Store and mint NFTs using ERC-1155 metadata standards

Using NFT.Storage, you can:

• Store all your NFT's images and assets
• Generate ERC-1155 compliant metadata that contains your images and assets
• Store this metadata into NFT.Storage
• Provide the IPFS URL for the metadata that should be put into the transaction minting your ERC-1155 token

...all in one HTTP request!

Here's an example on how to do this to mint your own NFT!

Uploading your images, assets, and metadata#

Before you can create the blockchain record for your NFT, you'll need to store all of the off-chain resources that comprise the NFT "package". Once everything has been stored, you can use the IPFS URI for the metadata to link from the on-chain token to everything else.

Below are examples of storing NFT assets and metadata using JavaScript and the HTTP API. Both examples use the store operation, which accepts metadata and asset files in one request and updates the metadata to link to the asset files using IPFS URIs.

This method expects the metadata to conform to the ERC-1155 metadata schema. This standard is backwards compatible with ERC-721 metadata and is generally well supported by various wallets and marketplaces.

When adding custom properties, we recommend that you put them in the properties object, rather than at the top level. However, if you're minting for a specific marketplace, you should consult their documentation and follow their recommendations.

For the examples below, we'll use metadata that looks like this:

{
  "name": "Storing the World's Most Valuable Virtual Assets with NFT.Storage",
  "description": "The metaverse is here. Where is it all being stored?",
  "image": null,
  "properties": {
    "type": "blog-post",
    "origins": {
      "http": "https://blog.nft.storage/posts/2021-11-30-hello-world-nft-storage/",
      "ipfs": "ipfs://bafybeieh4gpvatp32iqaacs6xqxqitla4drrkyyzq6dshqqsilkk3fqmti/blog/post/2021-11-30-hello-world-nft-storage/"
    },
    "authors": [
      {
        "name": "David Choi"
      }
    ],
    "content": {
      "text/markdown": "The last year has witnessed the explosion of NFTs onto the world’s mainstage. From fine art to collectibles to music and media, NFTs are quickly demonstrating just how quickly grassroots Web3 communities can grow, and perhaps how much closer we are to mass adoption than we may have previously thought. <... remaining content omitted ...>"
    }
  }
}

This metadata object describes a post on the NFT.Storage blog using some custom metadata in the properties field that was made up for this example.

Although wallets and other clients won't understand the meaning of our custom fields like type or origins, they will be able to show the name, description and image, since those all conform to the ERC-1155 and ERC-721 spec.

Speaking of the image, if you look closely at the metadata above, you might notice that the image field is set to null. This is because the method for including images and other files with your request is a little different depending on whether you're using the JavaScript client or the HTTP API. See the tab that matches your platform to see how to prepare your request.

import { NFTStorage } from 'nft.storage'

// read the API key from an environment variable. You'll need to set this before running the example!
const API_KEY = process.env.NFT_STORAGE_API_KEY

// For example's sake, we'll fetch an image from an HTTP URL.
// In most cases, you'll want to use files provided by a user instead.
async function getExampleImage() {
  const imageOriginUrl = "https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/87873179/144324736-3f09a98e-f5aa-4199-a874-13583bf31951.jpg"
  const r = await fetch(imageOriginUrl)
  if (!r.ok) {
    throw new Error(`error fetching image: [${r.statusCode}]: ${r.status}`)
  }
  return r.blob()
}

async function storeExampleNFT() {
  const image = await getExampleImage()
  const nft = {
    image, // use image Blob as `image` field
    name: "Storing the World's Most Valuable Virtual Assets with NFT.Storage",
    description: "The metaverse is here. Where is it all being stored?",
    properties: {
      type: "blog-post",
      origins: {
        http: "https://blog.nft.storage/posts/2021-11-30-hello-world-nft-storage/",
        ipfs: "ipfs://bafybeieh4gpvatp32iqaacs6xqxqitla4drrkyyzq6dshqqsilkk3fqmti/blog/post/2021-11-30-hello-world-nft-storage/"
      },
      authors: [{ name: "David Choi" }],
      content: {
        "text/markdown": "The last year has witnessed the explosion of NFTs onto the world’s mainstage. From fine art to collectibles to music and media, NFTs are quickly demonstrating just how quickly grassroots Web3 communities can grow, and perhaps how much closer we are to mass adoption than we may have previously thought. <... remaining content omitted ...>"
      }
    }
  }

