NFTs are without a doubt the hottest crypto assets right now, and there’s no sign of this trend slowing down any time soon. With this in mind, we fully understand that you don’t want to be left out in the cold without any NFTs in your investment portfolio. So today we’re going to teach you how to buy some of the hottest NFTs around as quickly and easily as possible!
Sounds good? Let’s go!
What Gives NFTs Value?
NFTs are currently a dime a dozen. Thousands of collections launch every single day, each with thousands of NFTs. That results in hundreds of thousands of new NFTs minted every day, so finding value amongst all that noise can be tricky. For the most part, NFTs don’t really have any value. There are a few exceptions, where people have tied an NFT to a real-world item, such as a sports team jersey, sports car, or property, but for the most part, NFTs are tied to valueless bits of digital artwork.
But how do NFTs end up selling for millions? Well, the exact same reason tangible artwork sells for millions – demand. Most NFTs are in fact art, and they appreciate and depreciate in value using the same principles. This means that when a certain artist gets famous or they get a bit of hype in the media, their work becomes worth more money. You’ve also got people that simply like the designs or styles. These all impact the price value. Once an NFT collection has one of these two ingredients, they become valuable. But without them, an NFT is only worth what someone will pay for it.
Guide to Buying NFTs
Now that you know how NFTs gain value, you should be able to pick out a few potential 10x candidates on the various secondary marketplaces, or on Discord so that you can get whitelisted and score an epic discount by getting a pre-sale mint. But how does any of that work?
Step 1 – Get Yourself A Wallet
A lot of people think that buying NFTs is scary and difficult, but it’s really not that hard. In fact, it’s probably easier to do than buying a Van Gough or Picasso. All you need is a cryptocurrency wallet that supports NFTs, and a little bit of cryptocurrency. To get you started, we suggest picking a wallet such as MathWallet or MetaMask as these are both multi-chain wallets, so you’ll be able to buy NFTs from multiple blockchains and store them without needing multiple wallets.
Step 2 – Fund Your Wallet
Once you’ve picked a wallet to use and you’ve set it up (remember to store your seed phrase somewhere safe), you can go ahead and top it up with some cryptocurrency. Ethereum is the most popular blockchain for NFTs, so you might want to put your NFT budget into Ethereum and move it to the wallet of choice. But, you can also use Solana, which isn’t a bad alternative if you’re after some Solana NFTs. Do note that you’ll need to save enough in reserve to be able to cover the gas fees.
Step 3 – Head to a Marketplace
Now you’ve got some crypto in your wallet, it’s time to pick NFTs to buy. Let’s stick with Ethereum here, you’ll likely want to head to OpenSea as it’s currently the biggest NFT marketplace in the world. You can connect your wallet using the “connect wallet” button in the top right-hand corner. Simply approve the connection popup in your wallet and your wallet will be linked to the marketplace. This is necessary if you’re going to buy NFTs or place any bids.
Step 4 – Bidding on an NFT
Next up, it’s time to pick some NFTs to buy. Now, we’d all love a CryptoPunk or Bored Ape Yacht Club, but those are way out of the price range for the average Joe. So, instead, have a search around through the various categories and menus on OpenSea to find a collection that tickles your fancy. When you’ve found an NFT collection you like, click on it and find some NFTs that you like and are in your price range. If you like one and it’s a bit more expensive than you’d hoped, you can opt to place a bid.
To do this, you’ll want to hit “place bid”. This will bring up a small menu where you can select how much you’d like to pay for the NFT in question. Once you submit your offer, the seller will be notified. If they’ll happily take that price, they can accept the offer and the funds will be transferred to them and the NFT will appear in your wallet moments later.
Step 4.5 – Buy an NFT
On the other hand, you can simply opt to pay the price the seller is asking. To do this, hit “buy now” and the funds will leave your wallet. The NFT will then appear in your wallet moments later. It’s almost as simple as using the buy now feature on Amazon – we mean it!
Step 5 – Rejoice
And that’s it. You’ve just bought your first NFT – how cool is that! Make sure that you’ve got enough gas to send it on to wherever you want, or to resell it. But other than that, you’re in the NFT world and you’ve done everything you need. See, it’s not that scary!
Are NFTs a Smart Investment?
A lot of people are making money hand over fist in the NFT market, but what they don’t tell you is that they also lose a lot of money on bad trades too. Only a handful of NFT collections will reach the lofty heights of 6-figure price tags, meaning the odds of picking up one of those early doors is slim to none. Before you buy an NFT, you need to be comfortable with the fact that you may make no money from it, or lose money at best.
The best way to go when you buy NFTs is to buy an NFT that you like, just as you would any other piece of art. Don’t buy NFTs as an investment, instead, buy them as artworks that you want to own, and think are really cool. If you follow this logic, you’ll eventually bump into others that share the same opinion. This in turn makes those specific NFTs more visible and more likely to be popular with others, bolstering your chances of actually making a profit from your investment.
