Recently, Spring announced it was launching Mint-on-demand. This new tool is for any creator that wants to take its monetization to Web 3.0.
In this post, we’ll explain what you can do with Mint-on-demand, how it works, and everything you need to know.
Let’s start.
What is Spring
Spring is the leading creator commerce platform out there with more than 8.5 million creators.
Since 2018, it powers the ways creators design physical merchandise and sell through commerce integrations with YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok and LinkTree.
However, the company is now seeking to carry the creator economy into Web 3.0.
How?
By giving them access to NFTs.
What is Mint-on-Demand
Mint-on-demand is a tool to create NFTs that allows creators to design tokens with zero upfront costs. It’s available to anyone and it’s free. Meaning, without a crypto wallet, gas fees or unnecessary minting are required.
To launch this tool, Spring partnered with the blockchain company Blondly.
While Spring is responsible for the building and design tools, Blondly gives you the opportunity to have an ecological Polygon blockchain.
According to the SEO of Spring, the partnership seeks not only to improve technology but also to work towards a more sustainable economy. That’s why Mint-on-Demand is eco-friendly, as we’ll explain more later.
Using this tool, fans and creators will be able to come up with truly unique experiences.
NFTs are quite mystified products. However, Spring makes sure any creator can mint NFTs as easily as they would produce a sweatshirt or any other type of merch.
Currently, Mint-on-demand is on Beta, so Spring is giving access to creators gradually. If you want to get priority access, you can apply for the program here.
Crash course on Web3 and NFTs
Spring talks a lot about Web3 when advertising their Mint-on-demand. But for all my beginners out there that are a bit lost, let’s go briefly through this term and what it means.
So Web3 refers to a new phase of the World Wide Web/the Internet.
While some point out that Web1 focused on links and Web2 focused on social media, Web3 is based on the values of decentralization and token-based economics, which are both contained in blockchain technology.
NFT is connected to this technology since they are a unit of data stored on the blockchain. For the purpose of this post, we’ll talk about one way to use NFTs, that is, as digital collectives.
Like any other creator merch, NFTs are a way in which your fans can support you while proving they’re part of your fandom.
However, NFTs have some additional advantages:
- Scarcity can increase its value over time.
- Smart contracts give utility to the NFT.
- Aside from the income from the initial sale, you’ll also receive royalties whenever a fan sells the NFT.
Creators and NFTs: Why you should sell NFTs
As a creator, you’re probably always looking for new ways to monetize your content. Maybe you tried ads, Patreon, Twitch, T-shirts, affiliate marketing, etc. The options are plenty, but sometimes you feel you need something else.
Well, NFTs are a new way to empower you as a creator. They’re very similar to selling merch, only they’re digital instead of physical.
In fact, they live in your store like any other product. And some people advise pairing your next physical release with a collective NFT for all your fans.
An NFT as a limited edition collectible usually falls under two main categories: an artwork or a historical piece of your content. You might have heard about Jack Dorsey, who sold his first tweet for 2.6 million.
Moreover, as Web3 is advancing and NFTs are gaining more and more popularity, we’ll see an increase in the “digital flex”. That’s basically flexing on what’s on your digital wallet, and it’s already possible through social integrations available on Twitter and other platforms.
Basically, people will be able to show off that they are the owners of the NFTs.
Mint-on-demand and the environment
Blockchains are usually harmful to the environment. That’s a fact, they use a lot of energy.
However, as the developers of this tool care about the environment, they made sure to reduce the environmental impact in three ways:
- NFTs are only minted once sold.
- They use Polygon, a blockchain that uses 99.998% less energy compared to other blockchains. For some perspective, one NFT minted by Polygon uses three times less energy than streaming a video online for an hour.
- Blondly is setting up a fund to offset its carbon footprint.
How does Mint-on-Demand work
First of all, with very few clicks, you upload the artwork. Although NFTs can be anything —from PDFs to videos— currently the Mint-On-Demand beta only accepts static files formats (JPG, PDF, PNG).
Here are some ideas to start with NFT:
- Digital artwork. Work with a visual artist to create an NFT of a popular character, pattern or graphic related to your content or channel.
- Repurpose existing merch design. Give fans the opportunity to own a piece of your history by bringing back a popular design from your past physical merch.
- Launch an NFT alongside your next merch drop. Pairing your NFT with your next physical merch launch is a nice, simple way to merge into the NFT space.
- Mint for a moment. Capture iconic moments from live streams or fan-favorite pieces of content.
Once you do so, the listing becomes live like any other listing in your store.
Selling
Mint-on-Demand makes sure everyone can sell NFTs so they don’t require cryptocurrencies. You can easily showcase and promote your NFTs across social platforms with Spring’s powerful Linktree integration.
Fans can purchase using Paypal or a credit card.
You can sell the NFT at whatever rate you think is best. Maybe if you want to test the waters, you can start with something as small as $3 and see how the public reacts. One of Spring’s customers put its hoodies’ NFT at the price of $10 because he knew his fans would feel comfortable with that rate.
And as eco-friendly NFT mints, Spring mints are delivered to you and your fans in new crypto-wallets within 14 calendar days. If they purchase more NFT on the platform, they’ll be delivered to that same wallet, of course. And in the case they already have a wallet, they can also receive it there.
This is important because even if your fans resell your NFT, you can still collect royalties.
How?
Bondly process all royalties from NFT marketplaces at the end of each month.
After 30 days, Bondly will send you your royalties, which are 7% of the NFT resale price, each time it’s sold.
Please, keep in mind that NFTs aren’t an investment opportunity and you shouldn’t promote them under those false ideas. They aren’t a speculative asset but a collective token, no different from a physical product.
How you can promote your NFT
Creators are already using Mint-on-Demand and finding ways to create hype about it. After making a cool, digitized .PNG files, Connor deWolf, for example, a content creator, started implementing some promotional techniques.
Here are some suggestions spring gives using Connor as inspiration:
- Provide information about NFT. Your fans probably haven’t read this article and might have no idea what an NFT is. You can start by describing the idea of an NFT and why it’s collectible. Maybe go live and talk about this. On the other hand, for fans who have heard a bit of what NFTs are, make sure to answer their questions about the environment and let them know why Spring is different. Or simply send them this post.
- Post teasers. Use social media to give your fans a glimpse of the NFT. This strategy works great alongside a countdown, both building the hype a lot.
- Make your NFT easy to find. Don’t forget to use Spring’s Linktree integration so anyone can easily purchase it!
Benefits of Mint-on-Demand
- Friendly user experience. The process of creating an NFT is no different than creating a physical product. And on your fans’ side, the purchasing process is also super smooth.
- It’s free and available to everyone.
- It’s environmentally friendly. The NFTs aren’t minted on the blockchain until someone makes a purchase.
More coming soon
Spring will eventually add more ways to support creators in their minting process. For example, on a recent Live stream, they mentioned they were working on template assets.
Moreover, users will be able to upload dynamic files and not just images, allowing creators to upload MP4s and making NFTs even more attractive.
Conclusion
Mint-on-demand is a promising new tool to dive into the world of NFT for anyone that’s a creator.
It’s easy to use both for you and your fans and it’s environmentally friendly!
If you’re interested in keeping updated, I recommend you check out their Instagram page, where they’ll be having live streams talking about Mint-on-Demand and what’s coming.
Have you implemented NFTs in your monetization strategies?
What platforms have you tried?
Tell us in the comments about your experience, we’d love to know!
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