An NFT is a token that represents one specific item: an artwork, a ticket, an in-game asset, a membership or a certificate. The token itself is a few lines in a smart contract. The real work is everything around it: minting, metadata, a marketplace where items can be listed and sold, and the tools to manage a collection.
SemBricks develops NFT marketplaces and NFT tooling on Ethereum and other EVM chains, including layer 2 networks where minting and trading are cheap. For Solana, see Solana NFT development.
NFT Marketplace Development
A marketplace can be a general platform, or a branded store for one creator, brand or game. Typical parts:
- Listing and trading: fixed-price sales, offers and auctions, settled by smart contracts so buyer and seller do not have to trust each other.
- Royalties: creator fees on secondary sales, with an honest view of how far they can be enforced on-chain.
- Collections and discovery: collection pages, filters on traits and rarity, activity feeds and search, powered by indexed on-chain data rather than slow live queries.
- Wallet connection and payments: connecting through common wallets, and optionally paying in stablecoins.
- Admin and moderation: curation, reporting, hiding listings and managing fees, without giving the operator control over users' tokens.
Not every project needs its own marketplace. If you mainly want to sell a collection, integrating with existing marketplaces through their APIs and standards is usually faster and brings more buyers.
NFT Tooling
- Minting: ERC-721 and ERC-1155 contracts with allowlists, mint phases, supply limits and reveal mechanics.
- Metadata management: generating, validating and publishing metadata and media, usually on IPFS with proper pinning so items do not disappear.
- Airdrops and claims: distributing NFTs to large lists of holders efficiently, for example with Merkle-proof claims.
- Collection analytics: holders, sales, floor price and trait distribution from on-chain data.
ERC-721 or ERC-1155?
ERC-721 is the standard for unique items, where every token is one of a kind. ERC-1155 supports both unique and semi-fungible items in one contract, such as 1,000 copies of the same ticket or game item, and is more efficient for batch transfers. The right choice depends on what you are tokenising; many marketplaces support both.
Frequently Asked Questions about NFT Marketplace Development
Do we need our own NFT marketplace?
Only if the marketplace itself is your product, or you need control over the experience, fees or curation, for example as a brand or game. To sell a single collection, a minting site plus listings on existing marketplaces is usually enough.
Can royalties be enforced?
Partly. Royalties are part of the NFT standards, but whether they are paid on secondary sales depends on the marketplace. Your own marketplace can enforce them; on others it depends on their policy and any on-chain restrictions you choose.
Where is the NFT image stored?
Usually not on-chain, because that is expensive. Media and metadata are typically stored on IPFS and must be pinned to stay available. For high-value items, fully on-chain metadata is an option.
Which chain is best for an NFT marketplace?
Ethereum for high-value collections where buyers already are, and a layer 2 such as Base or Polygon for low-cost minting and trading at volume. Solana is another strong option for large collections.
Who owns the code?
Ownership of the source code is set out in the contract, and the code can be fully yours, including documentation and tests.
See also our EVM development overview and smart contract tooling.
Discuss Your NFT Project
Tell us what you want to tokenise and who will buy it. We will help you decide between your own marketplace, a minting site or both, and build it securely.