Getting Started
What is Monadinals?
A complete guide to the inscription protocol built on Monad.
Overview
Monadinals is an open inscription protocol deployed on the Monad blockchain. It allows any user to create, mint, and transfer token assets by embedding structured JSON data directly in on-chain transactions — no complex contract logic required.
The protocol defines a standard called MON-20, which governs how inscription data is formatted, validated, and indexed. Every valid inscription is permanent and immutable once confirmed on-chain.
Key principle
What is an inscription?
An inscription is a transaction that carries structured JSON payload embedded in its calldata. The Monadinals contract validates this data, charges a protocol fee, and emits an indexed event — permanently anchoring the operation to the chain.
Unlike traditional ERC-20 tokens where balances are stored in a mapping inside the contract, inscription-based tokens store no balance state on-chain. The "balance" is a derived view built by replaying the ordered sequence of mint and transfer operations.
Inscriptions vs. Smart Contract Tokens
| Property | Inscription (MON-20) | Smart Contract (ERC-20) |
|---|---|---|
| Balance storage | Off-chain indexer | On-chain mapping |
| Deployment cost | Fixed protocol fee | Gas for contract deploy |
| Immutability | Permanent, append-only | Mutable if not frozen |
| Indexing | Event-driven | State query |
| Complexity | Minimal | High |
| Composability | Indexer-level | Native EVM |
Why Monad?
Monad is an EVM-compatible L1 designed for extreme throughput — up to 10,000 TPS with sub-second finality. This makes it ideal for inscription-based protocols where every user action is an individual on-chain transaction.
On slower chains, minting 100 inscriptions would take minutes and cost significant gas. On Monad, bulk minting is fast and economical, making fair-launch token distribution practical at scale.
How does Monadinals work?
Choose an operation
Select Deploy, Mint, or Transfer from the Inscribe panel.
Fill in the parameters
Provide the ticker, amount, and any required fields for the operation.
Sign the transaction
Your wallet signs a transaction to the MonadInscriptions contract with the encoded payload and 10 MON protocol fee.
Contract validates & emits
The contract checks all parameters, stores accumulated fees, and emits an indexed event with the full inscription data.
Indexer picks up the event
Off-chain infrastructure reads the event and updates balances, supply tracking, and explorer state.