How to Mint an NFT on the XRP Ledger: Beginner Step-by-Step Guide

Want to mint an NFT on the XRP Ledger? Here’s the part the Ethereum crowd spent years hoping you wouldn’t notice: on the XRPL you can mint one for a fraction of a cent, in seconds, with no smart contract to get drained by. No $150 gas fee. No Solidity landmine. Native NFTs, baked into the protocol itself.

This is the complete beginner’s walkthrough — what you need, the exact steps, the settings that actually matter, and where to sell.

Why mint on the XRP Ledger instead of Ethereum

On most chains, an NFT is a smart contract someone wrote — which means it’s only as safe as that code, and minting means paying gas that can spike into the hundreds during any hype cycle. That model made a handful of people rich and a lot of people gas-poor.

The XRP Ledger took a different road. NFTs are a native feature of the ledger (the XLS-20 standard), not a bolted-on contract. That means:

• Fees of fractions of a cent to mint — not tens or hundreds of dollars.
• Finality in seconds, like everything else on the XRPL.
• No smart-contract attack surface to get exploited by a malicious mint.
• Built-in royalties enforced at the protocol level.

It’s the same philosophy as the rest of XRP: strip out the middleman, put the mechanism in the base layer, make it cheap enough that normal humans can actually use it.

What you need before you mint

1. An activated XRP wallet holding a little XRP for the reserve and fees. New to this? Start with our guide to storing XRP safely and get a proper self-custody wallet first.
2. Your media file — the image, GIF, or video (JPG, PNG, GIF, MP4).
3. Metadata — a small JSON file describing the NFT (name, description, and a link to the media).

How to mint an NFT on the XRP Ledger, step by step

1. Upload your media to IPFS. Use a pinning service like Pinata or NFT.Storage. You’ll get a CID (content ID) that forms a permanent ipfs:// link. This keeps your art decentralized instead of trusting one company’s server.
2. Create your metadata JSON — name, description, and the IPFS link to your media — and upload that to IPFS too. You’ll get a metadata URI.
3. Open a minting tool and connect your wallet (see the tool box below for the fastest path).
4. Paste your metadata URI and set your NFT’s options — taxon, transfer fee (royalty), and flags (covered next).
5. Sign the mint transaction in your wallet. This creates an NFTokenMint transaction on the ledger.
6. Confirm it landed. In seconds your NFT exists on-chain and shows up in any XRPL NFT explorer or marketplace.
7. (Optional) Create a sell offer to list it for sale, priced in XRP.

The settings that actually matter

Don’t just click “mint” — these choices are permanent for that token:

• Transferable — whether buyers can resell it, or it’s locked to the first owner (useful for tickets or credentials).
• Burnable — whether the issuer can destroy it later.
• Transfer fee (royalty) — a percentage you earn on every future sale, enforced by the ledger itself. This is the feature Ethereum creators had to beg marketplaces to honor; on XRPL it’s native.
• NFTokenTaxon — a number that groups NFTs into a collection.
• Mutable metadata — with the DynamicNFT capability you can update the URI later, instead of it being frozen forever.
• XRP-only sales — restrict payments to XRP if you want.

Where to mint and sell

The fastest path is a dedicated tool that handles the transaction for you (below). For listing and trading, the XRPL has real marketplaces — chief among them xrp.cafe, the leading NFT marketplace on the ledger, co-founded by Vet, one of the builders in our Legends collection. Bithomp and Sologenic round out the ecosystem for exploring and trading.

NFTs are bigger than JPEGs

Here’s the frame the “NFTs are dead” crowd keeps missing. An NFT is just a unique, ownable token on a ledger. Monkey pictures were the noisy first use case — the real one is tokenization: deeds, tickets, memberships, real-world assets, on-chain identity. A base layer that mints unique tokens for a fraction of a cent and settles in seconds isn’t a JPEG casino. It’s the plumbing for putting real ownership on-chain. That’s why it lives on the same ledger built to move value, not on a gas-guzzling side quest.

Mint your first XRP Ledger NFT

How to mint an NFT on the XRP Ledger: FAQ

How much does it cost to mint an NFT on the XRP Ledger?

Minting on the XRP Ledger costs a fraction of a cent in network fees, dramatically cheaper than Ethereum gas. You also keep a small XRP reserve locked in your account for each NFT object, but that is not a spent fee.

Do you need coding skills to mint an XRP NFT?

No. While NFTs use the XLS-20 standard under the hood, beginner-friendly tools let you paste your metadata link, choose options, and sign the mint in your wallet without writing any code.

Where is the NFT image stored?

The media and metadata are typically stored on IPFS, a decentralized storage network, via a pinning service like Pinata or NFT.Storage. The XRP Ledger stores a permanent link (URI) to that content rather than the file itself.

Can I earn royalties on XRP Ledger NFTs?

Yes. The XRP Ledger supports a native transfer fee, letting creators earn a set percentage on every future sale, enforced at the protocol level rather than relying on a marketplace to honor it.

Where can I sell an XRP Ledger NFT?

XRPL marketplaces such as xrp.cafe, Bithomp, and Sologenic let you list and trade NFTs, priced in XRP, with near-instant settlement and tiny fees.

Related guides: How to Store XRP Safely · Vet & xrp.cafe · XRP Destination Tags

Disclosure: Terminalcraft covers crypto with a pro-XRP point of view. This article is educational information, not financial advice. Tools, standards, and marketplace details reflect public information at time of writing and can change. Always do your own research.