How to Start Collecting NFTs

At this point in time, it’s nearly impossible to completely avoid NFTs. High price tag sales continue to make headlines every week, some of your favorite celebrities are likely beginning to release their own NFTs, and not to mention NFTs are being discussed by everyone and their mother.

NFTs don’t have to be anything more complex than supporting a creator you like and receiving a digital gift (NFT) in return.

And I believe the best way to understand NFTs (aside from buying my book: The NFT Handbook) is to actually start collecting them. You don’t have to drop an entire mortgage payment on an NFT. You can start small. But the main point is to start.

Here’s the three-step way to start collecting NFTs.

Step 1 – Create A Digital Wallet

In order to buy, sell, or create NFTs, you need a digital wallet that supports ERC-721 (the Ethereum-based NFT token standard).

In my opinion, the best digital wallet is MetaMask. It’s simple, safe, and the most widely used.

Digital Wallets, such as MetaMask, are used both to hold your cryptocurrency for purchasing NFTs as well as to hold your NFTs. It’s the most sacred part of participating in the NFT universe. Therefore, you should take a lot of care in setting up and securing it (discussed in detail here).

Step 2 – Add Funds To Your Digital Wallet

Obviously, you need some crypto in order to purchase an NFT. But it’s not just the price of the NFT you need to factor in. As an NFT buyer, you’ll also be responsible for covering the gas fee – which is the cost associated with transferring and recording your purchase on the Ethereum blockchain.

Gas fees tend to hover from $5 to $50. It’s variable and depends entirely on how many people are wanting to do transactions at the same time as you.

How much ETH should I purchase and put in my digital wallet?

That question really depends on what you want to collect. If you want to own an NFT that is a part of a big, popular collection (such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Gutter Cats, etc.) then you’re going to need no less than 3 ETH. If you’re not as serious about collecting, then you can probably get away with a tenth of that.

At the bare minimum, you should put $100 worth of ETH in your digital wallet. That’s enough to buy a low-priced NFT (or free NFT) and cover the gas-fee.

To fund your digital wallet, you can transfer ETH from any crypto wallet or crypto exchange to your MetaMask (here’s how). And if you don’t currently own any ETH, then you’ll need to purchase it on an exchange such as Coinbase, Binance, Tezos, or one of the many others.

Step 3 – Buy An NFT

With a digital wallet and crypto to spend, you’re ready to buy your first NFT. For your first NFT, spend some time browsing the different marketplaces out there such as OpenSea, Foundation, SuperRare, etc. See what catches your eye. Find something aesthetically that you’d really like to own. And if you’re price-sensitive, you can sort the listings by price to find something you can afford.

OpenSea is a great place to start because there are many low-priced and even free NFTs on there. Whichever marketplace you decide to purchase an NFT from, you’ll need to create an account with them. If you’ve already set up your digital wallet, then you can connect this to your marketplace account as well.

And if you cannot find a piece you want to collect, then I urge you to check out my NFTs, the NFTQT.com collection.

Every day, I’m releasing a new NFT QT. I’m purposely keeping the price point low (around 0.02 ETH, which is approx. $40) so that my friends, my fans, and early supporters can all get in on the action.

You can see some of the first NFT QT’s below: