About NFT
About NFT's
In the last quest Get the NFT Key we sent you an NFT that will grant you access to the next quest: Unlock Treasure. We will send a confirmation message in the comment section of the quest when the NFT is already sent. You can find these messages in your zealy "inbox".
If the "Claim" button is available in the Unlock Treasure Quest, it means you have the NFT. Provided you linked the Polygon Address to zealy.
First of all, let's check that you have the NFT using Polygonscan.
Find the NFT with Polygonscan
Use PolygonScan to scan your Polygon address. Click on the 3 dots besides your Polygon Address:
Click on token holdings, and scroll down to find the NFTKEY
Warning: You may find other SPAM NFT's and potential Scams!
Click on the NFTKEY tab (Marked by an arrow) to open the NFT contract page, filtered by Token Holder (that is you!)
As you can see, NFTs are very disappointing!! There is no nice picture, text or anything other than the TOKEN CONTRACT (see the orange arrow above)
So What is an NFT Then?
NFTs are pretty much like any other token, but they exist in very small quantities. They are created by a smart contract and they contain no information themselves. All that matters is who owns them. Once deployed, the NFT token can be "owned" by any address in the same blockchain.
The NFT KEY in this example was created in OpenSea, a popular platform for creating NFT's quickly without coding knowledge. The Smart Contract that deployed our NFT KEY was created, and thus is owned, by OpenSea. A limitation if you want to have the full control over your NFTs.
The 0x06467... TOKEN CONTRACT address was deployed by OpenSea and it is called a "collection" of NFTs and the NFTKEY is the Token ID 1 in this collection.
There are 1001 NFTKEYs "minted" by this contract.
The individual NFTs contain no particular information, but the smart contract that deployed them contains "Meta Data" which typically is an IPFS address. (see next section)
In that address the information related to the NFT is stored. This includes text, pictures, and some other file types.
In the next section we will check out the metadata in our NFT contract. Just let's talk about IPFS
IPFS : Interplanetary File System
IPFS stands for InterPlanetary File System. It’s like a decentralized internet storage.
Instead of storing files on one server (like Google Drive or Dropbox), IPFS stores files across many computers around the world.
Key Points:
- Decentralized Storage: No single owner; files are shared across a network.
- Content-Based Addressing: Files are found by their unique fingerprint (called a CID, or Content Identifier), not by a location or URL.
- Permanent & Immutable: Once a file is added, it doesn’t change. If you change the file, it gets a new CID.
Often used in blockchain projects to store things like NFT images or metadata, because blockchains can't store large files directly.
Example:
Traditional Web:
_https://example.com/image.png → Points to a server.
IPFS:
ipfs://bafybeibwzif... → Points to "what" the file is, not "where".
Anyone who has the CID can access the file, as long as at least one computer in the network is sharing it.
If you're familiar with torrents, it's a bit like that, but designed for the web, permanent storage, and decentralized apps (dApps).
NFT MetaData
We can get the MetaData directly from the smart contract, which we will do in the next section to show that we can interact directly with the smart contract.
But for now, let's use OpenSea to see the metadata associated to your NFT KEY.
Go to this address: (substitute your Polygon address)
_https://opensea.io/0xY0urP0LYg0N4dres5
OpenSea is like a "wallet" for your NFTs and can retrieve the MetaData of the smart contract directly for you. Here you can see that the 0xFOE address has an NFT KEY:
Zealy Quest:
Go to OpenSea and connect your Metamask Wallet to scan your Polygon address (The one with the NFT KEY)
Take a screenshot of the page showing your Polygon address and the NFT KEY, just like the picture above. You will upload the screenshot in the Zealy quest.
If you don't see the NFT you may have to update the OpenSea version, or force it to re-load or re-connect to your wallet.
Click on "Zodiac Key" to get to the NFT page, notice that it is identified by the blockchain (matic) the TOKEN CONTRACT, and the Token ID = 1
Access Metadata with OpenSea
Now click in the "About" Tab to access the NFT metadata:
In the upper right corner of the OpenSea page, where you see your Polygon address, you can select: "Connect Wallet"
When you connect your wallet you have more options available, like the "send" button here:
You can use OpenSea as an "online wallet" for your NFTs and you can send them to any other Polygon address. If all you want to know is how to use the NFTs this is enough, but...
What if OpenSeas website disappears? How do we check the NFT metadata?, how do we transfer the NFT from one address to another?
For this we have to: Interact directly with the TOKEN CONTRACT
You don't need all this information to continue with your Zealy quests. But it is very important if you want to understand deeply the NFT technology.