This guide walks you through using Hardhat to deploy an NFT smart contract to the Palm network.

1. Get Palm Tokens to pay the deployment transaction fees.
2. Connect to Palm network.
3. Set up MetaMask wallet.
4. Install Node.js.

Inside your scripts directory, create a mint.js file.

We will use the Hardhat-flavored version of the ethers.js library. This provides more abstractions and leaner code than web3.js.

Require the correct libraries:

Our contract's ABI (Application Binary Interface) is the interface enabling our JavaScript to interact with our smart contract. Hardhat generates and stores the ABI version of our contract in the artifacts folder as a JSON file.

Add the following to mint.js:

In Ethers.js parlance, a provider represents a connection to an Ethereum blockchain. Adding one will enable your app to interact with the Palm network.

In this scenario, because we're using the Hardhat plugin version of Ethers.js, our ethers.provider object retrieves all the connection details from hardhat.config.js.

Add this line to mint.js:

This step consists of adding a media file of your choice to IPFS which is a distributed system for storing and accessing files, websites, applications, and data.

In order to help ensure this file's availability, you can "pin" the file in IPFS. There are several pinning services available that will maintain your file on IPFS:

• NFT Storage
• Infura
• Eternum
• Pinata

a) Log into NFT Storage and create an account

b) Upload your file

c) Save its CID (the content identifier for a file or piece of data)

In this example we will implement the ERC721 Metadata JSON Schema.





a) In the root directory, create a new file called nft-metadata.json

b) Edit the following JSON code to match your NFT's specifications

c) Add the CID of the image you saved in Step 4.

d) Upload nft-metadata.json to NFT Storage

e) Copy its CID

f) Add this line to mint.js file

The variable tokenCID will be passed as an argument to the contract's mintNFT function.

a) Add your public key to a PUBLIC_KEY variable in your .env file:

PUBLIC_KEY = "your-public-wallet-account-address"

b) Get the address of the contract you deployed earlier from Deploy with Hardhat, the address returned by Hardhat upon deployment, and create a .env variable pointing to that address:

Your .env file should now contain the following variables:

The wallet is a convenient class in Ethers.js, it represents an Ethereum account and enables one to sign transactions and messages like an EOA (Externally-owned account) would.

Add the following to mint.js:

An Ethers.js contract is a representation of the actual contract that has been deployed. This class enables you to interact with your contract using JavaScript. You can send it a transaction; in this case, we will use it to trigger our MintNFT function.

Add these lines of code to mint.js:

Create the main function, which will asynchronously call the MintNFT function passing as arguments:

• Your address (or any other recipient address you chose)
• The CID of your NFT's metadata

We required the confirmation to be 5 blocks:

main function: tx.wait(5)),

Therefore, it will take a few seconds before seeing confirmation in your terminal.

Your mint.js file should now look like this:

Lastly, run mint.js to deploy your NFT:

Paste the address in Contract deployed to address: from the previous step into the search bar. It may take 10-20 minutes to appear.

✅ Your NFT is minted!

Note that your deployed contract can act as an NFT factory, enabling you to mint any number of tokens.

If you want to see your token appear in your MetaMask wallet

1. Go to MetaMask
2. 

   Choose Import tokens
3. Paste the address of the contract (located in your .env file) in the Token contract address i.e. the value of CONTRACT_ADDRESS = 0x3DB7Da7f66a416B1865b699E426fE9e413285BB9
4. Add a Token Symbol
5. Add 0 as a decimal
6. Click Add Tokens
7. Click Import Tokens