Overview
Cardano Studio is a browser-based NFT minting tool that lets creators publish their own NFT collections on Cardano without sending funds to a middleman. You connect a wallet, set up a minting policy, add your images and metadata, and sign every transaction yourself, so the platform never holds your assets or your minting keys12. It suits independent artists, small studios, and music creators who want hands-on control of the minting process rather than a custodial mint-as-a-service.
The platform runs entirely in your browser: nothing is stored on a server except the minting transactions you broadcast to the network3. Cardano Studio is listed on the official Cardano apps directory under Minting and NFT tags, alongside other community-built minting tools4. Pricing is a flat 2 ADA per minting transaction, plus the small network fee Cardano itself charges. Multiple NFTs are grouped into each transaction to bring the per-NFT cost down, and at about thirty NFTs per transaction the platform fee works out to roughly 1/15 ADA per NFT2.
Key Features
- Self-custody minting flow. You sign and submit every minting transaction in your own wallet, so the platform never holds your ADA or your minting keys. There is no account to create and nothing to top up before you start12.
- Flat 2 ADA fee per transaction. Cardano Studio charges 2 ADA per minting transaction and bundles as many NFTs as possible into each one, which lowers the per-NFT cost for larger collections12.
- CSV import for larger collections. Build your collection in a spreadsheet, export it as a CSV file, and upload it to the studio in one step. A downloadable template shows the required name and image columns3.
- Music NFTs and royalties built in. Standard image NFTs follow the CIP-25 metadata standard, music NFTs follow CIP-60, and creator royalties on secondary sales are handled through CIP-27 royalty tokens. All three are Cardano-native standards that other marketplaces can read567.
- White-label metadata. Cardano Studio does not stamp its own name into the metadata of your NFTs. What ends up on chain is your collection, identified only by the policy ID you control1.
What to Expect
You land on a clean dark-themed page with a few large buttons: create a new collection, resume minting an existing one, or import a backup file. The flow walks you through three steps. First, create a minting policy. A minting policy is a small on-chain rule that says who is allowed to mint NFTs in this collection and, optionally, when minting can no longer happen (a "timelock")3. The studio uses one of your wallet addresses as the signing key and generates a unique policy ID (the on-chain identifier for the collection) for you to keep.
Next, prepare your images and metadata. You can host images on IPFS (a decentralized file-storage network commonly used for NFT media), or use any other service you prefer. Smaller images can be embedded directly using base64 encoding. You then add each NFT one at a time through the web form, or upload a CSV file for larger collections, including music NFTs3.
Finally, mint. You hit "Create next transaction," the studio batches as many NFTs as fit into a single Cardano transaction, and your wallet pops up to sign. Repeat until the collection is minted. Because everything happens in your browser, the studio recommends backing up your policy file: if you switch browsers or clear local data, you need that file to mint to the same policy ID again3. Wallet support is limited to three browser extensions: Eternl, Yoroi, and Lace2.
