Meaning of "Minting an NFT" and OpenSea.io question

Question

I have some questions regarding NFT and hope someone can clarify it for me:

Here are what I have done so far: I've successfully run through the whole process of

• Uploading an image to IPFS,
• Deployed a ERC1155 contract in remix,
• Mint an NFT and
• Successfully showed it in opensea.io

Here are my questions:

• What does it truly mean by "Minting an NFT"? As far as I know, does it mean I create a token (NFT) that represents that uploaded image?

  • What is the role of "Minting an NFT"?

• What are the differences between "Minting an NFT using smart contract" vs "Uploading an image to opensea.io and sell it"?

  • It seems to me that they are the same. When I mint an NFT using smart contract, opensea.io will create a new collection for me with that contract, and the result is the same when I create a collection manually and upload an image to sell.

• When I create an image and upload to IPFS, I also tried manually creating a metadata.json file to describe that file and upload it to my Google drive, which is accessible via URL. Then when I run the smart contract, I use that meta file link as a parameter to mint an NFT.

  • My question is: the whole process actually did not mention "opensea.io", why opensea.io knows that I am running a smart contract and create a collection for me? '

Hope someone can help clarify that for me.

Thank you very much in advance for all your help.

Answer 1

What does it truly mean by "Minting an NFT"? As far as I know, does it mean I create a token (NFT) that represents that uploaded image?

Correct. Minting a token is a term used for creating the token.

What are the differences between "Minting an NFT using smart contract" vs "Uploading an image to opensea.io and sell it"?

When you upload an image to OpenSea a create a new sell order, they can currently do one of two things depending on the options you chose:

1. Mint a token in their own collection contract right away

   OR

2. Mint a token in their own collection contract when the sale is successful

why opensea.io knows that I am running a smart contract and create a collection for me?

They are listening to Transfer() events on collection addresses registered in their system. Or query the historic events when you add the address later.

When the event is emitted, they can create a record in their own database pointing to your token in your collection contract, effectively creating an OpenSea collection page (not a collection contract) and filling it with your token details.