  const client = new NFTStorage({ token: API_KEY })
  const metadata = await client.store(nft)

  console.log('NFT data stored!')
  console.log('Metadata URI: ', metadata.url)
}

storeExampleNFT()

{
  "name": "Hello",
  "image": null,
  "properties": {
    "videoClip": null
  }
}

curl --request POST -F image=@image.jpg -F meta='{"image":null,"name":"Storing the Worlds Most Valuable Virtual Assets with NFT.Storage","description":"The metaverse is here. Where is it all being stored?","properties":{"type":"blog-post","origins":{"http":"https://blog.nft.storage/posts/2021-11-30-hello-world-nft-storage/","ipfs":"ipfs://bafybeieh4gpvatp32iqaacs6xqxqitla4drrkyyzq6dshqqsilkk3fqmti/blog/post/2021-11-30-hello-world-nft-storage/"},"authors":[{"name":"David Choi"}],"content":{"text/markdown":"The last year has witnessed the explosion of NFTs onto the world’s mainstage. From fine art to collectibles to music and media, NFTs are quickly demonstrating just how quickly grassroots Web3 communities can grow, and perhaps how much closer we are to mass adoption than we may have previously thought. <... remaining content omitted ...>"}}}'

Minting your NFT#

Once you have the IPFS URI for your metadata, you're ready to mint an NFT!

The details of how to mint an NFT will depend on which blockchain you're using, as well as the amount of control you want to have over the minting

Writing an NFT smart contract#

Ethereum was the "birthplace" of NFTs and is still one of the most popular platforms for NFT marketplaces and creators.

The most widely-used and well-supported standards are ERC-721 and ERC-1155. Adopting one of these interfaces will give your NFTs broad support by wallets and other NFT apps "out of the box" without requiring any special coordination or effort on your part.

Both ERC standards define methods for retrieving the URI associated with a token. In ERC-721, the method is called tokenURI, while ERC-1155 uses uri instead.

Generally speaking, you'll mint a new token by calling a smart contract function that assigns a new token ID and sets the metadata URI. The exact name of this function may differ from contract to contract, and if you're writing your own contract you can call it whatever you like.

Here's the example contract from the OpenZeppelin ERC-721 guide, using their excellent base contracts:

// contracts/GameItem.sol
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/extensions/ERC721URIStorage.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";

contract GameItem is ERC721URIStorage {
    using Counters for Counters.Counter;
    Counters.Counter private _tokenIds;

    constructor() ERC721("GameItem", "ITM") {}

    function awardItem(address player, string memory tokenURI)
        public
        returns (uint256)
    {
        _tokenIds.increment();

        uint256 newItemId = _tokenIds.current();
        _mint(player, newItemId);
        _setTokenURI(newItemId, tokenURI);

        return newItemId;
    }
}

Here, the minting function is called awardItem, and it both creates a new token and assigns it to the player address.

The second parameter is tokenURI, which sets the value that is returned by the contract's tokenURI method. This is where you can put the IPFS URI for your NFT metadata.

Once a token has been minted, anyone can call the tokenURI method (defined in the base contract) and find the URI for any token. Using the URI, the caller can fetch the metadata, images, and other assets that define the NFT using the peer-to-peer IPFS network or an HTTP gateway.

We've only scratched the surface of what's possible with NFTs on Ethereum. Here are a few resources that can help with the next steps:

• Building a minting service, a step-by-step tutorial from NFT School
• OpenSea's ERC-721 tutorial
• How to mint an NFT with IPFS and Best practices for storing NFT data with IPFS from the IPFS documentation site.