Immutable Minting API

When we talk to game studios about the tokenization of their in-game items to enable new economies, they are often eager to understand exactly what that process entails. Like any good business, technical burden and cost are key considerations when it comes to exploring new opportunities. Therefore, it’s understandable that the cost and complexity of minting millions of in-game items has been slowing blockchain adoption in the gaming space. Concerns around scalability are not unique, but real solutions to this problem are. 

That’s why Immutable is proud to announce that Immutable Mint is getting an upgrade! Introducing the Minting API - a developer-friendly solution that enables game studios to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of minting assets at scale. 

Current Minting Challenges

There are three key barriers in the existing asset minting process that we aimed to solve with the Minting API:

1. Minting at scale - the complexity associated with minting assets can significantly affect game developers, especially when operating on a large scale. Local nonce tracking, a method used to ensure each transaction is processed only once, can be problematic due to the decentralized nature of blockchain technology. This is cumbersome to manage, lacks intuitive error handling, and can lead to issues with transaction validity. Additionally, tracking the lifecycle of a transaction from initiation to completion is another hurdle in the developer journey that can lead to confusion and errors.
2. Wallets & Funding - ensuring secure and efficient management of digital wallets, which hold the necessary funds for minting assets, is crucial. However, this requirement often adds an extra layer of complexity and risk to the process. Also, continuously sourcing IMX tokens for minting can be challenging due to variable requirements, market volatility, and availability. 
3. Gas Efficiency - the burden of gas fees lead to inefficiencies within a game’s economy. Costs can quickly get out of hand as the number of players and assets scale, especially when factoring in network congestion. Additionally, performing updates to assets, such as refreshing metadata, further add to the list of expenses and operational overhead required to support a thriving game. 

The Value of the Immutable Minting API

It’s well documented that APIs can streamline on-chain operations by providing a familiar set of tools for developers to interact with the blockchain. They are frequently used to make web3 technology more accessible and manageable, thereby enhancing the developer experience. However, the innovation within Immutable’s Minting API is truly groundbreaking. It offers:

• The most advanced and gas efficient minting functionality via API, which optimizes each individual request to use the least amount of gas
• A batch minting optimizer that does the heavily lifting to streamline all your requests through a single API call
• A significant reduction in developer integration time by eliminating the need to make direct calls to smart contracts for minting
• The ability to create assets with associated metadata in a single minting API call
• Error visibility and reporting via Immutable Blockchain Data API endpoints

Additionally, there are two more key differentiators of the Minting API that we’re especially excited to share:

1. Immutable’s Gas Free for Gamers initiative will be extended to the Minting API! When mint requests are sent through the Minting API and you are using our preset smart contract templates, Immutable will pay for the gas fees until September 2024. 
2. In our internal tests, the Immutable Minting API is 95% less expensive when compared to other minting API solutions on the market. 

How to Access the Immutable Minting API

The initial release of the Minting API will be available to all developers on Immutable zkEVM Testnet, but only available to Immutable partners on Immutable zkEVM Mainnet. We’ll continue to expand access to the API over time. 

If you’re an Immutable partner and you want access to the Minting API, please follow these steps (documentation here):

1. Get API key from Immutable Developer Hub
2. Request Minting API access on Immutable zkEVM Mainnet by following the process outlined in our documentation (not required on Testnet)
3. Deploy collection
4. Grant minter role to Minting API Smart Contract
5. Request mint with Ref ID and Metadata
6. Poll or Webhooks to confirm mint and get Token ID

Looking Ahead

As we continue to expand access to the Minting API, we’ll also be making improvements to the feature along the way. We’ll be adding batch minting by ID to support game studio migrations and crafting functionality, as well as minting on-chain metadata. 

Learn more and stay up to date with the Immutable Minting API through our developer documentation and start building now through the Immutable Developer Hub.