NFT Drop

Deploy a Smart Contract on Ethereum (ETH)

Avneesh Agarwal

Mar 20, 2023 • 4 min read

This guide will show you how to deploy any smart contract to the Ethereum network.

By the end, you'll learn how to create a simple NFT Drop smart contract, deploy it to the Sepolia testnet, and mint an NFT on the smart contract.

Let's get started!

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is the most popular blockchain for web3 applications. It is a Layer 1 blockchain, meaning it is highly secure, but it is also very expensive to use when compared to other alternatives.

The Ethereum network has projects such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Punks which have helped Ethereum projects gain a large community of users.

Projects that don't require a lot of interaction with the blockchain are typically more suitable for Ethereum as a result of the network's high gas fees.

If you take a look at our Gas Estimator, you can quickly see that Ethereum smart contracts are both expensive for you to deploy and expensive for your users to interact with.

Create a smart contract on Ethereum

To begin, head to the Contracts page in your thirdweb Dashboard and hit "Deploy new contract":

You will be taken to our Explore page — where you can browse smart contracts built by the top protocols in web3 and deploy them in just a few clicks!

Note: You can also use the thirdweb CLI to set up a smart contract environment by running the below command from your terminal:

npx thirdweb create contract

This will take you through an easy-to-follow flow of steps for you to create your contract. Learn more about this in our CLI guide.

Otherwise, let's get back to Explore:

Here, select your smart contract of choice. For this guide, we're going to use the NFT Drop (ERC721) contract to create our NFT collection:

Set up your smart contract with an image, name, description, etc., and configure which wallet address will receive the funds from primary and secondary sales:

Our smart contracts are deployable to any EVM chain, so let's deploy this to the Sepolia testnet!

Add the Sepolia network to your dashboard & wallet

To deploy a smart contract to Ethereum (more specifically, to the Sepolia testnet) we first need to add it as a network to the Dashboard.

To do this, click the Configure Networks button here:

Click on Configure Networks to add Sepolia

Search for "Sepolia" and select it:

It will now auto-fill all the details required. You can upload an icon for the Testnet if you like and use a custom RPC you can use as well.

Click on "Add Network" and voilá! You will now see that Sepolia has been added to the Testnets section of the Your Networks module:

You can now see Sepolia network added to the list

Get Sepolia ETH in your wallet

Head over to the Sepolia Faucet here, paste your wallet address and click on "Send me ETH":

Once you have completed this process, you will have testnet funds in your wallet on Sepolia Testnet, meaning you're now ready to deploy your smart contract!

Deploying the contract

Now that you have your testnet ETH, let's go back to the thirdweb Dashboard where we were building our NFT Drop contract.

We have already filled out the metadata so click on "Deploy Now" after selecting the chain. It will prompt you to two transactions, you have to approve them.

Confirm the transaction to deploy the contract

And you're done! You have just deployed to the Sepolia Testnet.

Calling Smart Contract Functions

Let's see how we can use the smart contract by calling some functions on it, such as minting an NFT into our collection!

From the Explorer tab, you can view all of the available functions on your smart contract and execute them directly from your connected wallet:

Calling the Read name function from Explorer

Setting Up Our NFT Collection

In our example, we created an NFT drop smart contract, so we'll quickly set it up and mint our first NFT by performing the following steps:

Lazy mint a batch of NFTs.
Configuring our claim conditions.
Mint an NFT from the drop!

💡

We won't go into too much detail about this process in this guide, check out our other NFT Drop Guides for more information!

Once we've set up our NFTs, we can click the Claim button in the NFTs tab to mint our first NFT, and voilà! We just minted an NFT on the Sepolia testnet!

What's Next?

Now that you've deployed your smart contract, you can use our SDK to build a web3 application! Where users can connect their wallets and interact with the functions of your smart contracts. Learn more from our guide below:

Wrapping up

In this guide, you've learned how to create a simple NFT Drop smart contract, deploy it to the Sepolia testnet, and mint an NFT on the smart contract. We hope it was helpful!

Need help?

For support, join the official thirdweb Discord server or share your thoughts on our feedback board.