How I Minted 3 Different Ordinals for Free and You Can Too!

So you read the title, clicked on the article, and now I will admit I lied. I didn’t mint three free ordinals; I minted 5. And the ordinals are free, but I had to pay some fees for the minting process. But, the fees are low, the art is cool, and this is an easy way for anyone to get acquainted with and build your ordinal collection.

I recently wrote about ordinals and why they present a nice opportunity for early adopters. Now, I’m following that piece up with some ordinal projects you can mint for free. These are all limited editions, and they may gain adoption or fall flat. However, we have seen free Ordinal mints selling for $100-$500 worth of BTC on Magic Eden. So, it may be worth taking 15 minutes and minting some for yourself.

I chose these collections because the art is cool, they have a limited minting, and there is still a decent amount that can be minted for free. I will walk you through the steps I took and provide you with the links to access these free mints.

Before we get started, you will want to download or add an extension for an Ordinal wallet. I use Hiro wallet. It’s free, and you can access it at https://wallet.hiro.so/. Setting up the hiro wallet is similar to any other hot wallet like Metamask or Trust, where you will get a seed phrase that you need to store securely.

The Hiro wallet doesn’t work on mobile, so you need a desktop device. It’s also Stacks compatible, so that’s a bonus. Click here if you need help learning how to add the Hiro wallet. https://wallet.hiro.so/wallet-faq/how-do-i-install-and-run-the-stacks-wallet

Step 1: Setup and Fund Your ordinals wallet

Once your wallet is set up, you must add some $BTC to pay the inscription fees for the free mints. The total amount I spent for each mint was around $30 worth of $BTC. If you aren’t comfortable with this investment, Ordinals are probably not the right collection for you.

In the Hiro wallet, you hit the receive button and want to select the “Tokens” address to send your $BTC to.

Step 2: Find the Free Mints

Fortunately, I’ve already found a few free mints for you. Here are the links to the mint pages. Below are links to 3 free mint pages. The first collection is Artsy Monkey. At the time of writing, 3,336 out of 10,000 Artsy Monkes have been minted. The second is the Dirty Degens. This collection of 3,333 has 2,563 free mints remaining. The final ordinal collection is V1 punks with 33 of 100 free mints remaining.

• Artsy Monke: https://ordinalsbot.com/mint/btc-artsy-monke
  I will walk through minting on this collection. I minted one already and want to mint four more. They look cool (to me), and it’s a big collection, so owning multiple makes sense.

• Dirty Degens: https://inscribenow.io/collections/40306a68461194af
  I’ve already minted a few of these. They have personalities, and they are also free to mint.

  

• V1 Punks: https://ordinalsbot.com/mint/v1-punks
  This is a copycat project. It doesn’t excite me too much. But the collection is only 100 ordinals, and 68 are gone, so I minted one for free.

  

Step 3: Begin the minting process

I will walk through minting the Artsy Monkes, but it’s the same idea for all three collections. First, I click the link https://ordinalsbot.com/mint/btc-artsy-monke to access the mint page. I circled the service fee, around $14 worth of BTC. The blue arrow points to the mint now button that I would hit.

Next, I get to the minting page, where I specify how many I want to mint, the + button. Then, in the recipient address, I paste my Ordinal Inscription address from my Hiro wallet. The next image will show you what that looks like. The total shows me the service fee, 0.002 BTC, around $56.19 worth.

After specifying the number I want to mint, putting in my Hiro ordinal address, and hitting the mint button, I get to a page that looks like this.

Step 4: Send Payment

Next, I copy the address from the payment page, go to my Hiro wallet, and hit “send.” I paste the address in and type in 0.002924 BTC. I got this amount from the payment page at the bottom including the service fee. In my experience, I have pasted the address into my Hiro wallet, and it says something like the Bitcoin address isn’t right. I clear out the address and re-pasted it, and it works. Then I hit preview and send.

Step 5: Wait

The free minting process is slow. It takes anywhere from 1-2 hours. If you aren’t sure if you have done everything properly, you can check your order on this page: https://ordinalsbot.com/mint/btc-artsy-monke

You should see your pending and past order(s) when you click on this.

Step 6: Take a break and go back to your Hiro wallet

Once the minting is complete, the new ordinals will automatically appear in your Hiro wallet in the collectibles sections. Congratulations! You now have your ordinals.

Final Thoughts

There are other collections on these platforms that you can mint. Some are free, and others have fees. I only minted the free collections that I wanted to hold. In addition, you may want to join the project’s Discord or follow their Twitter. The social links appear on the mint page in the links above.

While I’m not sure if these ordinals will have demand in the resale market, it’s an easy way to add to my collection with a low investment. Additionally, these ordinals are minting under the 1,000,000 inscription mark. As more ordinals get minted, the collecting community may give preference or add value to lower inscriptions.

_{These materials should not be taken as investment advice. These are my opinions and investments I have made. They should only be used to provide you with ideas and projects to research. Digital assets, including crypto and NFTs, are high risk, and any investments could result in a total loss. So do your own research and perform due diligence before making any investments.}