If you are exploring the world of the non-fungible tokens, it is likely more than one question is going to arise. Thankfully, you have the robust instructional and resourceful step-by-step guides via FLOLiO to keep you in the know!
It is likely, if you’ve done any research on the NFT space, you have come across the term “OpenSea.” Perhaps you’ve even created your own account, added or created your NFTs, or perused the NFT marketplace for your own NFT collection.
Whether it is your first exploration of the industry, or you are an old hat at this point, there is always something new to learn in the NFT world. For example, it is possible you’ve added an NFT you didn’t intend to in OpenSea. If you’ve done so, don’t panic. Just as easily as you’ve added NFTs to the site, you can also take them down.
For those just starting out on the venture, we will first explore the uses of OpenSea, your personal “account” on the marketplace, and its uses. That way, you can fully understand how and why one might need to delete an NFT or NFT collection from an OpenSea account.
Table of Contents
What Is OpenSea?
Even in the lightest of research, it is likely the term OpenSea has come up in your exploration of the NFT space. OpenSea is a “gas-free marketplace for NFTs.” The platform runs on Polygon. From the OpenSea application, users can create, buy, sell, and auction NFTs on the Polygon blockchain without paying any gas fees doing so.
It is likely even in that single paragraph, however, that we’ve lost some of the newcomers, so let’s break it down a bit further before we get into the nitty gritty details of deleting an NFT from OpenSea.
Polygon: OpenSea Website
To understand OpenSea, you must first understand it exists on the platform known as Polygon. But, what is Polygon (besides a fun, five-shaped geometrical item)?
Polygon is a website that is able to operate thanks to blockchain technology. A blockchain, such as that that supports Polygon, provides “scalable, secure, and instant transactions with Ethereum currencies like ETH, USDC, and DAI,” according to the OpenSea support page.
From offering a crypto marketplace, to a space to do the same with NFTs, there are plenty of ways users operate on the Polygon platform.
Polygon Benefits
There are many advantages to buying NFTs on the Polygon blockchain, including:
- There are no wallet initialization fees
- Selling and buying NFTs is “gas free”
- Gas fees are only required when transferring ETH funds to the Polygon network
Polygon Currency
Depending on your platform, you will need to have the proper funds to conduct business. Just as you would convert your United States dollars to Euros when visiting (southern) Ireland, you will also need to make such conversions when jumping between platforms.
Buying an NFT on Polygon, for example, requires using “Polygon ETH.” In order to spend your Ethereum currencies on Polygon, you must first “bridge” them across to the Polygon blockchain. ETH, or Ether, is the known and used cryptocurrency on the Ethereum network. However, should you choose to focus interactions on Polygon, you will specifically need the Polygon ETH to do so.
Much like a currency exchange in an international airport, these services can be found within Polygon. Rates, which fluctuate by the second, will be displayed, and any conversion, no matter the funding, can be done in the crypto marketplace. Finding the right funds for the site you want to work on can typically be done (especially among the most popular forms of crypto) with many digital wallets.
OpenSea Launch into NFT Collection
While the OpenSea space opened on Dec. 20, 2017, with its first NFT adventure, it was the start of its CryptoKitties that launched them into the public eye. These were the first major NFT collections of the site, and with their invention, the popularity of OpenSea shot up.
OpenSea was excited about launching what they called a “brand new type of digital good called a non-fungible token, or NFT.”
“NFTs have exciting new properties: they’re unique, provably scarce, tradeable, and usable across multiple applications,” states the OpenSea website.” Just like physical goods, you can do whatever you want with them! You could throw them in the trash, gift them to a friend across the world, or go sell them on an open marketplace. But unlike physical goods, they’re armed with all the programmability of digital goods.”
With the new collection abilities, it wasn’t long until OpenSea was skyrocketing in popularity.
A New Economy
As part of its mission, OpenSea, now boasts of being the “first and largest” digital marketplace for crypto. Currently, the space supports two main types of NFTs
- 1/1 NFTs – known as ERC-721 tokens on Ethereum and Polygon, KIP17 on the Klatyn blockchain.
- Semi-fungible NFTs – known as ERC-1155 tokens on Ethereum and Polygon, KIP37 on Klatyn.
The system operates in order to not only earn funds for itself but of course, provide a platform for its users to do the same.
“A core part of our vision is that open protocols like Ethereum and interoperable standards like ERC-721 and ERC-1155 will enable vibrant new economies,” states the OpenSea website. “We’re building tools that allow consumers to trade their items freely, creators to launch new digital works, and developers to build rich, integrated marketplaces for their digital items.”
How to Create an NFT on OpenSea
Typing the opensea.io site into your web browser will direct you to OpenSea. Assuming you already have an account, you should see your profile appear. At the top right corner, you should notice the word “Create.”
Basic Steps for Creating
By moving your mouse to hover over the Create icon, you will be taken to the NFT item creation page. This page will allow you to upload your NFT file, name it, and add a description of the NFT itself.
The maximum file size supported is 100MB, though OpenSea recommends keeping the size as low as you can (while still maintaining quality) to lower upload times.
File types that are currently supported on OpenSea include:
- .jpg
- .png
- .gif
- .svg
- .mp4
- .webm
- .mp3
How to Delete NFT on OpenSea
When it comes to the actual steps required, once you’ve established an account and may have questions about said actions within this account, you can often turn to the OpenSea support page. Like most help pages, there are countless articles on FAQs that commonly occur in the system.
One question, however, you may find difficult to locate the solution to is how to delete an NFT. Of course, the platform happily explains, step-by-step, how to create NFTs, NFT collections, or add items. Removing them, however, is an entirely different topic.
