Announcing Crossmint’s NFT Minting API! | by Crossmint | Crossmint Tech | August 2022
Announcing the Crossmint Minting API. With one line of code, no knowledge of smart contracts and no crypto, developers can programmatically create an NFT and deliver it to anyone in the world – even if they don’t own a crypto wallet.
😓 Minting is difficult
At Crossmint, we’ve been proud to support the sale of hundreds of NFT collections, from marketplaces and launchpads to individual creators. Creators using Crossmint increase sales by 30-50% per drop by making it easy for people to buy with just their credit card and an email.
However, we believe that not all NFTs need to be sold to provide value. A video game might want to reward users by creating them an NFT to represent a rare in-game item or custom skin. You might want to emboss a personalized digital gift card for your friend on their birthday. Brands may want to reward their most loyal customers with personalized NFTs that unlock discounts and rewards.
But creating and delivering NFTs is very difficult for new developers in the space, and even more difficult for their intended recipients. Creating an NFT requires knowledge of smart contracts, access to cryptocurrency, careful auditing and validation of metadata, security audits, and more. Receiving an NFT requires the recipient to set up a crypto wallet, provide the sender with information about their address (drop ENS, anyone?), and sometimes even pay crypto to cover gas fees. This ends up leaving a lot of people behind.
Today, we make the process of creating and delivering NFTs 100x easier for developers. All it takes is creating an account on the Crossmint console and invoking one line of code:
curl -X POST \
-H 'x-client-secret: <MY API SECRET>' \
-H 'x-project-id: <MY PROJECT ID>' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{ "metadata": { "name": "Mint API Test", "image": " "description": "Test NFT created by the Crossmint Minting API" }, "recipient": "email:[email protected]:poly" }' \
https://staging.crossmint.io/api/2022-06-09/collections/default/nfts
Under the hood, this line of code does all of the following:
1. Acquiring crypto to pay gas fees
2. Implement a security audited smart contract, preconfigured for editability, flexible ownership changes, burnability, etc.
3. Validate NFT metadata to ensure it works well in wallets and marketplaces
4. Uploading NFT metadata to the IPFS network, as well as to a CDN for fast access
5. Emboss an NFT
6. Create a wallet for a user and associate it with their email. Alternatively, you can send an NFT directly to a Web3 wallet address.
7. Provide a user interface so that users can claim NFT and optionally export it to their own wallet, without paying any gas fees whatsoever.
By managing NFT creation and delivery end-to-end, Crossmint can save companies from the hassle of managing keys and cryptocurrency, and the potential security hazards that come with it. This in turn means weeks saved from security, legal, financial assessments and removing complications during employee departures. All you need is a registered credit card and 10 minutes of an engineer’s time to send NFTs to any of your customers!
We are excited about the many use cases around NFTs that are made easy with the Minting API:
1. Certificates
2. Prices
3. Tickets
4. Video Game Assets
…and so much more!
As a showcase of what can be built, we asked 5 Crossmint team members to build something using the Crossmint Minting API in one afternoon. Here’s a look at what they built:
“Mintie”, a Discord Bot, that allows anyone to create an NFT on Polygon with a single command:
What if someone could make a tweet as an NFT? Well, now you can with the Twitter cousin from Mintie Bot. Just tag the bot, add an email address to your reply, and receive an NFT of the tweet straight to your Crossmint wallet (linked to the email address you use):
Crossmint Minting API launches today, in beta, on Polygon and Solana testnets. It’s free to use on testnet, and it will launch on mainnet soon.
Try it yourself – it’s completely free on testnet!
1. Visit the Crossmint developer console at https://staging.crossmint.io/console.
2. Click “All Projects” in the drop-down menu for projects on the left sidebar.
3. Once on the project screen, click on your default project and create an API key with it nfts.write and collections.create scope! Then visit our docs to get started: https://docs.crossmint.io/mint-nfts/nft-minting-api
If you want to use the API in production, fill this out interest form.
🧑🏻💻Oh, and one more thing…
To celebrate the launch of the Minting API, the Crossmint team is hosting a community hackathon with $2,500 in prizes, plus swag and free NFTs! If you want to learn more, join us Disagreement and follow us further Twitter – announcements on how to participate are coming soon!
Which blockchains are supported?
Solana and Polygon, with more to come in the future.
How much does it cost to use?
We’re still finalizing pricing, but we want to make sure the time savings will make it worth it.
Who pays the gas taxes?
Crossmint pays the gas charges. As a developer, you only need to register a credit card and you will be charged the corresponding amount in fiat.
How can users receive NFTs if they don’t have a wallet?
Crossmint creates custodial wallets for users where their NFT is stored until they decide to withdraw it.
Can I make NFTs and send them to a Metamask / Phantom / … wallet?
Yes, this is supported out of the box.
Wouldn’t this be misused for spam?
We take spam very seriously. We plan to monitor and kick out of the platform anyone who abuses it.
If I use the Minting API, does Crossmint have the keys to my contract?
To allow one line of code performance, Crossmint must have the ability to mint NFTs against your smart contract. However, we offer the ability to edit the authority of your smart contracts, so you can always keep full control and not remain locked to our platform.
