Mintable is one of the most popular digital goods marketplaces. It is developed on the basis of blockchain and NFT and specializes in fine arts, music, video, sporting goods and collectibles. In this article, we will explain how this trading platform works and how to create your own clone of Mintable — a marketplace with a similar set of features and a similar design.
Type of digital goods marketplace
Universal trading platforms. On Mintable, you can create, sell, buy, and gift a variety of non-fungible tokens without being tied to any one niche — from cyberpunk pixel art to domain names and lines of computer code. Such platforms are usually called universal, since they allow you to trade almost any digital product.
The creation of such an NFT marketplace implies the development of a traditional online store with the integration of smart contracts. These smart contracts will allow ordinary users to create ERC-721 NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain without any prior knowledge of programming, cryptography and NFTs. It is enough to follow a simple instruction to turn your digital content (JPEG, PNG, MP4, PDF, etc.) into NFTs.
What types of NFTs can be minted, sold and bought on Mintable. Source .
Specialized NFT platforms . However, a Mintable clone doesn’t have to be a universal marketplace. You can choose a different path by creating an NFT marketplace that targets a specific niche. This approach is less risky as you can develop a personalized design and marketing strategy tailored specifically to your target audience. As various studies show , such design and marketing is more effective and carries fewer risks (fail) for startups.
NBA Top Shot followed this path – images, animations and short videos with “epic NBA moments”; Valuables – famous, funny, sad and original tweets; Looking Glass Factory – 3D holograms of objects, buildings, plants, animals, people, planets and other things, Foundation – the work of selected photographers, designers, artists and other creators. In addition, there are NFT platforms such as Ethernity Chain, where celebrities sell their NFTs to raise funds for charity.
Developing a niche-focused Mintable clone also involves creating an online store with smart contract integration. But in this case, it will be necessary to develop not a universal (refined) design, but tailored for a specific target audience, for example, sports fans, science fiction fans, Tolkinists, residents of some country (if you are creating a marketplace for patriotic NFTs) or connoisseurs of 18+ content.
An example of a personalized design for the sports NFT marketplace BigFan. Source .
Online galleries of NFT collections. Another type of marketplace you can create is a gallery where users simply showcase their non-fungible tokens. On such a site, there are no functions for minting, buying and selling NFTs, so they are easier to create, but at the same time much cheaper – this is the most affordable option for developing a Mintable clone, but in a stripped-down form.
NFTs online galleries, just like trading platforms, can be either generic or niche-specific. For example, Mynt.la is a gallery for anything and everything, while Spatial (an application for creating 3D workspaces) is used primarily to showcase 3D objects.
Target niche and platform audience
As with the development of any other software product, you need to know who you are creating your digital goods marketplace for and what problems it will solve, what benefits it will bring to its users. To understand this, you need to decide for which types of NFTs you will develop a Mintable clone, since its entire structure will depend on it. In addition, you also need to understand what target audience you will be targeting.
We suggest that you first define a niche (sports, music, video games, texts, 3D models, etc.) and then create a user persona to indicate the demographics, goals, needs, consumer patterns, information channels and pain points of your end users. clone Mintable.
An example of a brief description of the personas of NFT marketplace users. Source .
Business model and site monetization
Mintable is a marketplace that does not require any investments from the moment you register your own store to the placement of an NFT art object. Viewing lots is also free. Mintable earns through commissions – from 2.5 to 10% from each successful NFT sale. In addition, the store also provides marketing tools to sell digital goods faster.
When developing your Mintable clone, you can choose a similar monetization model, but this is not the only option. Smart contracts allow other business models to be implemented as well. Here are the most popular options.
- Trading commissions . This is perhaps the most common way to monetize NFT platforms, which involves charging a commission on each successful sale of a product. This can be either a regular commission, as on Mintable, OpenSea (2.5% of the cost of NFT + gas fee) and Ethernity Chain (10% from each transaction), or a secondary sale fee – royalties – as on Nifty Gateway, where they charge 30 cents for every secondary sale.
- Listing fees . The essence of this monetization model is to charge for the placement of digital goods in the store listing. This way of earning is implemented in the Rarible marketplace, where you need to pay a commission in ETH (from $40 to $100) for registering each NFT.
