Terms and Conditions of Use

Hint of Mint GmbH (“HintofMint”, “HoM”, “we”, “us”, “our”) provides its market place and its services (as described below) to you (“you” or “user”) via the website www.hintofmint.io (the “platform”). The market place and the services are governed by the following terms and conditions of use (as amended, hereafter known as “terms and conditions”).
The terms and conditions define the details of the contractual relationships between the parties via our platform and also include important consumer information. You can use the links on our platform to download our terms and conditions, save them to your computer and/or print them. The relevant terms and conditions for the services you use will also be sent to you separately, along with any confirmation of purchase, on a permanent data storage medium (e.g. email or paper print-out) if you provide us with your contact details.
We reserve the right to amend and/or modify parts of these terms and conditions at any time. If we do so, we will make the amendments public on our website. We will also notify you of the intention to amend and adapt these terms and conditions, either via the platform’s user interface, in an email message or by other appropriate means.
Any such amendments take effect no earlier than fourteen (14) days after their publication, apart from amendments relating to new platform functions, which take effect immediately.


1) Who is Hint of Mint? Who are we?

HintofMint offers a platform for its users, particularly artists and buyers, to sell and buy digital artworks (each known hereafter as a “transaction”). On our platform a “digital artwork” is a non-fungible token, which uses smart contracts on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains (“smart contracts”).
These blockchains offer an immutable registration for all transactions that take place on the respective blockchain.
Your public Ethereum/Polygon address is visible when you carry out a transaction on the platform.
This public visibility is due to the purchase of an NFT via a blockchain and the fulfilment of the sale/purchase via a blockchain.
We offer a market place for digital artworks, but we do not buy or sell digital artworks ourselves, nor do we hold them in custody or in our possession in any way. All that we do is to facilitate the transactions between the users on the platform and are otherwise not party to any agreement between sellers, buyers, artists, collectors or other users.

2) How can I use HintofMint?

a) Your registration obligations:
Anyone can use the platform without registering. However, it may be necessary to register with HintofMint to access and use certain functions on the platform, e.g. to participate as an artist or buyer. If you decide to register on our platform, which generally happens when you link your wallet, you undertake to provide true, exact, up-to-date and complete information about yourself in response to the questions in our registration form. The registration data and certain other information about you are subject to our data protection policy.
You must be at least 13 years of age to register for an account as a creator and at least 18 years of age to make a bid for a digital artwork. If you are between 13 and 18 years of age you must have the explicit approval of a parent or guardian who can accept these terms and conditions on your behalf. You are responsible for everything that happens when someone logs in to your account and for the security of the account.
You are responsible for the confidentiality of your account and any password and are fully responsible for all activities that take place using your password or your account. We are not liable for any loss or damage resulting from non-compliance with the above obligations.
b) Connect your wallet: In order to participate in the platform as an artist or a buyer you have to connect your account with a digital wallet that supports either the Ethereum blockchain, Polygon blockchain, or both, such as one from MetaMask, WalletConnect or other wallet plug-ins approved for the platform.
These wallets enable you to buy, store and carry out transactions with the native cryptocurrency Ether on Ethereum and Wrapped Ether (WETH) on Polygon.
Your wallet is partly used to pay the purchase price and partly to ensure the secure transfer of the purchased NFT to your wallet address. The wallet must therefore be filled with a balance of the cryptocurrency which at least corresponds to the amount of your intended purchase price and which is required to buy the selected NFT.
You can purchase the necessary cryptocurrency either directly in the wallet or via one of the payment services providers indicated there. For further information about creating the wallet and filling it with the necessary cryptocurrency, please see the applicable terms and conditions of the wallet or payment service provider.
c. Purchase of digital artworks
The adverts for the artists’ individual digital artworks do not constitute binding sales offers.
You as the buyer make the offer to contract by entering the necessary data (particularly your wallet address) and then clicking on the “buy now” button, which places a binding order.
In the background this click simultaneously executes the payment of the purchase price in the wallet and the transfer of the purchased NFT to your wallet (the wallet address of the NFT owner is changed)
Depending on the network load it may take some time for the transaction to be executed (in unusual cases even several hours), and you are notified by means of an online confirmation when this has taken place.
d. No cancellation right
One special feature of the blockchain technology is that transactions completed using it are completely transparent and are therefore immutable, i.e. incapable of being changed. For technical reasons the purchase contract for the digital artwork coincides with its execution (exchange of NFT and purchase price in the respective wallets), so the performance of the contract definitely has to begin before the otherwise usual 14-day cancellation right has expired.
For digital contents there is therefore no cancellation right if the consumer explicitly approves the prior start of performance and confirms their acceptance of the loss of their cancellation right.

3) How do I become an artist on HintofMint?

Artists need an invitation to mint their artworks via our platform. We therefore select the artists on our platform at our own discretion. Artists do not have a right to be admitted.
If you receive an invitation as an artist you must sign an additional agreement with HintofMint, independently of these terms and conditions, which defines the rights granted and the indemnities of the platform.

