Skins Overview
Skins are Monsterion's cosmetic layer — alternate looks for heroes/monsters — and the backbone of its collectible economy. They come in limited editions of 100 each, which makes them scarce, tradeable, and the engine of $IONS buyback pressure.
What a skin is
- A cosmetic variant of a hero/monster. No gameplay advantage — purely visual.
- Limited to 100 editions of each skin. Once minted out, no more exist.
- Categorized as Classic or Hyper-Mutation variants.
- Owned via an off-chain ledger (
owned_skins) keyed per edition, not (yet) an on-chain NFT.
Two markets, two currencies
Monsterion has two distinct skin markets — don't confuse them:
| Primary Shop | Secondary Marketplace | |
|---|---|---|
| What | Buy a fresh skin from the game | Resell/buy skins peer-to-peer |
| Currency | $IONS | USDC |
| Fee | None (full amount → treasury) | 9.6% (4.8% buyback+burn, 4.8% treasury) |
| Settled by | Existing exact-amount rail + server watcher | ions_market Anchor escrow program |
| Module | Existing Skins shop | New marketplace module + home button |
- Primary = the studio selling you a new edition for $IONS. See Primary Skin Shop.
- Secondary = players trading editions among themselves in USDC, with a fee that feeds the $IONS buyback. See Secondary Marketplace & Fees.
Why the two-currency design
Primary sales priced in $IONS create direct utility/sink for the token. Secondary sales priced in USDC are what make the buyback coherent: spending USDC to buy $IONS on the open market is real buy pressure, not a circular round-trip of the token against itself.
gIONS alpha items
Beyond skins, the earliest holders can burn Genesis IONS (gIONS) relics to unlock exclusive alpha items — a separate, redemption-only scarcity layer.