Thankfully, we’ve got your back and can break down the steps through simple-to-follow directions, walking you through the need to delete an NFT collection or single NFT.
Is Deleting = Gone?
To understand how to remove an NFT or NFT collection on OpenSea, you must first understand a bit about the blockchain and its technologies. The blockchain is, by its “nature,” immutable. That means that things cannot be changed, altered, or otherwise touched in one sense.
This means, technically speaking, once something is a part of the blockchain, it always will be. However, there is good news. You can “delete” them.
Wanting a Clean Slate
So, if you can’t change the blockchain, what does “deleting” mean. Let’s say you’ve been playing around with your first NFT collections. Maybe you’ve only created one or two on your own. As you get more educated in the space, you soon wish to wipe out those first few NFTs and start over with a clean slate.
If that is your desire, and you want to remain in the same account, you can take steps to “delete” an NFT, even on OpenSea. To do so, you are, in a technical sense, actually transferring the item to a burn address.
Burn Address
Imagine sending an email. You type what you wish. You ship it off. It goes. Someone gets it. Right? What if that email account didn’t really belong to anyone?
This is rather the rough concept behind a burn address. When you are “deleting” an NFT or NFT collection on OpenSea, you are in actual sense sending it to a burn address. It is a burn address because no one owns or controls it.
Two Ways to Proceed
Before walking through the steps of the burn address, it is important to note you do have a second option to use the OpenSea interface to conduct a similar action. Basically, to delete an NFT collection or a single NFT, you have two options:
- Delete the NFT with the OpenSea user interface
- Burn the NFT by transferring it to an Ethereum burn address
Using the OpenSea’s Interface
There are pros in cons to each choice. Firstly, the method of using the designated interface already programmed into OpenSea means that you will not have to pay for any gas. This cuts down on the cost of doing business, so is often an appealing choice to those trying to save a buck.
However, there is a catch with this option. This interface deletion will only work with the NFTs that you have created yourself, using the OpenSea interface to do so. If someone else has created it, or if you did not make it using OpenSea, you will have no choice but to resort to Option Two.
Using an Ethereum Burn Address
Thankfully, the Ethereum address method works with any NFT that you own. It does not matter who created it or where it was created. However, since it involves transferring an NFT, it will cost “gas.”
This option to delete an NFT involves an external link to the Ethereum address. An entire NFT collection must be owned by the individual owner to burn NFTs as a set (or delete collection).
Delete Collection
While there is a fee, this option also comes with the perk of being able to also delete an NFT collection as whole, should you own all NFTs in the NFT collection. You cannot save a single NFT and delete the others. If you aim to delete an NFT collection, it will remove the entire thing, and not just individual NFTs.
Whether your NFT collection on OpenSea was created there or not, once you have ownership of each NFT, you have the option to delete the collection. Owning each NFT means you can delete an NFT collection in one fell swoop.
Oftentimes, in order to own all NFTs in an NFT collection, the NFT collection will be a new collection you likely started yourself. Thankfully, however, that does not have to be the case in order for you to delete an NFT collection. The “delete collection” option is open to any owner of a complete collection.
The Art of the Burn
“Burning” or to a burn NFT, means that you send it to the burn address. This space, as it is not owned nor controlled by any entity, is the equivalent and accepted as a “delete” option in the NFT space. Given that the blockchain will not allow any matter to truly be destroyed (think of the Law of Conservation of Mass: matter cannot be created nor destroyed), this is the best solution to remove NFTs.
The burn is considered the most successfully deleted among NFTs. This space is like a mutually used and agreed upon “Trash” for the NFTs of OpenSea. Consider it like a black hole wallet address that eliminates the NFT from view. While it may still “exist” somewhere (after all, does anything truly disappear once it’s been on the world wide web?), you can consider this the method on how to delete items.
Learning the NFT Ropes
How to delete NFTs is not likely to be the only question that comes up as you navigate the confusing and volatile world of NFTs. Whether this is your first stab at owning a digital asset, or it is your tenth NFT collection on OpenSea, you are bound to come across issues and confusion.
Thankfully, you have a wide variety of helpful choices when it comes to information resources. At FLOLiO, you can always find helpful sites, and ways to verify, purchase, explain, or even price your NFTs.
While you can easily scroll through millions of “tips” on the marketplace, you can have confidence in your transactions with articles that we confirm and research thoroughly. There is plenty of data stored on the Internet, and no one truly has a corner on the informational superhighway.
Don’t fill your screen with worthless information you cannot confirm. Let FLOLiO do those steps for you, finally giving you a space that offers peace of mind, connecting the confusing dots of the
Stay Informed
The best advice one can offer in this growing community and industry surrounding NFTs is to stay informed. With new servers, new wallet features, NFT transaction costs, custom NFT projects, and of course new users (now that you are an NFT enthusiast yourself), there is always something new to discover.
Whether you aim to be a profitable NFT investor or you simply seek basic NFT data, Discord can offer you a great place to do just that and stay informed of the latest and greatest. Users can learn how to buy newly minted NFT collections, use NFTs as a profile icon, or even basics such as “add item” or where to find a sensible link. Burning isn’t the only offering.
A Trusted Resource
In addition to the wide world of NFT Discord servers, those new to the NFT collector role will also find a trusted resource by following FLOLiO. Here, the virtual space users of tomorrow, as well as the NFT holders “of old” can gather to also communicate. While Discord groups allow for open dialogue, you can trust FLOLiO to have the latest in multiple NFT-related discussions.