4) What rights are there? And which rights are granted?

a) Artist’s rights
As the copyright holder the artist has the exclusive right to reproduce, disseminate, display and/or perform the tokenised work.
To ensure the authenticity and originality of the digital artworks the artist therefore warrants that they (aa) have not sold, tokenised or created any other cryptographic token of the digital artwork, (bb) will not sell, tokenise or create any other cryptographic token themselves or allow it to be done by third parties and (cc) that the artwork is an original and does not contain any unlicensed or unauthorised third-party contents subject to copyright, including images, design, audio and video files, representations of individuals or other non-original contents not created by the artist.
The artist grants the buyer of the digital artwork and every subsequent buyer in the context of a secondary sale (as defined below) a licence in accordance with clause 5b.
b) Buyer’s rights
With the sale of the NFT the buyer becomes the new owner and acquires the exclusive right, without restrictions as to time or place, to use the tokenised digital artwork for exclusively private purposes and to exploit it for private purposes in this context. This right of use therefore particularly comprises the right to transfer, to disseminate and to display the NFT for private reasons.
Display comprises the right to display the NFT publicly, not for commercial purposes (by means of audio media, visual media, audiovisual media, multimedia or other media in all compatible formats, using suitable digital methods and techniques).
The transfer of rights described above ensures in particular that by entering their wallet address the buyer can exhibit the purchased NFT in decentralised virtual environments, virtual worlds, virtual galleries, virtual museums and other navigable and perceivable virtual environments at any time, and also resell it (a “collector’s licence”).
The buyer is not permitted to use or exploit the NFT and the artwork it tokenises for any professional or commercial purposes.

5) What fees do we charge?

The fees for the primary sale on our platform of digital artworks that have been made public on the platform (“primary sale”) are as follows:
Artists receive 85% of the total sales price for a primary sale. HintofMint receives 15% of the total sales price for a primary sale.
The fees for the secondary sale on our platform of digital artworks that have been made public on the platform (“secondary sale”) are as follows:
The purchase prices for NFT are subject to German VAT at the applicable rate and to all the direct incidental expenses in the stated cryptocurrency (ETH on Ethereum, WETH on Polygon).
On Polygon Hint of Mint covers the usual transaction fees (gas fee) for minting and the respective sale of the NFT; on Ethereum the fees have to be covered by the buyer.
The parties to the sales contract (here the buyer and the artist) are responsible for paying all the sales and use tax, VAT, and other taxes, charges and levies required or imposed now or in the future by a government authority and related to the use of the platform (including, without being restricted to, taxes incurred for the transfer, the purchase, sale or creation of artworks).

6) Secondary Sales

Fees for secondary sales of digital artworks published on the platform work as follows:
Our smart contracts signal to all marketplaces that the original creator of the artwork should receive 10% of the total sales price for any secondary sale made on any platform. However, we cannot enforce this royalty fee and honoring this cut is the responsibility of each individual marketplace.

7) Limitation of liability

We accept no liability for the availability and correct functioning of our platform or any third-party services provided on it, until the existence of a contract with you has been confirmed in accordance with these terms and conditions.
You are advised that the entire blockchain technology for trading digital currencies and non-fungible tokens for digital contents is new and therefore subject to considerable legal uncertainty and risks. These uncertainties are beyond our control and so require a high degree of care and risk appetite on your part.
This being the case, we are liable for any defects in our services and for damages in accordance with the statutory provisions, unless otherwise defined below.
The share of resale proceeds defined in clause 6 is a characteristic feature and has been programmed to be an essential element of the NFT; it cannot be used to justify any claims by the buyer for defects. Otherwise the statutory guarantee provisions apply, however.
As a rule, if we are in breach of our obligations we are liable for intent and gross negligence. For simple negligence we are only liable for personal injury and for damages from the breach of an essential contractual obligation (an obligation whose performance is a prerequisite for the proper implementation of the contract and on which the other party may normally and does rely); in this case our liability is limited to compensation for foreseeable, typical damages.
The above disclaimer also applies to breaches of obligation by individuals whose actions are attributable to us by law. In all cases this does not affect claims under the German Product Liability Act (ProdHaftG)

8) Here are our termination rights

We are entitled to suspend and/or to cancel your account (or part of it) and the use of the platform in whole or in part, to remove and to dispose of all contents within the platform. Your account may be suspended/cancelled and deleted in particular if it is not sufficiently used or if you infringe the letter or the spirit of these terms and conditions or behave in a way which is inconsistent with them. We may also cease to provide the platform or part of it at our own discretion, with or without prior notice.

9) General legal terms and conditions

These terms and conditions constitute the entire agreement between you and HoM and govern your use of the platform; they replace all earlier agreements between you and HoM relating to the platform.
If any of these provisions should be invalid, this does not affect the validity of the other provisions.
You agree that notwithstanding any statutory provisions to the contrary, all claims or causes for legal action resulting from or related to the use of the platform or these terms and conditions must be asserted within one (1) year of the date on which the claim or the cause for legal action arises. Otherwise the claims expire.
These terms and conditions and the contractual relationship with you are governed by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany, to the exclusion of substantive uniform laws, particularly the UN CISG. This does not affect the statutory provisions on the choice of law. The choice of law may not result in consumers being denied the protection that they would otherwise be offered by mandatory legal provisions in their country of usual residence.
We endeavour to settle any disagreements concerning our contractual relations amicably. However, we are not obliged and are generally not willing to take part in alternative dispute resolution before a consumer arbitration tribunal.