Create a drop

Drops is a powerful new way to create and collect on Foundation. Creators deploy a smart contract that represents their drop, and collectors can mint NFTs from the drop page.

In the following guides, we’ll walk you through what to expect with your drop on Foundation. These articles walkthrough the three steps you'll take to do a drop on Foundation:

Step 1: Create a drop

Step 2: Schedule your drop

Step 3: Reveal your drop

You don't need to have your entire collection of assets ready before you get started with your drop! By breaking the flow out into 3 distinct steps, we've made it easy for you to get started as you're working on your drop.

Drops fees

Drops is an advanced tool for creators wanting to take their work to the next level. There is a 15% marketplace fee for Drops in our primary market. For example, if you price the work at 0.1 ETH, you would earn 0.085 ETH from the mint. Secondary sales on the Foundation marketplace have a 5% fee, which is the same for all NFTs on Foundation.

Step 1: Create a drop

When you’re ready to create a drop, the first step is to create the drop smart contract.

What you’ll need

• A name and symbol
• The number of NFTs in your drop
• A pre-reveal asset

Deploy the drop contract

Below, you'll find more details for each aspect of the contract setup.

• Contract Name: Add a contract name, this contract name will also be the name of the drop itself.
• Drop symbol: The drop symbol acts as the smart contract token name on the Ethereum blockchain. If your contract name is "Generated Flowers", you might use something like "FLWR" for the symbol.
• Token Supply: This will be the fixed amount of NFTs in your drop! This can be any number up to 10,000. Please keep in mind that this number cannot be changed after you deploy the drop contract.
• Optional: If your drop is a collaboration between you and one or more additional parties, you can set up a split to define how you’d like to divide up the earnings. Splits are applied in perpetuity, meaning that the earnings will be divided up not just for the initial mints but also for any subsequent royalties received on the secondary market.

Create a split

Adding a split to your drop allows you to share earnings with up to 4 wallets. With this feature, you can set a share percentage for each participant - this determines how much each individual will earn on primary sales and on royalties from secondary sales.

If you’d like to create a split within your drop, follow these steps:

Toggle the “Create a split” setting and click “Continue”.

Enter the wallet addresses for the split recipients.

Set each recipient’s share percentage to add up to a total of 100%.

A split cannot be changed in any way once it’s been deployed. It is forever recorded on the blockchain, and any desired changes will require starting this process again.

Add the pre-reveal asset

• Pre-reveal image: In order to preserve the surprise and fairness with Drops, we've included a reveal mechanism. This reveal mechanism ensures that everyone gets an equal chance at getting a unique NFT. Your pre-reveal image will initially be used to represent all NFTs in your drop, we recommend designing a unique asset that can promote the entire drop. 
• Some creators have animated GIFs or a logo that hint at the final assets. Some creators have even played with the idea of the pre-reveal image being a sealed package that can be unwrapped once the final reveal happens.
• The pre-reveal image will need to be no larger than 50mb and a jpeg, gif, or a png file. The pre-reveal dimensions should ideally be a square, and at least 640x640px.

Please make sure there are no spelling errors and that your files meet our specs listed above before deploying the contract. After the contract is deployed, the contract name, drop symbol, token supply, and pre-reveal asset cannot be changed. Once everything looks good, you may proceed to create your drop.

If you deploy the contract and realize that there's a mistake, you may also self-destruct the contract by navigating to the drop, and then selecting the 3 dots near the top of the drop page.

1. Click the create drop button.
2. Approve the gas fee: A message will appear within your connected wallet for you to approve the gas fee to deploy your drop smart contract to Ethereum.

Gas fees are the cost of interacting with the Ethereum blockchain and are not set or collected by Foundation. Creating a collection with drops is much more gas efficient than ever before. Learn more in our Drops FAQ.

Once the drop is created, you’ll have successfully deployed your drop’s contract. Now, let's move onto polishing your drop page.

Customize your drop page

Once your drop is deployed to Ethereum, it will be represented with its own page on Foundation that you can access from your profile. Customize your landing page by editing the drop. Add a collection logo, cover image, and description to make your drop landing page stand out! You can also edit the drop URL. This information on your drop page can be edited at any time.

• Logo. This is the image representing your drop.
  • Recommended Spec: 1920 x 1920 JPG, PNG, or GIF. 10MB max.
• Cover Image. This is the image at the top of your drop page.
  • Recommended Spec: 2800x2000 JPG, PNG, or GIF. 10MB max.
• Description. This is where you can describe your drop in more detail. 
  • Recommended Spec: Use 500 characters or less.
• Collection URL. This is the URL of your drop, and you can use this link to share your drop with others.

You’ve now successfully created your drop’s contract and you have customized your drop page. We now recommend you start building awareness, growing your community, and telling the story of your work as you prepare for your drop.

There are two key dates to prepare for moving forward: Your mint date and reveal date. 

• The mint date is the date that your drop will be open for collecting.
• Reveal date is the date that your drop’s final asset will be revealed to your collectors.
  • For the final asset, keep in mind that Foundation has a file size upload limit of 50MB, and we currently support JPG, GIF, PNG, SVG, MP4 + MOV files.

Knowing and preparing for these dates will help you as you build awareness and execute your drop. Once you’ve cultivated excitement and awareness around your drop, you’re ready to schedule your drop.