Lazy minting has emerged to minimize the costs of NFT creation which can overcome $100 per artwork. Minting gas fees or the price paid for adding a work to the blockchain is one of the major obstacles many creators have come across on their way to success. The popularity of NFTs has skyrocketed fueled by the fervent hopes of artists to repeat the success of Everydays: the First 5000 Days by Beeple, the NFT sold for $69.3m. Lazy minting does not let those hopes die. Here are more details about its support for digital creators and potential risks.

Lazy Minting: Postponed Fees

Lazy minting features two core differences from traditional minting. Both of them offer advantageous conditions for digital artists.

First of all, contrary to conventional minting, lazy minting includes a work into the blockchain once it is sold. From the technical point of view, it becomes a real NFT only after purchase. As a result, gas fees are paid after the item acquisition.

Another benefit for creators is no gas fees for unsold works.

Traditional Minting and Fees

Conventional minting turns a digital work into an asset before anyone buys it. Thus, an artist has to pay gas fees upfront. Not only does it require investment from creators, but it also poses a risk of money loss if an NFT does not attract buyers.

Depending on the number of works in the NFT collection, the total money wasted on fees can be overwhelming.

Free Minting and Rapid NFT Transfer

Lazy minting switches the responsibility for paying fees from a seller to an NFT buyer. Since the fees are paid after the purchase of a non-fungible token, it is the latter who will have to cover them.

While this is a substantial benefit for artists, it also comes with an advantage for investors. Unlike conventional NFT minting, lazy minting transfers assets at the moment of their purchase. Thus, buyers do not have to wait for the transfer of the NFT after they spend their money.

Minting Fees Buy You Control

Lazy minting makes the lives of digital artists easier, however, it creates certain issues.

Although with traditional NFT minting artists have to pay before selling their work and cover the minting costs on their own, they can enjoy full control over purchases. It is up to them to decide who will be able to buy their NFTs and when the transfer of assets will happen.

Lazy minting deprives creators of such rights.

When Lazy Minting Can Go Wrong

Buyers can also get into the trap of purchasing tokens distributed with lazy minting. Despite the security measures taken by popular digital art marketplaces, there is still some potential for fraud.

Ill-intentioned sellers can deceive investors and never transfer their art or even mint it. Furthermore, lazy minting makes it easier for thieves to sell plagiarized artworks.

Benefits And Disadvantages

Possible disadvantages of lazy minting are the direct effects of its benefits.

Lazy minting has reduced the overall pricing trend for NFT creation. As only sold works are minted, the general quantity of minted assets has dropped. In turn, it has also decreased the costs of minting. This looks like the NFT market is shrinking, but in fact, it is just more efficient.

At the same time, minting costs incentivize creators to sell minted works, while gasless minting frees sellers from the pressure to return the costs of fees. It might leave them less motivated to sell their work, resulting–on a larger scale–in less overall sales in the market.

How to launch your NFTs with lazy minting?

Launching NFTs might be as straightforward as going to OpenSea and selecting the lazy minting feature in the Collection Manager. However, if you’d like to create a collection or provide a certain experience of interacting with the NFTs, it would be better to work with a blockchain company specializing in this topic.

There are several companies offering NFT Marketplaces. Some of them can build the whole marketplace from scratch at a slightly higher cost, while others can speed up the work with white-label solutions. Or they can do both–it is for you to decide what level of customization you need and how rich should be the experience. No matter which option you choose, lazy minting can save you some initial costs.

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