A Beginners Guide to Buying NFTs

These directions are specifically for buying an NFT on Solsea.io, which is on the Solana Blockchain

Download and install Phantom

Start at the Phantom website https://phantom.app/, where you’ll find instructions on how to download the wallet. Phantom is a cryptocurrency wallet that allows you to store and purchase NFTs and can be added as a browser extension.

Create a wallet

You’ll then want to open the Phantom browser extension and create your wallet. Make sure your password is strong and that you save your secret phrase somewhere safe.

Add funds

Next up is adding crypto currency to your Phantom wallet to be able to purchase NFTs. I use the crypto exchange called Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com) to do this. You'll need to sign up for an account there and then purchase "SOL" which is the crypto currency that you will need to be able to buy NFTs on Solsea – which is on the Solana blockchain.

Heads up: If you're creating a new account on Coinbase it can take 7+ days for the funds to become available to transfer to your Phantom wallet.

Transfer funds to wallet

Open your Phantom wallet via the browser extension and click on the button that says DEPOSIT. Then in the search bar type in "Coinbase" and click on the Coinbase button that pops up. Click to COPY the wallet address. 

Then sign in to Coinbase.com and click on the button that says SEND/RECEIVE. Select the SEND tab and paste your wallet address into the TO field. Select how much SOL/Solana you'd like to send to your Phantom wallet.

Tip: Check the price of the NFT(s) that you'd like to purchase to get a sense of how much SOL to buy. You can also Google "convert SOL to USD" to see what the current exchange rate is.

Buying NFTs

Once you’ve set up and verified your accounts and populated your wallet with crypto, you can click on CONNECT WALLET on https://solsea.io/ and buy NFTs!

Note: Purchasing NFTs involves gas fees, but luckily they are much lower on the Solana blockchain – averaging just $0.00025 per transaction. Gas fees are payments made by users to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions on the  blockchain.

If you have questions about this process, feel free to reach out on my social channels.