- Input/output fee . Also, NFT platforms often charge a fee for depositing / withdrawing money. It is understood that this is a payment for the speed and convenience of working with fiat: the platform takes on the difficulties associated with the withdrawal of cryptocurrency into fiat and its transfer to the user’s bank account / card.
- Advertising and promotion . Usually these are tools to speed up the sale of goods on the platform: a different color of the lot, an ad in the top of the listing, a place in recommendations, a place on the first screen of the store, etc. In addition, you can also provide space for advertising banners on your platform.
Key features of the Mintable marketplace
For those who are familiar with digital art and NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea, SuperRare, Rarible, KnownOrigin or Async Art, these trading platforms do not provide their users with enough flexibility, as their functionality does not allow saving full ownership via smart -Contract. Whereas Mintable managed to solve this problem, which became the main advantage of the platform – its unique price offer.
According to the Mintable team, their digital goods marketplace is the first platform that allows any user to create their own NFTs and retain ownership of the smart contract. They are also the first to create an NFT batch processing tool and the first tool that allows you to manage your NFTs from any ERC-721. In addition, it was Mintable that first introduced the possibility of gasless minting of non-fungible tokens, thanks to which the NFTs market became available to all creators, even if they do not have a penny.
Here is a list of basic functions for any NFT marketplace:
Blockchain integration . Mintable only works with the Ethereum blockchain (ERC-721 token standard), but your project doesn’t have to be limited to that. You can develop a clone of Mintable that will work with the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain – BEP-721 and BEP-1155, TRON – TRC-721, EOS – dGoods, or other networks. The more NFT standards your marketplace supports, the wider its audience reach.
Minting/creating NFT assets. On the Mintable platform, when minting non-fungible tokens, no payment is charged from the user (on other sites, you need to pay for gas – usually $ 20-100). At the same time, the process itself is very simple – no more difficult than laying out a product for sale on Craigslist, OLX or Amazon.
Scheme of the process of minting non-fungible tokens. Source .
Quick login via social networks . On NFT platforms, it is not necessary to maintain the anonymity of participants – artists, photographers, designers and other creators of tokens are usually happy to tell everything about themselves. Therefore, in addition to the usual option with a login, password and email, you can implement a quick login through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or another popular social network.
Showcase for digital goods . The showcase is the face of any online marketplace. The success of the project depends most of all on its design and functionality, therefore, when creating your Mintable clone, think carefully whether you need to make an almost exact copy of the original interface, or whether it is better to develop a similar, but quite original design. This is especially important if you are launching a project focused on a specific niche and audience.
Navigation, search engine and filters . The faster and easier the process of buying and selling tokens on your platform, the better. Therefore, make sure that your marketplace provides a smooth and convenient journey through the site and application, and that your search engine is simple and functional enough.
How the search engine of the Mintable marketplace works.
Effective trading cards . In order for the token trading card to promote the sale, it must have a pleasant appearance and at the same time be as informative as possible, that is, contain all the important information about the NFT: image, name, creator/seller, cost, auction dates, etc.
Secure wallet access . It is best if you create a platform that will not have access to private user addresses. But this is not always convenient for users, so perhaps you should implement an internal custodial wallet and make it as secure as possible.
Rating system and reviews . Today, these are mandatory features for all marketplaces, because thanks to them it is possible to mark the good and bad behavior of users. This is useful for building trust in the marketplace and preventing fraud and/or unethical behavior.
Collections of tokens . On Mintable and most other similar platforms, you can create collections of NFTs and sell them in one lot. So when you develop your Mintable clone, don’t forget to add this feature as well.
Trades/auctions . NFTs are sold either in the traditional way at a fixed price, or through an auction, like on eBay. This may be a first price auction, a second price auction (Vickrey auction), a Dutch auction or an English auction.
Here is a complete list of Mintable’s unique features and their descriptions:
Everything on the market . A single NFT store for all ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum network. To view the list of available tokens and/or find the one you need, just go to mintable.app and use the showcase or convenient search with filters, categories, prices, and more.
