# MintPass

{% hint style="info" %}
**What is a MintPass?**

MintPasses are essentially a reservation system for NFTs. You can think of it as unopened trading card packs - you know there’s a trading card (or in our case, an NFT) inside, but you don’t know what it is until you open it.

Prior to MintPasses, new launches of NFT projects were first-come, first-serve. This was problematic at the time because:

* to make transactions on a blockchain like Ethereum, users pay transaction fees (i.e. gas fees)
* while there’s a limit to the number of transactions which can be processed in each block, users can choose to pay extra for their transaction to be prioritised
* first-come, first-serve NFT launches created a dynamic where users would choose to pay high amounts of fees in a rush to mint their NFT before the supply ran out, also known as a *gas war*

Gas wars favour those with the most capital, so Pixel Vault [conceptualised](https://twitter.com/pixelvault_/status/1412479227484573701?s=20\&t=itBHmINnIMJBeVSRdHts1Q) the MintPass in July 2021 to enable more fair & equitable NFT drops. The concept was quick to be adopted by other teams and is now extremely common.
{% endhint %}

Pixel Vault MintPasses include:

* [MintPass #1](/pixel-vault/learn/ecosystem/iu/mintpass/1.md), the ticket to getting [Inhabitants Identities](/pixel-vault/learn/ecosystem/iu/identities.md)
* [MintPass #2](/pixel-vault/learn/ecosystem/iu/mintpass/2.md), the ticket to getting [DOTs](/pixel-vault/learn/ecosystem/iu/dots.md)

There were provided for free or at a low cost to existing holders of PV assets, as a reward for their support.

![](/files/zAmHHtN4fxPUnt4iod9j)


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://denze.gitbook.io/pixel-vault/learn/ecosystem/iu/mintpass.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.