Everyone is doing it, everyone is hopping on the NFT bandwagon. What is an NFT? In short it is a virtual thing that you buy, you can say you own and that you can sell afterwards. It has something to do with blockchains and is perfectly safe if you know what you are doing.
Buying
To buy and NFT you need some magical internet money. This is called Ethereum. You also need a wallet to keep your money in. You can buy Eth at a lot of different websites but the easiest way is to use Metamask. This is a Chrome browser plug in that lets you buy, send and receive Eth and acts as your username/password for any sites you will be visiting.
You could also use any of the following wallets. Fortmatic, WalletConnect, Coinbase Wallet and MyEtherWallet, but I haven’t personally used them.
Metamask
Once it is installed click on the little fox icon, set up and account and buy some Eth. Then back up your accounts “seed phrase”. With crypto, rather than have a username and password, you get assigned an address and a private key. You need both to things but if you forget one, there is no “forgot password?” feature.
Shopping
You have your money, so lets hit the shops. There are lots of them out there but the big ones are SuperRare, Rarible, NiftyGateway, MyBae, Makers Place, Known Origin and Async Art.
The sites selling NFTs all work the same way so lets look at Rarible. To buy something you have to first connect your wallet to the site. Click “Connect Wallet” in the top right and choose your wallet. Some windows will pop up asking if you wish to connect the two things together. You may be asked to “sign” things, which is their way of getting you to click ok.
Once signed in you may have a profile you can set up with name and avatar, etc. Again this usually involves you signing something, just to prove it is actually you.
Once that is done you can look for things to buy. There is art, virtual real estate, trading cards, business things, Cryptokitties. You name it.
Buying
Once you have found something you like, you click the buy button. Some things go to auction and some have a “buy now” facility. We will assume the latter. Again some windows should pop up asking you to sign things but watch out.
Fees
Most of the signing has been free so far but when you come to make the purchase there will be fees. As of writing this, the cost of buying and NFT is the price of the NFT plus $70. So if you are buying a Pepe meme for $20 you will end up paying $90 in total. Whether you still want to buy NFTs after that is up to you.
Viewing
Now you have your NFT, what can you do with it? Well, the most obvious thing to do is look at it. You can view it on your computer screen but you can also access it on your phone. Nft Gallery is an app for iOS and Android that syncs with your Ethereum wallet and lets you view, collect and cast your NFTs.