Cardano Studio offers a way to create and mint NFTs using only the browser. There is no server involved (except for submitting the transactions), which leads to the following:
We live by the core values of Web3 and thus use the blockchain as the only form of online storage. We only store data locally in your browser to enhance your experience using Cardano Studio.
Get started quickly by watching an introduction to Cardano Studio.
This video builds on the introduction and demonstrates the possibility of using a CSV file to create a NFT collection.
To create a new NFT (collection) on Cardano, a minting policy has to be created first. This minting policy includes the rules for minting NFTs which belong to it. On Cardano Studio, two types of rules are supported:
The PubKeyHash together with the optional Timelock are then used to create a policy script. This policy script is then hashed and the result is what is known as the policyID, a unique identifier for your NFT collection under which your NFTs will be minted later on. You can create a new policy here. After having created the minting policy, we highly recommend backing up your newly created policy in the modal that follows. As explained in Storage, we only store data locally in your browser, which means that if you ever want to mint an NFT belonging to a given policy on a differnt browser, you need a way of importing your policy information.
NFTs have two required fields: 'name' and 'image'. While the first is straight-forward, the latter needs a bit of preparation. It is encouraged that images for NFTs are hosted on IPFS or similar, however you are completely free to use any decentralized/centralized service. There are many different services that you can use to upload all your NFT images to IPFS, such as NFT.STORAGE. Once you have uploaded your images to IPFS and have a CID for all of them, you can simply construct the image URL by prepending the CID with ipfs://, e.g. ipfs://bafkreid6bnmpmn3scm5xzqyqg6ke2wi6hcu5m6zdclvngscytrgxkzby64. Simply put that image URL in the image field / column for your NFT and the preview should show the correct image. Also worth mentioning, in case your images are rather small, another option is to use a base64 encoded image. This way the image data itself is part of the NFT, not just the reference to an external system. You can encode your images to base64 here. By uploading and clicking on 'show code', you can export the correct format for use with <img> elements.
Once you have created a policy, you can start working on your NFTs. There are two ways to go about that, but both start in the Studio. On that page you first have to select the correct policy in the dropdown menu on the top of the screen.
No matter the strategy you pick for creating the NFTs, each NFT has two required fields: 'name' and 'image'.
When minting a single NFT or a small collection, this is probably the best way to go about it. By filling out the input boxes on the Studio page, you can create your NFTs one by one.
In case of larger collections or in case you prefer creating a CSV (Comma separted values) file, you can create your NFT collection in a CSV file and upload it by clicking the button on the bottom left of the Studio. To get started, you can download our minimal example. To add more fields to the NFT, simply add new columns (just as it is the case with 'name' and 'image').
For Music NFTs, currently only the Web Interface is available. To create a Single, simply just add 1 song and Cardano Studio will create the metadata that is required for a single. If more than 1 song are added, a music NFT of type Multiple is created.
Once you have entered all the metadata for your collection, navigate to the minting page by clicking the button on the bottom right of the Studio. On this page, you are asked to follow the following 4-step proccess:
If you as the creator would like to earn a certain percentage of every sell on a secondary market place that supports royalities, you have to mint a royalty token before minting any NFTs for a given policy. To do so, click the 'Add royalty' button on the minting page. A modal will show where you are asked to enter both a royalty rate (a rate of 0.05 will result in a 5% royalty fee) and an address which will receive the royalty fees. This can be any address, just make sure to double-check it when signing the transaction!
Before moving on with this step, it is recommended to wait until the royalty transaction has been confirmed on the blockchain. Once that is done, you can create a minting transaction by clicking on the 'Create next transaction' button. Cardano Studio will now batch as many of your NFTs into a transaction and once done, display the newly created transaction. You can click on all of the images to see the metadata.
Click 'Mint' to sign and submit the transaction to the blockchain. Please ensure that the metadata looks correct inside the wallet before signing.
Currently, there is no support for minting multiple transactions in parallel and thus each transaction has to be created manually in sequence. Should it once happen that a transaction cannot be signed or submitted (on Eternl there is an infinate loading spinner for instance), try deleting the transaction and clicking 'Create next transaction' again.