How to create an NFT smart contract and deploy on polygon Matic chain for free
At this time, the blockchain is an intriguing piece of software. It’s a hot issue, and developers are gradually gaining traction. Ethereum, the most popular smart contract blockchain, is fast gaining in popularity. The issue is that gas prices are rising in tandem. It would cost me $1300 to deploy a simple NFT smart contract.
That is why we will be utilizing Polygon blockchain. Many projects are using an Ethereum-compatible blockchain as a backup. Its gas costs are significantly reduced while maintaining the same functionality. Hardhat will also be used. In JavaScript, there is a technique to connect to the blockchain.
WHERE DOES THE TERM “SMART CONTRACT” COME FROM?
In simple terms, a “smart contract” is a piece of software that runs on the Ethereum digital ledger. It is a collection of code (its characteristics) and information (its state), and it has a unique position on the Ethereum blockchain.
Smart contracts are used to generate Ethereum accounts. It means they have money in their account and can use the system to advertise transactions. They are not managed by an operator; rather, they are spread around the network and must follow a set of rules. After that, a smart contract can be used by sending transactions that carry out the functionality provided by the smart contract. Smart contracts, like traditional contracts, can specify terms and conditions that are automatically enforced by programming. By default, smart contracts are not deletable, and their interactions are irreversible.
What is an NFT?
NFTs are far-reaching in the domain of illustrations and antiques. Life of a Digital artist is getting modified due to huge trading to a new crypto-congregation. Public figures are also catching the train, seeing it as a novel way to interact with their supporters. NFTs, on the other hand, are used in a variety of ways, including digital art. They can be used to demonstrate who owns a unique asset, such as a digital or physical deed.
NFTs are digital tokens that can be used to identify who owns unique goods. We can use them to tokenize assets such as artwork, resources, and even freehold. Only one person can legally own them at any given time, and the Ethereum blockchain safeguards them, ensuring that no one can. In economics, the word “non-fungible” refers to items such as furniture, audio files, and desktop computers. Due to their distinct qualities, some commodities cannot be traded with other commodities.
Fungible products, on the other hand, can be traded because their worth determines their value rather than their defining traits. Due to the exchangeability of Ethereum and dollar, these are fungible, change the ownership record, or create a new NFT.
Polygon
Polygon is a layer-2 Ethereum protocol and framework for constructing interconnected blockchain ecosystems that was released in 2017.
Despite its early development and renaming in February 2021, Polygon’s native utility token currently uses the MATIC ticker. There isn’t currently a roadmap outlining the company’s future goals, but that hasn’t stopped the protocol from becoming a popular choice among developers and DeFi users. Furthermore, anyone may participate – the Polygon team welcomes anyone who wants to contribute code, ideas, or anything else that helps make Polygon’s vision a reality.
Polygon’s Innovation
What is the technology behind Polygon and how does it work? Polygon is a DeFi environment where developers may create blockchains that are interoperable.
Polygon combines the greatest features of the Ethereum network with ETH-compatible blockchains to create a full-fledged multi-chain system that gives developers the best of Ethereum without the existing drawbacks, such as limited throughput (scalability) and hefty gas fees. Polygon aspires to be “Ethereum’s internet of blockchains,” a huge multi-chain network ecosystem compatible with Ethereum that allows developers to establish their own pre-configured Ethereum-compatible blockchain.
Developers can use a collection of modules to customize their blockchains and assign specific duties to them. All blockchains generated with the protocol are fully interoperable with Ethereum and compatible with all existing Ethereum tools, such as Metamask and MyCrypto.
Polygon is comparable to other layer-2 solutions such as Polkadot, but it has a few features that set it apart:
- Industry leadership, tools, languages, and tech stack compatibility with ETH.
- Blockchain with a high throughput
- Consensus methods that scale
- Sovereign governance and dedicated throughput are two key features.
The Architecture of Polygon
Polygon can be thought of as a multi-layer architecture in which each component serves a specific purpose:
Staking, finality/checkpoint, dispute resolution, and interoperability with ETH and Polygon chains are all handled via the Ethereum layer, which is built as a collection of Ethereum smart contracts.
Security layer that runs alongside Ethereum: This is an abstract layer that runs alongside Ethereum. This means that a “validators as a service” function secures networks by adding an extra layer of security.
Polygon Network: In addition to the execution layer (described below), this is a required layer. Each Polygon network has its own community, which is in charge of maintaining local consensus, block production, and transaction collation. Polygon’s blockchain ecosystem is made up of all of these networks. Polygon-based chains are interoperable; thanks to arbitrary message forwarding, they can connect with one another and with the Ethereum mainnet. Dapps (decentralized applications) can now connect with one another using both protocols.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine implementation is used to interpret and execute transactions and smart contracts on Polygon’s networks on this layer. It is divided into two layers:
- A pluggable virtual machine implementation is used as the execution environment.
- Execution logic is the function of a Polygon network’s state transition.
Chains of Polygons
Stand-alone chains and secured chains are the two types of Ethereum-compatible blockchains that Polygon supports.
Secured Chains: Rather than creating their own validator pool, these chains use “security as a service.” Secured chains provide excellent security at the expense of decentralization and flexibility.
