Minting
Mint a 1/1, an edition or a collection on mallow: the two NFT standards, the steps, file limits, royalties, and what you can change afterwards.
Minting creates your artwork as an NFT on Solana, in your own wallet. Anyone signed in with a Solana wallet can mint at mallow.art/create. Listing the artwork for sale is a separate step with its own rules, covered in Becoming a creator.
What You Can Mint
| Type | What it is | How it sells |
|---|---|---|
| 1/1 artwork | A single NFT | Auction, fixed price or raffle |
| Editions | One artwork, the master edition, that numbered editions are printed from. Limited Edition sets a total between 2 and 10,000. Open Edition has no cap | Fixed price editions or a Jellybean. You can also airdrop them |
| Collection | An on-chain group that your artworks belong to, so wallets and marketplaces show them together | Not sold itself |
The Create page also has Jellybean and Airdrop tabs, which have their own pages.
Core or Legacy
Every mint asks you to Choose your NFT standard. The choice is permanent.
| Metaplex Core | Metaplex Legacy | |
|---|---|---|
| Solana rent and Metaplex fee | Lower | Higher |
| Cream per mint | 1 | 3 |
| Free mint ticket | Accepted | Not accepted |
| Exclusive content | Supported | Not available |
| Limited edition supply | Can be reduced later, while unlisted | Can't be changed on mallow |
| A 1/1 counts as a primary sale | Only while the minting wallet holds it | Until its first sale |
Core is the default and suits most artists. Choose Legacy only if you need the older Metaplex Token Metadata standard, for example for a tool that doesn't read Core.
Two things follow from the choice:
- Collections match their artworks. A Core artwork can only join a Core collection, and a Legacy artwork a Legacy collection
- Keep a Core 1/1 in the minting wallet until it sells. mallow treats a Core 1/1 as a primary sale only while the wallet that minted it holds it. Move it to another wallet first, and its first sale counts as a secondary sale
Minting a 1/1 or an Edition
Open Create and choose 1/1 artwork or Editions.
Upload Your Artwork
Add the Main artwork. A video, 3D model, HTML or PDF artwork also needs a Thumbnail, the image shown on artwork cards. A Process video is optional and appears with the artwork on mallow. See Files for formats and sizes.
Exclusive Content
Optional. Attach files that only holders can open, or choose Skip. See Exclusive content.
Artwork Details
- Choose your NFT standard: see Core or Legacy
- Collection: optional. Pick one of your collections, or leave No collection. Picking one fills in the collection's traits and royalties, which you can change
- Title: required, up to 32 characters
- Description: required, up to 1,000 characters
- Tags: up to 10
- Categories: optional, from a fixed list. If the work uses AI, add AI
- Traits: up to 15 name and value pairs, such as "Sky" and "Blue"
- Disclosures: tick the NSFW box if the piece contains nudity or violence
Accented letters, emoji and non-Latin characters each count as more than one character towards the title and description limits.
Supply Details
Editions only. Choose Limited Edition and enter the total, from 2 to 10,000, or choose Open Edition.
Set Your Royalties
- Royalties: the share of each resale paid back to you, from 0% to 15%
- Proceeds splits: who receives the money from primary sales and from royalties. Your wallet starts at 100%. Choose + Add another wallet to split with up to 5 wallets in total. Shares are whole numbers and must add up to 100%
Check Token
Review the preview and every detail, then tick All details verified.
Mint Artwork
Choose how to pay, select Mint token, and approve the transaction in your wallet. When it confirms, choose View artwork or List for sale.
If you reject the transaction or the mint fails, you return to the payment screen and can try again.
Listing is the next step. Selling Art compares the sale formats, and Becoming a creator covers who can list.
Files
| Upload | Formats | Max size |
|---|---|---|
| Main artwork | Images: PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, BMP, APNG, SVG. Video: MP4, MOV, WebM. 3D: GLB. HTML. PDF | 100 MB |
| Thumbnail | The image formats above | 100 MB |
| Process video | MP4, MOV, WebM | 100 MB |
| Collection Main image and Banner | The image formats above | 30 MB |
Audio files aren't accepted as the main artwork. HTML artworks are a single .html file.
Your files and the artwork's metadata are uploaded to IPFS. The NFT on Solana stores a link to that metadata.
Cost
The last step shows the Minting cost. Select the amount to see its two parts:
- mallow fee: listed on the Fees page
- Solana account rent and fees: paid to the network and to Metaplex, not to mallow. Legacy costs several times more than Core here
You can pay in SOL, with Cream, or with a free mint ticket. Cream and the ticket cover the whole cost, so the mint needs no SOL.
Minting a Collection
Choose Collection on the Create page. Mint the collection first, then add artworks to it.
- Upload your images: a Main image, and an optional Banner
- Collection details: the standard, Collection name, Description, tags, categories, traits and disclosures. Traits set here are filled in on each artwork you mint into the collection
- Set your royalties: the default for the collection. Each artwork can set its own
- Mint collection
- Select artworks: tick the artworks you have already minted that belong in it. Artworks marked Immutable can't be added
To put a new artwork into the collection, pick it under Collection while minting.
The collection's menu holds Edit collection, Select artworks, Hide, Export holders and Burn collection. Sync token re-reads the collection from the chain. Fix collection appears for a Legacy collection whose on-chain collection data is missing, which happens with some collections created on other platforms.
After Minting
These actions are in the artwork's options menu.
| Action | Who | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Edit artwork | The wallet that is the artwork's update authority, normally the one that minted it | Opens the same steps as minting. A fee applies, see Fees, or 1 Cream. The standard can't be changed. Not available for an immutable artwork |
| Transfer NFT | The holder, while unlisted | Sends the artwork to another wallet |
| Airdrop editions | The holder of a master edition, while unlisted | Prints editions straight to other wallets. See Airdrop |
| Burn NFT | The holder, while unlisted | Destroys the artwork for good |
| Pin artwork, Hide artwork | The creator or the holder | Changes how it shows on your profile. You can also hide a new artwork from the success screen |
| Export holders | The creator of a master edition | Downloads a list of edition holders |
| Sync token | Anyone | Re-reads the artwork from the chain |
These cannot be undone
- Burning. A burned NFT is gone
- Transferring a master edition. After the transfer you can no longer print editions from it. To send someone a single edition, use Airdrop editions
- The standard. A Core artwork stays Core, and a Legacy artwork stays Legacy
- A Legacy edition's supply. mallow can't change it after minting
Some burns are refused. A master edition that already has printed editions can't be burned, and neither can a Core collection that still has artworks in it. Burning a Legacy collection removes only the collection, not the artworks inside it.
A Core limited edition's total can be reduced from Edit artwork while it's unlisted, but not below the number already printed.
What Can't Be Listed
mallow mints Core and Legacy NFTs, and both can be listed. These limits apply to artworks minted elsewhere:
| Token type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Programmable NFT (pNFT) editions | A pNFT master edition can't be listed, because its editions can't be printed. 1/1 pNFTs and editions that are already printed can be listed |
| Compressed NFTs (cNFTs) | Can't be raffled. They can be listed for sale or auction |
| Bubblegum v2 compressed NFTs | Can't be listed. They can be transferred or burned |
An artwork can also be blocked because of who is listing it or because it was flagged. See What blocks a listing.