How do you buy an NFT?

To buy an NFT, you set up a crypto wallet, add funds on the blockchain the NFT lives on, then purchase it on a marketplace and approve the transaction. The NFT moves to your wallet once the trade settles. What you actually get when you buy is covered in what is an NFT.

How do you get an NFT wallet?

Any wallet that supports the right blockchain can hold NFTs. For Ethereum and networks like Base or Polygon, that includes wallets such as MetaMask. For Solana, wallets such as Phantom. The steps are in how to set up a crypto wallet.

OpenSea also offers email-based wallets. Its help center says users of these are asked to set up two-factor authentication, by SMS or an authenticator app, before their first purchase.

How do you buy an NFT on OpenSea?

OpenSea's guide to a first purchase follows these steps:

1. Connect your wallet and find the item.
2. Click Buy now to start checkout.
3. Pay with crypto in your wallet, or choose debit or credit card.
4. Review the fees, including the network gas fee.
5. Approve the transaction, then check the Collected tab on your profile.

Card payments run through MoonPay, which converts your currency to crypto at checkout and shows up as the merchant on your statement. As of November 2026, OpenSea lists a purchase range of about $3 to $15,000 per card payment, and a card processing fee applies on top of gas. MoonPay is not available in every country.

OpenSea also suggests checking the seller, the collection's history and any stated roadmap before you pay. A fake copy of a popular collection can look identical, so the contract address matters more than the picture.

Can you buy an NFT on Coinbase?

Not on a dedicated Coinbase marketplace any more. Coinbase's help pages say Coinbase NFT stopped marketplace functions on July 10, 2024 and switched off on August 1, 2024, with visits redirected to its wallet app. Coinbase points users to the Base website to view NFTs and find mints, and, at the time, to platforms such as OpenSea, Magic Eden or Blur for listing. Magic Eden has since dropped Ethereum and kept only Solana NFTs.

You can still buy crypto on Coinbase, send it to a self-custody wallet and use that wallet on a marketplace.

How do you get an NFT for free?

Some projects run free mints, where the item itself costs nothing. Every blockchain transaction still needs gas, as OpenSea notes, so the minter usually pays a gas fee.

Be careful with NFTs that simply appear in your wallet. MetaMask warns that scammers airdrop NFTs carrying links to sites that try to steal your recovery phrase or get you to sign a draining transaction, and advises not to interact with NFTs you did not expect.

Buying NFT art works the same way as any other NFT. Many artists sell directly through a mint page or a marketplace listing, and reselling later follows the steps in how to sell an NFT.