NFTs have become one of the topics of the moment. Drawings, articles, memes, tweets and even pixels have become non-fungible tokens that are traded at any cost. And the imagination seems endless: a 21-year-old sold “his soul” as NFT.
It should be remembered that NFTs or non-fungible tokens are certificates of ownership stored on a blockchain and backed by blockchain technology (for example, Ethereum) that are usually associated with a digital asset, such as visual arts, videos, music. or collectibles.
The protagonist of this story is Stijn van Schaik, an art student which published its peculiar offer on OpenSea, a well-known marketplace for these assets, and in a short time obtained a buyer.
A) Yes, Soul of Stinus (the name with which he baptized the NFT) was auctioned for 0.11 wETH (Wrapped Ether), which is equivalent to about 377 dollars. The transfer was recorded on the Polygon blockchain. The new owner maintains the offer of this asset and new offers could arrive. In fact, in the last hours a user offered 0.15 ETH (USD 492.15) to acquire this token.
This whole situation refers to the famous episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul to Milkhouse for five dollars. At that time there were no non-fungible tokens: the transaction is sealed on a piece of paper that says “The soul of Bart Simpson”.
“Hello person, you are currently looking at a soul. For now it’s mine. Once it’s fully uploaded to the blockchain, who knows what will happen. What does it mean for a soul to be decentralized? let’s find out”. That is the legend that appears in OpenSea, along with the photo that represents the soul of Stinus.
This entire transaction is also accompanied by a contract that is published. The agreement has several points that are, to say the least, like the operation itself. In one of the first points, which refers to the description of the NFT itself, the following is read:
“Stinus’ ‘Soul’ for the purposes of this contract is understood as the immortal, spiritual and immaterial essence of his self that exists independently and differently from his material self.”
The following is clarified later:Although both the Buyer and Stinus acknowledge that the true nature, scope and existence of such a soul, whether it exists or not, since it is something unknown and unknowable to any of themthe ambiguity involved in no way limits or invalidates any part of this agreement, and the entire scope of the Alma shall be deemed subject to the agreement”.
How to create and sell an NFT
There are different platforms to create an NFT. One of the most used, and also free, is Opensea. Once you have entered the site, you must press the “Create” option that is located in the upper right margin. Once that is done, the system will ask you to link with a wallet or wallet. There are several options, including MetaMask which is one of the most used.
The next step is to upload the file that you want to convert to NFT. That file can be an image, video, GIF, etc. Then it will be necessary to generate a description, name and a link so that users can see additional information about the product that is offered.
The most important point is to choose which blockchain you want to mint the NFT on. Ethereum is usually recommended, although there are also other alternatives such as Polygon, which is free. If Ethereum is chosen, a gas fee must be paid, as it is called the fee that users pay to miners in a block chain protocol so that their transaction is included in the block.
Once this is done, the creation of the NFT is finished and the next step is to put it up for sale. It can be sold on OpenSea or on other marketplaces like Mint, for example. In case you choose to market it in OpenSea then you have to follow these steps:
You enter Opensea.io, go to the user’s profile, select the NFT you want to trade and press the button that says “sell”. Next, a price is set, which can be fixed or an auction, and a time is established during which that sale will be available. Opensea charges a 2.5% commission on the sale made.
