Tezos NFT platforms: A comparison between Hic Et Nunc and Kalamint.

In this post, I’ll be sharing my experience diving into NFTs with a little review and comparison of the two platforms I’ve used so far Hic Et Nunc and Kalamint on the Tezos blockchain.

Discovering Tezos and Hic Et Nunc

While working on the artwork for my Guardian Demons NFT project I was simultaneously evaluating various NFT platforms.

After a serious gas price shock on an Ethereum based marketplace, I decided I’d hold out and had some major hesitation before I’d mint a large set like I was working on.

I was at a local art fair selling printed versions and a customer asked if I thought about selling the collection as NFTs.

I let him know that making the Guardian Demons available as NFTs was indeed the endgame, but I was still investigating how I would do it, what platform I would use, and my concerns about gas prices, and reservations about environmental responsibility with NFTs on Ethereum.

So far, I’ve minted over 100 Guardian Demons on the Tezos block chain. 50 on HEN and 50 on Kalamint.

He asked if I had heard of Hic Et Nunc (HEN) on the Tezos blockchain. I had not, but wrote it down and researched it immediately.

I found a guide and setup a Kukai wallet and transferred $50 USD worth of Tezos from my Coinbase account and pretty much immediately started minting demons on HEN.

I had worked out most of the details of the artwork so it was pretty easy to get going. I’m a fan of learning by trial and error and considered this a great way to learn the platform and test the viability of my work in a marketplace.

Getting started with Hic Et Nunc

There’s something amazing about HEN. The landing page is just a stream of art and you can keep scrolling and keep finding amazing art. Anyone can publish anything, and they do.

I connected my wallet, chose “OBJKT (mint)” from the menu and started filling out the form. The mint interface on HEN is dead simple.

The minting interface for HEN is brain dead simple and compact. The preview button is nice to know that you’ve got everything correct before minting.

After previewing and minting I confirmed the transaction in my wallet and my NFT was live on HEN.

The transaction fees were almost nothing (I paid a couple hundred dollars to mint my first NFT on Eth). The fees to mint on HEN was literally pennies, .08 Tez or at the time of this article about $0.50 USD.

I quickly realized that minting and “swapping” were two different transactions so after minting I would need to find my recently minted NFT, either in the home page feed, or by using the “manage assets” link and then perform a swap transaction where I would set the sale price, again confirming the transaction in the Kukai wallet with a few additional fees for the transaction.

It’s a little tedious to have to perform multiple transactions to make your NFTs available for sale — and this felt urgent for me. As a new artist on the platform and without a huge audience, that time where my work would make a debut on the home page was valuable exposure time to collectors who might be perusing HEN for new works.

I was pleasantly surprised to make a few sales. I minted a few demons each day, posted on twitter with all the #NFT hashtags, and reposted on telegram, reddit and discord.

Over the period of 1 month, I minted 50 Guardian Demons on HEN, selling about half of them each for a low entry price of 3–5 Tezos each.

After completing the first 50, I created a multiple edition with each of the first 50 as a reference and to celebrate this first milestone.

The first 50 Guardian Demons minted on HEN. About half minted were sold in the first 30 days.

What’s good and bad about HEN?

From my experience, HEN is a fantastic platform with a few kinks. It was dead simple to get started and a great way to publish your NFTs on the Tezos blockchain.

The Good

• The preview feature during minting is helpful to make sure you’ve got it all right before committing and spending your Tezos on the mint (even though it’s not expensive to mint, it’s annoying when you get something wrong).
• Accessible to anyone — no gatekeeping or censoring of any art.
• Low fees — pennies making it seem basically free compared to Ethereum marketplaces.
• There’s an audience of collectors who are supporting works on HEN
• Great third-party tools (like NFTbiker.xyz) that help you analyze and track your sales, view collectors, etc.
• API looks fantastic — with skill you could build your own tools that interact with or extend what you do on HEN
• HEN is great for multiple edition works. It’s easy to manage editions, burn editions
• Collectors appear to know about and are buying artwork from HEN. It’s in the top 10 for volume on NFT marketplaces, and may be the largest for non Ethereum NFTs.

The Bad

• It’s hard to stand out on HEN. You have little control over your profile page and the link to your collection. I love that it’s minimal, but it’s not great if you want to tell more about your art, or link people to your HEN profile.
• Because it’s entirely open and cheap, there’s a lot of work going through HEN. I ran into some issues when the network seemed to be busy and it just felt like it couldn’t handle the traffic. There also seem to be a few bugs.
• Because HEN is open, there seems to be a problem with “copy-minters,” Individuals or bots posting and selling artwork that is not of their own creation. I have not seen this issue, but it is reported widely and other users warn and teach how to spot it.
• The number of NFTs on HEN has already doubled since I minted my first Guardian Demon (OBJKT #273601). There’s a new NFT on the home page every few seconds so you can’t count on the platform to help you raise awareness for your project. I’m pretty sure that when I started I sold a few NFTs to people who saw it on the HEN feed and purchased it right from there. I don’t think that can happen anymore.
• If you have a collectible like Guardian Demons, there isn’t really a way to connect it or showcase it separately. You can only really rely on a unique or common tag.

