Collections and Containers
How an NFT proves membership in a collection, what a Container adds, and what a collection label alone proves.
Protocol behavior Verified 2026-08-31
Describes the Atomicals protocol itself at the pinned reference revision. It does not promise that any product exposes it.
- Page ID
-
protocol/nft/collections-and-containers - Normative authority
- Atomicals reference implementation
- Networks
- mainnet
- Documentation version
- 2026.08
- Audience
- creator, developer
- Owner
- bitcoin-universe-docs
- Sources
-
- Atomicals ElectrumX
at
v1.5.2.0
- Atomicals ElectrumX
at
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A collection in Atomicals is not a label. It is a relationship a validator can check.
The weak form: a metadata claim
Section titled “The weak form: a metadata claim”An NFT payload can say it belongs to a collection. Nothing checks that. Anyone can mint an object claiming membership in anything.
A product that groups by a metadata field is grouping by an unverified string.
The strong form: a Container
Section titled “The strong form: a Container”A Container is a named Atomical that represents the collection identity. Items prove membership against it, and with a sealed DMINT manifest that proof is checkable.
| Property | Metadata claim | Container membership |
|---|---|---|
| Anyone can assert it | Yes | No |
| A validator can check it | No | Yes, against the manifest |
| Rules can be changed later | Not applicable | No, once sealed |
| Item count is bounded | No | Yes, by the manifest |
See Containers and DMINT.
Parent linkage
Section titled “Parent linkage”Mint commands accept --parent and --parentowner, which link the new object to a parent
Atomical at mint time. That linkage is set once and is part of the mint.
What to display
Section titled “What to display”- The collection’s Container Atomical ID, not just its name.
- Whether the manifest is sealed.
- Whether this item’s membership was verified against the manifest, or merely asserted in metadata.
- The number of verified items against the manifest total.
A user interface that shows a collection name without those four is showing a claim.