The Nifty Dictionary: Open Edition

DEFINITION

In the world of NFT art, an open edition is an NFT for which any number of editions can be minted. This contrasts with a limited edition NFT: one that is limited to a predefined number of editions.

CONTEXT

Open editions are generally seen as less rare or prestigious than limited editions, since they are structured to satisfy demand for the piece in the primary market. Edition limits, by contrast, imply that fewer editions will be produced than there is demand for - ensuring that prices for the piece stay high due to competition for ownership.

However, open editions can still become quite valuable in circumstances such as the following:

• The artist gains popularity after the open edition release, creating stronger demand for their earlier works.

• If only a few open editions are minted, those pieces become rare by definition.

• The artist adds value to the NFT, such as by airdropping perks to holders, or making them eligible for other exclusive rewards and amenities.

The mechanics of open editions can vary. On some curated NFT art marketplaces, such as Nifty Gateway, open editions are still limited-run productions - they are just not limited by a specific number of editions. On that platform, buyers only have a small window of time in which an open edition piece is available to buy. There will be as many pieces minted as are bought in that window of time. Once the window closes, no more editions of that NFT will be minted.

Open editions can be a type of drop, and therefore a marketing tool. For most NFTs created on non-curated platforms like OpenSea and Rarible, though, it's not necessary to specify whether an NFT is part of a limited or open edition if the artist is not in high demand.

Open editions may or may not have an edition number, and may or may not advertise the total number of editions created.

EXAMPLE

In early 2021, the artist toomuchlag dropped a collection called "My Journey" on Nifty Gateway that featured both normal (limited) editions and open editions. The four NFTs in the main (limited) collection were sold at auction and limited to 25, 15, 3, and 1 edition, respectively. This means that each of the four pieces would produce only that many editions (as long as there were enough buyers in the auction to fill up that number).

The open edition collection featured a single NFT called Le Anime that had no limit on the number of editions that could be purchased. In the few minutes it was available to buy, 1,572 editions were purchased. Therefore, 1,572 editions of Le Anime were minted.

The Nifty Dictionary: Shill

DEFINITION

To shill means to advertise one's creations or items available for sale. NFT creators and NFT sellers may both shill their works to find potential buyers.

CONTEXT

The NFT market is a crowded space, which means creators often have to do a certain amount of self-promotion to stand out and make sales. Shilling is the result, which is what it's called when creators or resellers advertise their goods for sale in public spaces such as on Twitter, Reddit, or Discord.

While shill is a standard English word, it usually carries a negative connotation in general use, implying that the seller is promoting any sort of item that might make them some money, wither it's a good value or not. It's often paired with the word "shameless." In the NFT world, shilling can carry the same negative context, since blatant self-promotion often can often come across as spammy.

But given the economic realities of a crowded marketplace, many people in the NFT community understand that a certain amount of shilling is healthy for the market. After all, almost everyone who buys NFTs will find themselves needing to sell off a piece sooner or later, and in a sometimes illiquid market, that can be hard to do without advertising.

And so, the word shill has been embraced by the community in a tongue-in-cheek way, and can sometimes be used as a neutral term for self-promotion. For example, a Discord server admin may set aside a dedicated channel for creators to shill their works - ensuring the artists who are part of their community have a reliable outlet they can use to hustle for that next sale.

The Nifty Dictionary: Lazy Minting

DEFINITION

Lazy minting is a way of minting an NFT without having to pay upfront gas fees. In other words, this method allows someone to create an NFT for "free".

CONTEXT

Any transaction on the Ethereum network requires payment of a fee known as gas. Creating an NFT counts as posting a transaction to the network, and therefore requires gas to be paid.

While gas is a critical feature of Ethereum, high gas fees can disincentivize people from creating NFTs at all. Minting fees can be especially daunting for first-time NFT creators, who may not know whether anyone will be willing to pay for their work.

To solve this problem, OpenSea introduced lazy minting in late 2020, which requires no gas fee to be paid when creating the NFT. Other NFT creation platforms have since added support for the feature. (Update: OpenSea announced in 2023 that they will be deprecating this feature. Other platforms may continue to use the terminology.)

Lazy minting works by essentially creating the metadata for the NFT, without actually creating an instance of the NFT itself. Once someone purchases that nifty, it is then officially minted, and a gas fee is incurred. Typically, the fee is rolled in to the buyer's cost.

Lazy minting on OpenSea uses the ERC-1155 standard, which allows for the creation of many instances of an item, as opposed to the single-instance items supported by ERC-721.

Note that just because some platforms support lazy minting, the costs of creating and selling niftys may still not be entirely free. On OpenSea for example, the seller must pay an upfront network fee to create a "collection" before they will be able to mint an NFT, lazily or otherwise.