GM Hbarbarians!

Some time ago I was asked to build open-source tooling to “accelerate the adoption of the Hedera NFTs ecosystem”. I figured that since our NFT metadata is now interoperable and aligned with industry standards (via HIP-412), it was time to build an NFT minting webapp to enable both technical and non-technical creators the ability to quickly, easily, and inexpensively mint NFTs on Hedera the right way.. Before we started building, I set a few guiding principles and goals for the project:

1. Open source
2. Trustless
3. Integrates with community wallets
4. Mints NFTs using the Hedera Token Service
5. Enforces the HIP-412 metadata standards so your NFT is supported by all major marketplaces
6. Utilizes IPFS for secure long-term storage
   
   

Who is Mintbar for?

Mintbar.xyz is an open-sourced Hedera NFT minter which was built to help accelerate the adoption of the Hedera NFT ecosystem. That said, there are 2 types of users in mind.

1. Technical - an open source Hedera NFT minter and gallery app to save you development time.
2. Non-Technical - an easy, trustless app for non-technical users to mint new, fully featured NFTs and NFT Collections.

There’s also a testnet version (testnet.mintbar.xyz) so that you can make sure everything is exactly right before minting on mainnet. If you need testnet hbar tokens, you can create an account using the Hedera Developer portal. Additionally, you can create or import a testnet account using the HashPack wallet.

Mintbar is just the first implementation of the NFT Minter app and I hope to see many more in the coming months which add various feature enhancements and creative UI/UX.

Open Source

My goal is to help accelerate adoption of the Hedera NFT ecosystem and Mintbar is the first project that I’m ready to share.

You are welcome to fork the Hedera NFT Minter repository, enhance it however you’d like and deploy it either as a standalone product or integrate it into your existing platform. While there are additional features that we would have liked to include, the current repo should provide a solid jumping-off point. That said, we do not plan to maintain Mintbar and all new features will need to be implemented by the community under a new domain.

Please check out the README for install instructions and other developer notes.

Trustless

Not your keys, not your NFTs. Mintbar only adds the keys/permissions that you define during the minting process. You are in full control of your NFTs and Collections.

Integrates with Ecosystem Wallets

I often get asked “Ashe, do you have an example of adding wallet support to a front end?”. The answer is now yes!

Mintbar supports the Hashpack and Blade wallets on desktop and the Hashpack dapp explorer on mobile. We decided not to support the pairing string method.

Mints Hedera-native NFTs

The Hedera Token Service (“HTS”) is simply amazing. It’s lightning fast, has ultra-low transfer fees, protocol-enforced creator royalties and doesn’t require smart contracts. While the Hedera ecosystem also supports ERC standard NFTs, our community is currently tooled for native HTS tokens and Mintbar was not built to support ERC721 NFTs. This way, you can be sure that each NFT will be fast, green and cost a fraction of a cent to transfer.

Also, by minting native “HTS” NFTs, you always know the exact price in USD since it’s fixed (and Mintbar is free to use). You can visit https://hedera.com/fees for more information on expected costs.

Enforces the HIP-412 metadata standards

Your NFT is only as good as its metadata. The Mintbar adheres to the HIP-412 standard ensuring that your NFT is compatible with all major Hedera wallets and marketplaces as well as interoperable with ERC-721 NFTs from other ecosystems.

Utilize IPFS

All NFT images and metadata files are stored on IPFS using the NFT.storage service which utilizes their own IPFS nodes as well as the Filecoin network. This ensures redundancy of your hosted files.

There is no cost to store files on IPFS using NFT.storage and you can read more about the service here: https://nft.storage/#about.

Feature List

Here is a list of all the features Mintbar has to offer at launch.

• Mint NFT in a new or existing Collection
• Mint up to 10 NFTs at a time
• Supports max supply of 999,999 NFTs in a Collection
• Metadata
  • Collection name (on-chain)
  • Collection symbol (on-chain)
  • NFT name
  • NFT description
  • Creator name
  • Attributes
  • Properties

• Custom creator fees: Support for all royalty fee types (royalty, fixed, and fallback fee)

• Permissions
  • Supply key
  • Admin key
  • Freeze key
  • Wipe key
  • Pause key
  • Fee Schedule key

• Use IPFS to upload/store all images and json metadata files (via NFT.storage)
• Support for multiple image file types (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WEBP, SVG)
• NFT Gallery for logged-in accounts
• Connect with either HashPack or Blade Wallet on desktop
  • Only Hashpack on mobile using the dApp explorer

Features available, but not exposed on the UI

There is some additional functionality that is included in the repo but is not currently exposed on the UI to keep things simple.

• Increase the supply of existing NFT supply in the existing Collection
• Set a custom treasury account (currently the session account_id is used as the treasury account)
• Set custom keys for each permission (currently, the key that signs the transaction is used for all permissions)
• Including Creator DID details

Recommended Future Enhancements

My vision for Mintbar was that it gets adopted and extended by the community. You can view the public Github repro HERE and tag me on Twitter @Ashe_Oro if you end up using it in your own application. That said, here are some feature enhancements that were discussed, but ultimately not included:

1. Audio/Video/File NFTs
   1. Currently Mintbar only supports image files, but NFTs are obviously much bigger than just images.
2. NFT management dashboard
   1. Ability to transfer, pause/freeze, and remove keys/permissions on the Collection
3. Display rarity information and other analytics
4. Add metadata schema validation
5. Build out individual pages for each NFT (currently clicking the NFT takes you to its related Hashscan page)
6. Marketplace integration - ability to quickly place an NFT for sale
7. Ability to enter any Hedera account_id (or evm_address) and view its NFTs
8. Support “preview image” in the root IMAGE value which is stored on a centralized file hosting service and move the full resolution image (stored on IPFS) into the FILES array in the JSON metadata file.
9. Caching of IPFS image files for faster Gallery load times
10. “Airgrab” distribution page creation to easily distribute NFTs similar to what is offered by mintnft.today (Polygon)
11. Support maxSupply = INFINITE
12. Multi-party royalty payouts
13. Allow users to import their own NFT.storage API key
14. Support file sizes >5.8MB
15. Update the MAX SUPPLY of Collection

Ok, well that’s it for now! I do have another very interesting project in progress, but it’s too early to share. To stay up-to-date on what I’m doing, follow me on Twitter @Ashe_Oro.

Bear markets are for builders,

-Ashe