How to find metadata for your NFT art on OpenSea and Rarible

The emergence of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) has brought with it a whole range of use cases. They range from providing ownership of digital goods to acting as access keys or certificates for holders of the underlying content. The content can include music, movies, NFT art, real estate, etc. However, the metadata of an NFT is an important part of the information that tells users what the non-fungible is about.

Storing large files on the blockchain can be expensive. Therefore, people more often than not choose to store the underlying content off-chain. However, the non-fungible itself is hosted on the blockchain. In such cases, metadata plays an important role. It contains details such as the NFT art’s name, description, transaction history, link to the host image, properties and more.

A standardized JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format is used to specify metadata. Nevertheless, since storing as JSON would be too resource intensive, the data is instead held within the smart contract as a Universal Resource Identifier (URI). Nevertheless, NFT metadata can be downloaded at any time by users.

How to view NFT art metadata on OpenSea?

First, open the NFT art on OpenSea, for which you want metadata.

Then you can scroll down and click on the “Details” tab. When the “Details” tab is open, click on the link next to the contract address.

Copy the contract address and paste it into the Etherscan link that appears on the screen.

The user now types api.opensea.io/asset/ into the URL text field and pastes the contract address they just copied, followed by the token ID specified in the contract details, after the slash at the end of the URL. The screen displays JSON-formatted metadata.

How to view metadata on Rarible?

As in OpenSea, the user must first open the NFT art for which they need the metadata. Once opened, scroll down to the details and click “View Etherscan.”

Users can then click on the Token ID number (which is in blue).

A new page will now be presented to the user. From this page, copy the contract address.

Enter the following link in the specified format to find metadata:

Contract address: insert token id

The metadata for the NFT art is displayed on the screen.