How to Eliminate NFT Deployment Costs and Smart Contract Hassles

Coding and deploying NFT smart contracts is difficult and expensive. But now, you can skip all that.

NFTs are a hot topic, and many developers are jumping at the opportunity to integrate them into their apps. But if you want to allow your app’s end-users to mint NFTs, you will most likely run into a few obstacles:

1. Coding and deploying smart contracts is super difficult and expensive.
2. Buying and holding crypto to pay for gas fees is a pain.
3. Working with private keys can introduce a ton of security issues.

Let’s dive deeper into each of these…

The smart contract blues

Depending on the current gas cost on Ethereum, deploying an ERC-721 smart contract can cost anywhere from $400 to $2,000. Imagine spending that kind of cash only to find out you made a mistake in the smart contract and will have to redeploy. These kinds of overheads are simply not feasible for the majority of developers.

Of course, you can always create NFTs on other blockchains, like Celo, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), or Harmony, which are much less expensive. But even so, you still have to learn to code smart contracts. As you’ll probably find, this is quite difficult and can take weeks or months to get right. Even if you follow a tutorial to deploy a standard NFT smart contract, the smallest mistake can render your app useless or compromise its security. Not to mention, you have to code a different smart contract for each blockchain, so minting on multiple chains is almost out of the question.

So you wanna pay for gas fees?

You’re also going to have to pay for the gas fees to mint NFTs. If you’re just minting a few, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. But if you want to build an app for hundreds or thousands of end-users on multiple blockchains, you’ll have to buy crypto from exchanges and make sure you always have enough available on each blockchain to pay for their gas fees.

You’ll also have to deal with crypto regulations, and good luck if your bank has a problem with you using your account to buy crypto. Some banks will even freeze your account if they do. Suffice it to say, paying gas fees with crypto introduces a slew of potential issues that could completely shut down your NFT app.

You need to keep your private keys safe.

To mint NFTs from within your app, you have to use private keys to pay for the gas fees. But if anyone gets hold of your private keys, they can immediately steal all of your assets. So how do you do this securely?

It’s definitely possible, but it’s a huge headache. And forget about letting your users mint NFTs from mobile apps. It’s a whole other can of worms, and one that will throw a wrench into your project if you don’t have a comprehensive solution. Developing one yourself could take months, and even then you could still run into vulnerabilities.

Is there an easier way to create NFTs?

To be frank, there’s no way to bypass or get discounts on Ethereum’s gas fees. And there’s really no way to simplify smart contract development. But what if you could just skip all of that?

Now, you can.

We’ve created a new feature called NFT Express that makes it so you don’t even have to code or deploy smart contracts. You can mint as many NFTs as you want on 5 blockchains, quickly and easily.

We have already coded and deployed smart contracts for you, and the gas fees for minting each NFT are simply deducted from your monthly paid plan.

This means you don’t even need to worry about holding crypto or making sure you have enough funds at a blockchain address to mint NFTs. And you don’t need even need to work with private keys. So forget about those security concerns we mentioned earlier, and say hello to NFT minting features in mobile apps!

Our pre-deployed NFT smart contracts are standardized, audited, and you can view the source code for them here. They’re essentially forked versions of OpenZeppelin contracts with a few additional features. Our blockchain developers have years of experience under their belts and have done the hard work for you by building secure and compatible smart contracts for you to mint tokens from instantly.

There is no limit to how many tokens you can mint from our contracts, and they are available on Ethereum, Celo, BSC, Harmony, and Polygon. And they’re really easy to use.

How to mint NFTs with 1 API call

All you need to use NFT Express is 1 API call. There are just 3 parameters you need to enter:

• chain - The blockchain you’re minting on
• to - The recipient’s address
• url - The URL of the NFT metadata (image, audio file, video, etc.). For more on how to upload metadata to IPFS for free using Tatum, check out our guide.

Here’s an example endpoint using our JavaScript SDK that will mint an NFT on Ethereum:

const transactionHash = await mintNFT(false, {  
   chain: Currency.ETH,
   to: '0x0ff64c166a462b31ed657c9d88c5ac4fef6b88b6',
   url: 'ipfs://QmXJJ6UF5WkF4WTJvsdhiA1etGwBLfpva7Vr9AudGMe3pj’ 
});

The private key is provided by Tatum, the token ID is generated automatically, and the smart contract address is automatically set to the Tatum smart contract on the blockchain you’re using. The gas fees are automatically debited from the monthly credit balance of your paid Tatum plan.

You don’t have to worry about securely working with private keys, deploying smart contracts, or paying for gas fees using crypto on each blockchain. NFT Express is everything you need to mint NFTs as quickly and easily as possible.

Get minting!

If you’re ready to get started and try it for yourself, go ahead and sign up for an API key. Since your gas fees are deducted from your monthly credits, you’ll need a paid Tatum plan.

Which plan you should choose depends on which blockchain(s) you’ll be using. For blockchains with lower gas fees, like Celo and Harmony, our Start Plan for $9 a month should be more than enough to mint plenty of NFTs. For Binance Smart Chain and Polygon, you’ll probably want to go for a Basic Plan for $49 a month. Since Ethereum’s gas fees are very high at the moment, get in touch and we’ll help you custom design an Enterprise Plan to suit your needs.

You can use NFT Express with Tatum’s JavaScript SDK or with direct REST API calls.

If you want to dig a little deeper, you can easily create NFTs and pay for the gas fees with crypto, so be sure to check out our full guide on building NFTs that pay creators.

If you need any help or have any questions, hop onto the Tatum Discord or our subreddit and our devs will get back to you asap.

Happy coding with 💪NFT express!