Explore: Native NFT Collection

[rober-m]

Summary

A standard for minting and managing a native NFT collection: a collection-level minting policy, a fixed or capped supply, and per-item metadata. The canonical "launch a PFP / art / membership collection" primitive that most newcomers reach for first.

Category: Native Tokens

Status

To be researched. This candidate is listed in the catalog tracker but has not yet been explored in depth. This issue is a placeholder to collect prior art, use cases, and design questions before a full exploration writeup.

Why this is a candidate

• Ecosystem demand: Very high and evergreen; collection minting is the most common first project for a new Cardano team.
• Newcomer-friendly: A quick win that doubles as an onboarding example for the library.
• Reusability: Pairs with CIP-25 / CIP-68 metadata (Explore: CIP-68 #15) and the Royalty Standard (CIP-102) candidate.

To research

• Prior art on Cardano (CIP-25 vs CIP-68 collections, existing minting tools) and other ecosystems.
• Where the line sits between this and the Token Issuance Policies factory candidate.
• Reusability / composability with metadata (Explore: CIP-68 #15) and royalties (CIP-102 candidate).
• Audit-tractable scope.

Exploration deliverables

• Prior-art survey (Cardano + other ecosystems)
• Use-case list and reusability / composability check against the catalog
• Lightweight design sketch
• Composability check against ARCHITECTURE.md
• Recommendation: implement now / later / never (with reason)