📚Mission 10
Learning about NFTs
Congratulations! You have reached the last mission of our first module! We learned many things, from installing Metamask and creating our wallet to making more complex transactions of swaps and creating proposals on Snapshot. Amazing! It has been quite a journey.
On behalf of the Project Melk team, I would like to thank you for participating in all the missions, collaborating with the growth of the project through feedback, suggestions, and constructive criticism.
In today's mission, we will understand a bit more about what an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is and perform the minting of our completion certificate for this first module. Shall we go?
1. Non-Fungible Token (NFT)
Non-Fungible Tokens are difficult things to describe. So, let's break this definition into two parts. First, let's understand what a token is.
In the financial and cryptocurrency markets, a token represents a digital asset. This is the case, for example, with the MELK token. However, the Melk token is a fungible asset, as it can be exchanged for another of the same value. A good analogy is money, which is a fungible good, because a one hundred reais note can be exchanged for two fifty reais notes, as they "hold" the same value and are of the same type.
In the case of NFTs, they are non-fungible tokens, which means they cannot be exchanged or replaced by others of the same kind. For NFTs, we can use the analogy of the Mona Lisa painting. Even if the painting is replicated or copied, there is only one authentic painting.
In this context, NFTs are digital assets that represent an exclusive asset, stored on the blockchain, using the ERC-721 standard in their smart contract. They have traits, which are attributes that can represent anything the developer chooses. Additionally, NFTs can also display images, videos, and GIFs. Our NFT will be a course completion certificate with an image containing the student's name and the module they completed.
Thus, the certificate you will mint—a term that represents the act of coining or creating an NFT—is a unique digital asset that represents your completion of the first module. NFTs in general can be traded, and are often sold for tokens or money, but in the case of our certificate, the image will specify the student and the course the NFT refers to, such that exchanging certificates does not make sense, preventing individuals who have not completed the module from having a certificate.
1.1 NFT Collections
A set of NFTs coming from the same contract are part of a collection. The collections contain different attributes and images, but belong to the same contract. There are various types of collections, and the most famous are the PFP collections, which stands for Profile Pictures. These are collections of images that can be used as profile pictures on social media. A very well-known example is the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection:
This highly famous NFT collection revolutionized the way NFTs are used and sold. Collections can have various purposes, such as in the case of the Bored Apes, serving as entry to a club, a community. Another example is collections from stores, like Adidas, which distribute discounts and specific content to the holders of their tokens.
Our NFT collection has a slightly different purpose. It validates the effort, learning, and knowledge of each of you. And this collection pertains to our first learning module, and you will be the first to own the NFTs from Project Melk! Cool, isn't it?
You will be able to use the NFT from our collection as proof of knowledge and you can even include it in your resume and on your LinkedIn profile.
2. Marketplaces
Tokens may or may not have monetary value. In the previous example, the BAYC collection is sold at varying prices, depending on the attributes of each token. For instance, a Bored Ape NFT where the ape has a red hat attribute might be more expensive than one with sunglasses, depending on the rarity of the attributes. Therefore, there are Marketplaces, which are like NFT markets.
In these markets, those who own an NFT can put it up for sale at any price they choose, and others may buy it or not, depending on, as mentioned earlier, the attributes and the value the buyer places on the token.
However, marketplaces are also useful for viewing the NFTs you own, even if they do not have monetary value, like our certificate NFT, which we see as proof of knowledge.
3. Getting to Know OpenSea
In this part of the mission, we will visit a very famous marketplace, OpenSea. There, we will learn how to view NFTs, and later on, view our certificate. To start, enter this link: https://opensea.io/
OpenSea is an NFT marketplace where we can view numerous tokens and even purchase them. For today's mission, we will view the first minted certificate from our project collection called MELK Frens (Fren is short for friend and is widely used in the crypto community. Its origins trace back to the time when crypto was first launched.)
Now that you are in OpenSea, go to the search box and type MELK Frens, our collection name. You should be able to see our collection in the drop down list.
3.1 MELK Frens collection
Once you click on the name of the collection it will take you to the collection page, let's take a look at the information available there.
Our collection page looks like the screenshot above, on the top right side you have the Login part, go ahead and connect your wallet by clicking there. You will have a pop up with the different wallets you can connect, choose MetaMask since is the one we used to create in Mission 1.
Then sign the request from OpenSea to be connected.
You should now see your account connected , it will look like this:
Now if you scroll down, you will see the details of the collection and all the certificates that have been created already for other people that got here like you. Before we go into the details of the NFT individually, let's explore a bit this page, as you can see, there are several different sections, I will provide you an overview.
1 - The name and logo of the collection, the logo can also be one of the NFTs.
2 - Details about the overall transactions of the collection such as volume, floor price (lowest price for any NFT in the collection), Listed NFTs and Unique owners.
3 - Information about the collection, usually describes where the collection comes from, founders, brands behind, etc...
4 - Information about the items of the collection (all the NFTs that have been created), the offers (in case there are monetary offers for any item), Analytics (a more detailed look into volume, price, sales in a certain period of time) and activity (related to the history of events that happened in this collection)
Our collection consists of certificates that are non-transferable so it means you will receive once in the wallet you used to complete the missions and there is no possibility for transfers or sales. This type of NFT is called Soul Bound. Soul Bound tokens are non-transferable and after acquiring one, it is always in your personal wallet and identity.
Other than that if you scroll down, you will also see 1. The filters where you can select a specific attribute (price, background, etc...) of the NFT and 2. The NFT image with their number below. In the screenshot below we are looking at the first NFT of the collection.
3.2 MELK Frens NFTs
Choose any of the NFTs you see in that page, I will choose MELK Expert Polygon #1 to continue exploring the information. After selecting the NFT, this is what you should see:
This page provides you with :
The name of the collection
MELK FrensThe name and number of the token
MELK Expert Polygon #1The number of views the NFT has been viewed and the category PFPs (ProFile Picture)
Other info related to offer and price which are not applicable for this NFT since it is not transferable
3.3 Metadata
Then , just below the image, you have a few more information which we call Metadata. Metadata is essentially the information about data. Metadata of an NFT is simply the attributes of an NFT like name, description, image and other properties as described below.
The description explaining more details about the certification
The traits, which are the elements that may be found in each NFT.
The levels, which are a numerical trait used in NFT collections and usually represent the strength or impact of a given trait (This does not apply to our collection)
The about MELK Frens, giving you more information about the project
The details, which refer to the smart contract information where the NFT collection was built on including the contract address, the token ID, the token standard etc...
4. Your certificate
Now, let's find your certificate.
Click on your profile icon, then Profile as per the screenshot below.
Once you are in your profile, you should be able to see the certificate we sent you. Click on it to see the details, copy the URL.
This is how it looks to me:
https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0xc9e7c528b2d88444b7f5f4f5e72af27a2499dd45/1
5. All ready! Post the link to your certificate on Discord!
Congratulations on completing the last mission of the MELK project!
To receive your reward, post the URL to your NFT certificate in the channel #Mission 10 on Discord.
When sending the message, do not write anything other than your certificate URL.
Thank you for participating in this knowledge trail, don't stop learning, web3 is a great ecosystem that will continue to evolve. We have other trails that you can participate, if not already available in the server you started this one, ask the ADMIN to contact us and we will glad help to add! See you soon Team MELKDAO
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