Stand-alone Chains: These are Ethereum-compatible networks that are completely self-contained. They are completely responsible for their own security, including validators. Stand-alone chains, as opposed to secured chains, provide the highest level of independence and flexibility, but they can pose a threat to the current validator pool setup.
Token MATIC
Polygon’s native token, MATIC, is based on the ERC-20 standard and acts as the company’s primary utility token. Its market capitalization surged from US$ 26 million in 2019 to over US$ 10 billion by 2021, making it one of the top 100 most valuable cryptocurrencies.
The coin is primarily used to vote on Polygon Improvement Proposals (PIPs), stake for additional prizes, and pay gas fees in order to participate in network governance. Holders must stake their tokens as collateral in order to commit to the network and ensure its security, in exchange for MATIC.
Users who do not wish to stake can delegate their MATIC tokens to another validator, who will participate in the staking process and partake in the staking profits.
Where can I get $MATIC?
MATIC may be purchased on practically every major centralized and decentralized exchange, including Binance, Uniswap, Coinbase Pro, and Huobi Global. Consider Binance and how you can purchase using a debit or credit card.
- If you haven’t already, create a Behance account.
- Once you’ve logged in, go to the “Buy Crypto” button in the top left corner and select “Credit/Debit” as your payment method.
- Next to your currency, select the amount you want to buy.
- Continue by pressing the enter key. It should just take a few minutes to complete the process. After that, you’ll get a notification that your funds have been saved in your wallet.
What Makes Polygon Unique?
Polygon’s effort to enhance the Ethereum network by incorporating upcoming technology is what sets it apart. Polygon’s goal is to be the first Ethereum interoperability solution, allowing anyone to connect with decentralized applications in an open and borderless ecosystem.
The majority of Proof of Work (PoW) networks, such as Bitcoin, must solve difficult mathematical problems. A miner will require complex computers that consume a lot of electricity, which is not good for the environment. Polygon, on the other hand, employs Proof of Stake (PoS), which requires users to stake tokens in order to commit to the network. Within PoS networks, mining is a minor component.
Polygon is already working on some fascinating projects, including:
- Tamagotchi, a DeFi trading video game built on NFTs
- EasyFi is a decentralized financing platform (Non-Fungible Tokens).
Polygon had a significant price increase after Mark Cuban, a well-known billionaire, invested in the protocol. Cuban is now a proponent of DeFi, and he recently merged Lazy.com with Polygon. Lazy.com is a non-fungible token (NFT) platform that uses Ethereum, which might be costly due to gas expenses. Gas expenses will be substantially reduced with Polygon, allowing NFTs to be sold at a much lower price.
Polygon is a regulated U.S.-listed corporation with a Coinbase listing that attracts institutional investors.
Steps to create and deploy smart contract
Setup of the Project
On the Polygon Testnet, we’ll deploy and mint our NFTs. We’ll use Polygon because of its cheaper gas costs and ability to connect to platforms like OpenSea.
Organizing Your Wallet
To begin, you’ll need to install MetaMask, obtain some testnet MATIC, and add it to your wallet.
You can proceed when you’ve established your wallet and set up everything you’ll need for Polygon to operate.
Getting the project started
Hard Hat will be used to deploy our smart contract. Hard Hat is an Ethereum development environment, but it also works well with other chains like Polygon. We’ll use NPM to set everything up as well.
The second command will give you various possibilities. In this situation, you can use the default options. More information about them can be found in the official documents.
You should now have a directory with several files and directories, such as contracts, scripts, and tests.
How to Create a Smart Contract
We’ll utilize OpenZeppelin’s contract library to quickly develop an ERC721 smart contract that complies with the ERC721 standard, which is the industry standard for NFTs.
Next, we’ll use the Contracts folder’s helpful features to construct our own contract. In a file called MyToken.sol, copy and paste the code from the Gist below. The code was built using OpenZeppelin’s token wizard, which is a handy tool for quickly creating simple contracts.
The contract’s owner has the ability to create it. It will use Counters to maintain track of the TokenId, and we can easily keep track of how many tokens there are and who they belong to by using Enumerable. The bottom two functions are Enumerable overrides.
Reading the contract’s powers in OpenZeppelin can be really useful. Simply read the functions and their descriptions. I recommend taking the CryptoZombies tutorial if you need more Solidity understanding.
Deploying
We may write a simple script that we can use to deploy our script to whatever network we want. The Mumbai Testnet of Polygon. We’ll also need to add a few additional parameters to the Hardhat config for this.
Create a new file called deploy-script.js in the scripts folder and paste the following code into it.
Additionally, add the following code to the hardhat.config.js file.
Your MetaMask wallet private key should be used as the private key. If you have testnet MATIC tokens in your wallet and the private key is available, we now have everything we need to deploy a contract.
In the console, copy the location it returns; you may also look it up on the Mumbai PolygonScan website.
Minting
You should be able to call the mint function in a variety of ways once the contract has been deployed. You could use Web3 to connect your wallet and have a button called mint, but we can also accomplish it with a script.
Which you can use to call
Your first NFT should be ready, and you should be able to see it on OpenSea now.
This NFT, on the other hand, has no URI, picture, or information. That is a topic for a different article.
Conclusion
If you want to make a lot of NFTs, you can use a library that performs commands in your cmd to run the NPC command in a loop. Let me know what NFT project you’ve built on Twitter!
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