Rarity meter . A special machine learning algorithm to analyze various characteristics of NFTs in order to determine its rarity based on the analyzed attributes. You can find out both the rarity of an item by the sum of all parameters, and its rarity according to certain criteria.
Sales Analytics . A tool that uses blockchain data to display details about a token. Shows detailed product information, total quantity and sales volume, average price, and more.
Transaction History . Uses information from the Ethereum blockchain to display the entire transaction history of ERC-721 tokens. Token creators can use this data to determine the popularity of NFTs similar to their NFTs and access information about potential buyers.
Social Chronology . This is a kind of contact history on Mintable, which shows when and with which users a particular network member interacted (when and with whom he traded, at what price).
Search by wallet address . Allows you to find NFTs by their owner’s wallet address. Works with all ERC-721 tokens.
Royalty percentage . This tool allows token creators to set a royalty percentage for each resale of their token.
Real time updates . Informs users when the NFTs they create are sold, for how much, to whom and from whom they were sold.
Platform architecture and technology stack
platform architecture . To create a marketplace for digital goods like Mintable, you will need to develop an information architecture that will visualize the logic of the platform and its components, as well as how they interact. This architecture will be the blueprint for designers as they design the user interface.
An example of an information card from BigFan, a sports NFTs marketplace.
An example of the technical stack of the server part of the NFT platform:
- Blockchain: Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain.
- Token standard: ERC-721, ERC-1155, BEP-721, BEP-1155.
- Smart contracts: Ethereum virtual machine or BSC.
- SQL databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MS SQL, Oracle.
- DevOps: GitLab CI, TeamCity, GoCD Jenkins, WS CodeBuild, Terraform.
- NoSQL databases: MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB.
- Search engines: Apache Solr, Elasticsearch.
- Programming languages: Java, PHP, Python.
- Фреймворки: Spring, Symphony, Flask.
- Cache: Redis, Memcached.
An example of the technical stack of the front-end NFT platform:
- Web programming languages: Angular.JS, React.JS and Vue.JS.
- Programming languages for App: Java, Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS.
- Architecture: MVVM for Android and MVC, MVP, MVVM and VIPER for iOS.
- IDE: Android Studio and Xcode for
- SDK: Android SDK и iOS SDK.
Mintable clone development process
The NFT platform is complex software that must be pleasing to the eye, highly functional and user-friendly, as well as provide a high level of reliability and security. This can only be achieved by creating a product from scratch, since ready-made solutions are always a template design and security risks.
In addition, such software should be developed by an experienced blockchain and NFT development team, such as “name company”. Since “year”, we have been developing blockchain solutions of varying complexity — from smart contracts to cryptocurrency exchanges and NFT platforms. You can explore our portfolio and find out the terms of cooperation through
The custom development process itself usually consists of six stages:
- Definition of goals . A business analysis of the idea is carried out, the target niche and audience are studied. A technical task is drawn up – a list of functions, requirements for the platform and design, specifications, technology stack.
- UI/UX design development . Creation of information architecture, optimization of user flows, formation of a corporate identity for a brand, etc. Development of warframes and platform prototypes.
- Writing program code . Writing code from scratch, updating, extending and refactoring existing projects. Writing smart contracts. Depending on the project, this is done by front-end, back-end, blockchain and mobile developers.
- Product testing . Debugging and quality assurance of the created product by testing the functionality, reliability, usability and other important components of the software.
- Release deployment . Move the created product from production to production environment and provide it to users. Publication of mobile applications in the App Store, Google Play, Microsoft Store, Amazon App Store.
- Product Support . Training the customer’s personnel to work with the created product, providing technical support and troubleshooting, monitoring and maintaining systems and applications.
The cost of launching an analogue of Mintable
The cost of developing an NFT platform depends on many factors, the main ones being the complexity of the project and the location of the developer company. The complexity of a software product means the number of functions and the depth of their development, as well as the complexity of design implementation. The location is important, as the salaries of developers in different countries can vary several times. So, in the US, the hourly rate of a developer is $100 per hour, while in Poland or Ukraine a specialist of the same level will receive only $30 per hour.
