L1 0 FePt nanoparticles have been prepared by etching grain boundaries of heat-treated melt-spun Fe–19Pt–25B (at.%) alloy ribbons. It is revealed that an L1 0 FePt nanocrystalline phase is directly formed from the Fe–Pt–B amorphous ribbons by long-time heat treatment at low temperatures in the vicinity of 723 K. With increasing heat treatment time, dimensions of the nanocrystallized FePt grains increase, accompanied by a change from soft ferromagnetic to hard ferromagnetic. The ribbon crystallized at 723 K for 1.8 ks consists of only an FePt L1 0 phase and its coercivity is as low as 0.381 kA/m. However, it increases to 372 kA/m with increasing grain size of precipitated L1 0 phase to about 30 nm by heat treatment for 86.4 ks, while the saturation magnetic flux density remains constant at about 0.4 T. Etching boundaries in heat-treated ribbons has been performed to obtain ferromagnetic L1 0 FePt nanoparticles and several particles were observed by means of transmission electron microscopy.