Kalamint, another Tezos based NFT marketplace

While minting away on HEN, I read a tweet where someone mentioned Kalamint and that they had better luck selling their NFTs there than on HEN. I figured it was worth a try and made a decision to mint the second set of Guardian Demons on Kalamint to see how that would go for me.

Kalamint is a little different than HEN — to start minting you have to get verified. Verification is a pretty simple process designed to make sure that the person minting is actually the artist by providing links to social media accounts and artwork to be minted. This process is not about the quality of the art, but is in place to deter copy-minters (individuals or bots who illegally mint and sell artwork that does not belong to them).

After getting the email that I had been verified (a few hours), I minted Demon #51 and it was almost immediately sold!

I got pretty excited about my prospects on this new platform.

The Kalamint user interface is also pretty easy to use. It’s a little less minimal than HEN, but familiar and well designed.

One of the first differences I noted was that minting and swapping is accomplished in one step rather than two. I could set a price or set up an auction during the minting process.

Kalamint interface is simple and requires just one step to mint and make your NFT available for sale.

The interface for minting is pretty simple — you get a preview on the right of your NFTs card and how it will show up in the Kalamint interface.

Honestly, I prefer the compactness and simplicity of the form on HEN and would like to have a preview but I think Kalamint’s UI for minting is pretty simple and I like that I can get my artwork up in a single transaction.

I started minting on Kalamint and going through the same ritual as I performed on HEN: Mint, post on twitter with hashtags, repost on telegram, discord and reddit.

I joined the Kalamint discord, which I have to say was a pleasant experience. On the HEN discord, I felt like a bot with a bunch of other bots just trying to shill work. On Kalamint, I felt like a human. Real people reaching out to welcome me, making comments on my work, and giving me real tips to help promote it.

I would tag Kalamint in my twitter posts, and they would retweet it — this never once happened on HEN. This seems like not a big deal, but to a newcomer with ZERO twitter audience getting this exposure is critical and might be the only way you can make a sale.

Kalamint has a few really nice feature to help you promote your work. You can create a banner for your profile page which gives your collection a little more prominence and can be more welcoming to link people directly to your collections. For a reasonable fee, you can also get additional exposure by having this same banner featured on the Kalamint home page.

After a few weeks on minting and making consistent sales, I saw a transaction in my wallet, receiving a few $KALAM. I was delighted to find out that Kalamint gives rewards for minting and transactions on Kalamint.

The second 50 Guardian Demons. Minted on Kalamint 48/50 have been sold at the time of this article.

What’s good and bad about Kalamint?

As I minted the next 50 — sales on Kalamint have been pretty steady and I have sold 48/50 of this second set. Like HEN, Kalamint is a great option for selling NFTs on Tezos and may be a better choice depending on your situation.

The Good

• I sold twice as many NFTs on Kalamint, In fact, I’ve sold almost every Guardian Demon that’s been minted on Kalamint.
• Simple interface for minting — can mint and post for sale in one transaction where it takes 2 to get there on HEN.
• Showcasing your own work is better on Kalamint than on HEN — being able to upload a banner image is simple, but adds a lot to customizing your own page.
• Community is solid. I get the impression that the folks running Kalamint are in it for the artists. They are the nicest people you’ll interact with. The people behind Kalamint are active on their Discord and Telegram channels. They respond quickly to questions and inquiries and I get the feeling they are are just cool people.
• You can pay for a promotion on their home page. There are not many platforms and lots of restrictions when it comes to advertising NFTs. Anything helps, and getting some billboard space on an active marketplace for pretty cheap is a great way to get a little exposure.
• Kalamint supports all the artists on their platform — they will retweet your tweets, like your posts, and share your work with their whole audience.
• Kalamint is doing some innovative work on their platform. In the short time I’ve been working on their platform they’ve added integrated printing, and the ability to refill your Tezos wallet with a credit card. I’m looking forward to new features that they are releasing.

The Bad

• I’m really missing the API and tools available for HEN. Hoping things like this are in the works. I want to be able to more easily access information about collectors and stats about my sales and collection.
• There are a few glitchy things that still need to get worked out. Every once in a while during minting I’ll get a message that it was successful, but links to my token take me to someone else’s NFT, and my wallet with later show an error with the transaction.
• As more people join Kalamint, it may suffer from the same problems as HEN, making it harder to stand out. I’m optimistic and curious to see how Kalamint continues to keep up it’s friendly and personal vibe.
• Even with verification, Kalamint is still open to all and the quality and type of work is all mixed together. There’s a wide range of quality and price all together. Honestly I don’t know if this is bad, but this may be a downside for discerning collectors being attracted to the platform.
• Multiple editions seem more complicated and are more expensive to mint on Kalamint than on HEN. I believe there are reasons why Kalamint has taken this path, but I also like how they work on HEN better.
• No specific features for minting collectibles or series (but I’ve heard this is in the works)

So, HEN or Kalamint?

You could make an argument either way when it comes to technical features, and while I really like the API and tools available on HEN, I’m confident these tools or similar tools will soon be available on Kalamint. Both are fantastic platforms to get started or continue with NFTs on the Tezos blockchain.

I’m really impressed with the Kalamint community and development team. They appear to be rooting for the artists on their platform and making them successful looks like it’s the most important thing to them.

The community is fantastic and currently provides the best way to get visibility to your art.

For the time being, when I’m working with Tezos, I’m going to be minting on Kalamint.