Free NFT Mints: How to Start Collecting NFTs for Free

NFTs have become notorious for their headline-grabbing price tags. However, getting started doesn’t need to be a bank-breaking endeavor. In fact, the NFT sector offers a host of freely claimable items and lucrative opportunities, from free mints to airdrops and more.

Free NFT Mints Claimable Today

POAPs

Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP) serves as a modern day scrapbook of significant events you’ve attended. Think of these like ticket stubs, except minted on the blockchain with verifiable proof of provenance. 

Crypto events and immersive experiences have by and large adopted POAPs as the norm, allowing attendees to claim their POAPs with a simple scan of a QR code. 

Notice any upcoming blockchain events in your area? Go forth, network, and claim your very own NFT as a souvenir. 

An example of a POAP wallet (tryroll.com)

Galxe OATs

Galxe is a community building platform built on Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, and Ethereum. Users can participate in tasks from various NFT and DeFi apps, allowing them to earn OATs in doing so. OATs are similar to POAPs in that they prove participation in an event, but OATs often have further utility that POAPs rarely have. 

Many airdrop hunters get free OAT NFTs in hopes of receiving future airdrops from protocols that deploy campaigns on the platform. Origin recently started its own Galxe campaign where you can start earning these NFTs for free.

Free NFT Mints

If it’s good, old-fashioned, pfp (profile picture) NFTs you’re after, free opportunities abound. 

As the space has evolved, determining fair cost for initial NFT sales has become a heated debate. As a result, several collections have emerged offering entirely free mints – meaning that anyone can mint an NFT from the collection with no costs apart from the network’s transaction fees.

Moonrunners and Goblintown are key examples of the potential success of this approach. Since launching earlier this year as free-to-mint, CC0 collections, both projects have built strong holder bases and commanded massive influxes of trading volume, with initial holders enjoying fruitful gains and getting to participate in robust communities. 

Airdrops

Airdrops constitute claimable tokens for eligible users. For example, holders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection were airdropped Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs, as well as the project’s native token, $APE, for their participation in the community. Airdrops can vary in size and are generally proportional to trading volume. 

Airdrops have become the norm in the NFT space for newly launched projects as a means to garner community support and claim market share. Several recently-launched generic marketplaces, such as LooksRare and x2yx, offered tokens to all wallets that had traded NFTs in prior months on competing platforms.

While airdrops are enticing, it’s important to keep your operational security front of mind. Before interacting with any unfamiliar link, gauge its veracity by researching others’ experiences on social media like Twitter – the unofficial home of NFT traders at present.

How to Find Free NFT Drops

Scoping out opportunities for free NFT drops requires a level of dedication and commitment. Generally, projects are announced well in advance of their mint in order to build interest (apart from stealth mints like Goblintown, which intentionally rolled out with little marketing).

The best way to find prime opportunities is to engage authentically with communities, primarily via Discord and Twitter. Building strong networks is often the key to getting alpha on the ground floor. 

Projects often require external resources to bolster their social engagement and reach as many collectors as possible. Volunteer roles, such as moderating a community’s Discord or inviting a specified number of members to the server are generally rewarded with free items from a collection during mint. 

Alternatively, projects offer white list slots, which give you the opportunity to mint before the general public. Crypto is famed for its pace of innovation, and that holds doubly true for NFTs. The sector is constantly evolving, and not keeping an ear to the ground can mean missing out on key opportunities as they arrive.

What Is NFT Minting?

Minting denotes the process of publishing a unique digital asset on the blockchain. This is generally done by creating a unique non-fungible token, which is tied to the digital asset one wishes to trade – such as artwork, video, and music. 

How Much Are NFT Mints, Typically?

NFT mint prices vary greatly. However, Bored Apes have set somewhat of a standard in the space, with an initial mint cost of 0.08 ETH. 

Thus, NFT mints are typically priced at 0.1 ETH or less, in an effort to broaden accessibility and increase confidence in the project’s long-term commitment.

However, there have been outliers. The notorious Pixelmon mint cost 3 ETH a piece, meaning that the projects’ team raked in $70m from primary sales alone. Unfortunately, promoting such exorbitant mint costs allows bad actors to drain immense liquidity from the space, while also disincentivizing teams from successfully executing the deliverables promised to collectors. 

CC0, free mint projects like Moonrunners and Goblintown emerged partly as a response to the high mint costs that began to proliferate the space in late 2021.

NFT Giveaways

A popular guerilla marketing strategy for projects involves giveaways from high profile influencers, or the teams themselves, on Twitter. Generally, such giveaways have low entry requirements – likes, retweets, following the project being promoted, etc. 

While it’s easy to qualify for these promos, this also means that you’ll face stiff competition. Additionally, it’s important to ensure that giveaways are legitimate, as this strategy has been co-opted by fraudulent accounts simply looking to boost their own social presence.

Can You Make Money From Free NFTs?

As with any investment, there are no guaranteed returns. However, beyond gas costs and time spent, free NFTs offer incredibly low risk opportunities.

While POAPs aren’t widely traded, and more akin to passport stamps, free mints like Goblintown have earned participants significant, and sometimes life-changing, gains. 

Traversing the NFT landscape allows individuals better insight into the power of blockchain utility, and despite what you may have been told, this space isn’t resigned to those with 6-figures of disposable income. 

If the free mint meta is anything to go by, it’s quite the opposite. While opportunists may take advantage of the space’s infancy, it's encouraging to know that participants remain committed to ensuring that NFTs, and crypto as a whole, are as widely accessible as possible.

FAQs

Where Can I Find Free NFTs to Mint? 

Get involved with NFT communities on Discord and Twitter to stay up-to-date with the latest drops.

How Much Does It Cost to Mint an NFT?

Beyond the cost of the NFT itself, which is determined by its creator, you will only need to account for gas fees – the cost of executing a transaction. While gas varies according to network activity, you can view current estimates here. Generally, the cost to mint an NFT varies between $5 to $20 on Ethereum, and significantly less on other blockchains.