click “Add instance”. 

  1. Access Server Details – Now your server’s ready, you can obtain the details to use inside our “.js” file. To do this, click the “View Details” button next to your server name. Then, a pop-up window will appear containing all of the information. In case you’ve used Moralis before, you may already have one or more servers set up. In that case, you may use any of them.
  1. Initialize Moralis – By populating the “.js” file with the Moralis-related details, we obtain the required backend functionality:

Note: Do not copy the server details from the image above. You need to use the details of your particular server.

In case you want more details about the code presented for our example project, we recommend watching the video that covers creating your own NFT minting application.

Best API to Mint NFTs – Summary

Given the rate of NFT popularity growth and constant increase in adoption of its blockchain use case by celebrities, it seems wise to turn that to your advantage. As such, this article offers you a lot of value and actionable recommendations you should put to use. You’ve learned that NFT development can be made a lot easier when using a helpful tool. One of such tools is Moralis’ ultimate Web3 development platform, which has the best API to mint NFTs. Using this shortcut, you get to develop your own dApps with all sorts of NFT functionalities by simply copying and pasting short snippets of code from Moralis’ neat documentation. Moreover, we’ve also covered an example project as we created an NFT minting Web3 app.

We hope you’ll seize this opportunity and use Moralis to speed up your deliverability while simultaneously saving time and other resources. Moreover, Moralis is the premier “Infura for BSC” alternative, and also provides other functionality – like easy access to the BEP20 testnet or guides on how to build Ethereum dApps. In case you’d like to learn more about Moralis and be further inspired by multiple example projects, we recommend checking out Moralis’ Blog and Moralis’ YouTube channel. They both deliver fresh high-value content on a regular basis. Best of luck with your NFT programming – with the Moralis NFT API, it is now easier than ever! 

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