How to launch an NFT Sale on WAX: A Complete Guide

WAX io
WAX.io
Published in
8 min readSep 3, 2020

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The Worldwide Asset eXchange™ is the safest and most convenient way to create, buy, sell, and trade NFTs — to anyone, anywhere in the world. This guide provides you with detailed background information and step-by-step instructions for launching your own NFT sale on WAX.

Introduction: The Basics of an NFT Sale on WAX

What is an NFT?

An NFT (or “non-fungible token” or “Nifty”) is a digital collectible, such as a trading card.

An NFT is similar to a cryptocurrency in the sense that it trades on a blockchain and has a monetary value attached to it. The difference between a cryptocurrency and an NFT though is that an NFT has certain characteristics that make it different from other NFTs, even if the two NFTs seem similar to one another. These characteristics can include metadata, visuals, serial numbers, etc. and can all affect the value of the NFT, based on what characteristics are valued by the people who buy and sell them.

NFTs therefore create exciting monetization opportunities for brands and collectors, as they are provably authentic, safe to trade, and can include all different types of artwork and branding opportunities.

To learn more about NFTs, read “The Beginner’s Guide to NFTs (and how to get them on WAX)

The most in-demand NFT on WAX — a Topps “Garbage Pail Kids” trading card, Adam Bomb (rarity: Sketch)

What can people do with NFTs?

NFT collectors can:

  • Sell or buy NFTs on a marketplace
  • Trade NFTs instantly, with anyone, anywhere in the world (for free on WAX!)
  • Trade with confidence that every NFT is certified authentic, unique and can never be altered
  • View an NFT’s full ownership records and trading history
  • Showcase their NFT inventory on social media
Buying, selling and trading NFTs on WAX is user-friendly (even for crypto newbies)

Why launch an NFT sale on WAX?

Want to launch your own NFT sale on WAX? You’ll be joining the many brands that have launched wildly successful NFT sales on WAX in 2020 — from the legendary actor William Shatner, to The Topps Company with their cult-favorite Garbage Pail Kids series, to the hosts of the Bad Crypto Podcast with their entirely original Blockchain Heroes art.

NFT sales are wildly popular, with some selling out in as quickly as nine minutes, earning their creators hundreds of thousands of dollars from the primary sale and perpetual royalties every time their NFT is traded in secondary marketplaces.

Simply put, WAX is the king of NFTs.

Note: Launching an NFT sale will require a skilled developer that understands smart contracts and EOSIO.

Every NFT series on WAX has sold out immediately

How do NFT artists get paid?

Because of the WAX Blockchain’s decentralized nature, the NFT concept gives artists full control over their creations and makes it relatively simple to monetize their work when compared to other sale and distribution methods.

When you launch an NFT sale on WAX, you get paid in two ways. NFT creators earn revenue from the primary sale, and also 4% of every subsequent transaction that takes place on secondary markets — in perpetuity.

WAX is the king of NFTs, with high secondary market volume earning NFT creators revenue in perpetuity (source: waxplorer.com)

Driving Demand: How to Create and Sell Popular NFTs

Driving Demand: What makes an NFT series popular?

An NFT’s popularity — and therefore its trading volume — can consist of a number of characteristics:

  • Popular licensed IP that already has an existing following such as Topps’ Garbage Pail Kids and William Shatner
  • Having a story to tell with your NFTs can be an incredible way to gain interest such as the Blockchain Heroes story and the nostalgia-driven KOGs series
  • Compelling artwork which can include special features like animations and videos, “Easter Eggs”, serial numbers, music and sound effects, etc
  • A rarity system (detailed below)
  • Fun trading mechanics (detailed below)
  • Effective marketing (detailed below)
An NFT from Blockchain Heroes, a collectible digital trading card set featuring original characters inspired by blockchain and cryptocurrency personalities

Driving Demand: NFT Rarity System

It is crucial to note that the total supply of NFTs, their rarities, and the odds of the different rarities dropping are all important factors to the success of any NFT sale. For example if you release too many NFTs, or too many of the “rare” ones, they won’t be scarce enough to be in high demand among buyers which will deflate prices on the secondary markets.

Here is an example of the supply, rarities, and odds from a recent successful NFT launch on WAX:

Total supply:

  • 12,000 trading card packs containing a total supply of 110,000 cards

Rarity names and descriptions:

  • Base — Standard static cards, included in every pack (41 styles each with an “A” and “B” name)
  • Prism — Uncommon cards, these cards feature a prismatic sheen effect (41 styles each with an “A” and “B” name)
  • Sketch — Rare cards that feature an animated transition from original sketches to final art (41 styles each with an “A” and “B” name)
  • Collector’s Edition — Super rare cards with special animations (4 styles each with an “A” and “B” name)

Pack odds:

Standard Pack — 5 cards:

  • 1 “B” Name Prism Card
  • 50% chance at an “A” Name Prism Card
  • 10% chance at a “B” Name Sketch Card
  • 5% chance at an “A” Name Sketch Card
  • 0.2% chance at a Collector’s Edition Card

Mega Pack — 30 cards:

  • 5 “B” Name Prism Cards
  • 3 “A” Name Prism Cards
  • 1 “B” Name Sketch Card
  • 50% chance at an “A” Name Sketch Card
  • 1% chance at a Collector’s Edition Card
Share the NFT supply and rarity system in advance to inform potential customers prior to the sale

Driving Demand: Trading Mechanics

Trading cards is fun, especially when a good trade might net you a prized card to add to your collection. There are an infinite variety of entertaining trading mechanics, limited only by your imagination as a trading card mogul in the making. Here are a few examples of successful trading card that have already been introduced on the WAX blockchain:

  • Mystery card pack opening: This is the most popular trading mechanic for NFT sales. NFTs are sold in packs of 5. The packs are randomly assorted with both regular and rare cards. After opening the pack, collectors trade the cards they don’t want with other fans on various WAX secondary markets or via the WAX Cloud Wallet.
  • Card shards: The William Shatner NFT sale introduced a unique mechanism whereby certain trading cards are divided into three separate pieces, or shards. Collectors trade with each other in order to acquire all three shards that match to form a complete card. To add some excitement to the trading action, the individual shards provide no information about the rarity of the complete card. That valuable information is only revealed once the three matching shards are combined. As you can imagine, the card shard mechanic is very popular and drives a lot of trading activity.
  • Embedded Game: KOGs created a mini game that is reminiscent of the beloved 1990’s-era POGS game to go along with their NFTs.
William Shatner NFTs (combine 3 shards to reveal a card)

Driving Demand: Marketing Essentials

The sky’s the limit when it comes to marketing your NFT sale! There are many creative ways to drive interest in your sale. We have listed a few examples below, but we strongly encourage you to research and identify the best marketing methods and channels for your product… and have fun with it!

  • Announce your sale on social media, via email newsletter, through influencers or partners, etc. Give enough time for potential participants (buyers, secondary markets, influencers) to develop interest in and prepare for the primary sale date
  • Reach out to secondary markets (found here) directly so that they are prepared to support your NFT sale
  • Create content such as YouTube videos, blog posts, etc
  • Host live “Town Hall” style events on Zoom to share information with the community
  • Showcase some (but not all) of the artwork on social media before the sale
  • Giveaways and contests
  • PR outreach to relevant publications
  • Early access for certain customers based on a set of criteria
Trailer for the “Become Immortal” game that features WAX NFTs as in-game cosmetics
Cross promotion between two NFT series: Topps and Blockchain Heroes

How To: Launch your NFT sale on WAX

Now that you know why you should launch an NFT sale on WAX, and what makes them popular (and therefore profitable!), here are the five essential steps to a successful launch:

Step 1: Discovery

  • Develop an exciting NFT concept per the above guidelines
  • Identify your audience

Step 2: Planning

  • Design compelling artwork (or hire a designer to do so)
  • Provide potential customers with a place to learn more about your project during the time between the announcement and the actual sale (create a website that captures email address, create dedicated social media accounts, etc)
  • Plan marketing campaigns
  • Plan developer tasks

Step 3: Build

  • Build the website where your NFTs will be initially offered for sale (i.e. the primary sale location)
  • Integrate WAX Cloud Wallet into the website, instructions for which can be found on the WAX Developer Hive here
  • Find a place to host your art assets. We recommend using IPFS. To pin the files you can use a service like pinata.cloud or temporal.cloud
  • Create the unpacking and NFT smart contract (Note: Atomic Assets is working on an unpacking contract on github)
  • Establish and create the NFT pack opening odds
  • Establish payment methods for your customers to purchase your NFTs during the primary sale (WAX, Stripe, etc)
  • Ensure you have the proper computing resources to manage the spike in demand : test to see how much RAM/CPU is needed for the smart contract (check how much one pack opening uses and depending on how many packs you are releasing, buy enough to avoid interruptions)
  • Q/A all features

For technical questions, you may get assistance from developers in these communities:

Step 4: Go Live!

  • Have “all hands on deck” during the launch to moderate the community, answer questions, provide customer service, squash bugs as necessary etc

Step 5: Post Go-Live

  • Once the primary sale ends, continue marketing the project to drive secondary market sales!
  • Do an internal retrospective to ensure you capture what is important to address for your next sale
Blockchain Heroes continues to promote its NFT series weeks after the primary sale sold out (in just minutes!)

Conclusion

  • NFT sales on the WAX Blockchain are an exciting way to monetize your artwork
  • WAX is the top blockchain for monetizing NFTs. Individual creators are earning tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling their digital collectibles on the WAX blockchain.
  • In order to generate the most revenue from your NFT project, you should carefully consider how best to reach and appeal to your target audience (i.e. best social media marketing channels, compelling digital art, card rarities, rewarding and fun trading mechanics)
  • Creating WAX blockchain-based NFTs is not difficult, but we recommend you work with a competent developer who understands smart contracts and EOSIO.
  • If you have any questions, join the WAX Developers Telegram channel

Let us know what you think by joining the WAX community:

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WAX io
WAX.io

WAX is the safest and most convenient way to create, buy, sell and trade virtual items.