Build
ONCHAIN STORAGE
Guides
Uploading NFT Assets

Uploading NFTs to Irys

When you use Irys to store NFT assets, you’re guaranteed your NFT will be both permanent and immutable. Here’s how you do it.

NFT Assets

There are three parts to an NFT:

  1. Smart contract
  2. NFT metadata
  3. NFT assets

The smart contract stores a pointer to the NFT metadata, and then the NFT metadata contains links to the NFT assets.

In the example above, there is a name and description that are shown on platforms like Opensea when the NFT is viewed. The image parameter points to a static image of the NFT. You can also add an optional animation_url that points to a video, song, or HTML animation file.

Creating an NFT

Three steps to creating an NFT:

  1. Upload your assets to Irys.
  2. Embed the URLs to the assets in NFT metadata.
  3. Upload metadata to Irys.
  4. Use the metadata URL to mint your NFT.

Uploading Assets (SDK)

After installing the Irys SDK, upload your assets with:

ℹ️

Use a token-specific version of getIrysUploader() to connect to an Irys Bundler before uploading. Choose one from here.

import * as fs from "fs";
 
const uploadImage = async () => {
	const irys = await getIrysUploader();
	const fileToUpload = "./myNFT.png";
 
	// Get size of file
	const { size } = await fs.promises.stat(fileToUpload);
	// Get cost to upload "size" bytes
	const price = await irys.getPrice(size);
	console.log(`Uploading ${size} bytes costs ${irys.utils.fromAtomic(price)} ${token}`);
	await irys.fund(price);
 
	// Upload metadata
	try {
		const response = await irys.uploadFile(fileToUpload);
		console.log(`File uploaded ==> https://gateway.irys.xyz/${response.id}`);
	} catch (e) {
		console.log("Error uploading file ", e);
	}
};

Uploading Assets (CLI)

Alternatively, you can upload using our Storage CLI.

irys upload myNFT.png \
  -n testnet \
  -t ethereum \
  -w bf20......c9885307 \
  --tags Content-Type image/png \
  --provider-url https://rpc.sepolia.dev

Creating Metadata

Embed the URLs generated from the above into your NFT metadata.

{
	"name": "My NFT",
	"symbol": "MNFT",
	"description": "To the moooooonnnn",
	"image": "https://gateway.irys.xyz/737m0bA1kW4BlIJOg_kOGUpHAAI-3Ec9bdo8S_xTFKI",
}

Uploading Metadata (SDK)

Finally, upload your NFT metadata to Irys and use the URL generated to mint the NFT.

import { Uploader } from "@irys/upload";
import * as fs from "fs";
 
const uploadMetadata = async () => {
	const irys = await getIrysUploader();
 
	const fileToUpload = "./metadata.json";
	const tags = [{ name: "Content-Type", value: "application/json" }];
 
	// Get size of file
	const { size } = await fs.promises.stat(fileToUpload);
	// Get cost to upload "size" bytes
	const price = await irys.getPrice(size);
	console.log(`Uploading ${size} bytes costs ${irys.utils.fromAtomic(price)} ${token}`);
	await irys.fund(price);
 
	// Upload metadata
	try {
		const response = await irys.uploadFile(fileToUpload, { tags: tags });
		console.log(`File uploaded ==> https://gateway.irys.xyz/${response.id}`);
	} catch (e) {
		console.log("Error uploading file ", e);
	}
};

Uploading Metadata (CLI)

Alternatively, you can upload using our Storage CLI.

irys upload metadata.json \
  -n testnet \
  -t ethereum \
  -w bf20......c9885307 \
  --tags Content-Type application/json \
  --provider-url https://rpc.sepolia.dev
Monitoring Account BalanceCreating a Dynamic NFT