One of the big questions I have had since Chia Network officially launched their Chia Asset Tokens – CATs – is what the experience is like with an unverified CAT. We know that once Chia verifies a token (process is still unknown) it will show up in the Tokens section of the Light Wallet and allow you to add the token to your wallet with the click of a button. But Chia has made it very clear that this is a local client process and that other wallet providers can verify their own set of tokens, or none at all, and that it is possible to just use unverified CATs as easily as the verified ones.
That last one is pretty key for a decentralized process as having Chia be a gatekeeper for these things is very dangerous. But a team of intrepid Chia fans have minted an unverified token and called CryptoShibe Gold and are giving it away on reddit. They also sent me 100 coins unsolicited, which would normally (and in the future) go unwritten about and ignored but this is the first time and it gave me an opportunity to see what happens when you receive a CAT you haven’t added to your wallet.
The good news is that it works really well. I didn’t have to do anything at all to see the new CAT in my wallet, it just didn’t have the verified check or a name. But i was able to see my balance separately from other tokens as well as presumably spend and use the tokens however I wanted to. Because the name is simply a client setting that automatically picks up SpaceBucks and MarmotCoin but that seems to be all the verification does. I did not need to add the asset ID manually, although you can in order to see a 0 balance wallet.
From what I can tell this is a pretty good user experience. The only qualm I have is that I can see a situation where people just start spamming wallet addresses with their CATs and it creates a UX issue with how many to display and which one is which. Because the user has to name the unverified CATs themself had I gotten 5 or 6 unverified ones at a time instead of 1 I would have had a lot of trouble sorting them out by checking Asset IDs and such. If it was 50 or 60 I might not even be able to because the Chia Light Wallet UI doesn’t look ready to support that high a number.
Anyway, shout out to the CryptoShibe folks for giving me the opportunity to check out their (near) worthless token. I’m not being a dick, they say that themselves on Reddit here where they are doing their giveaway. I am glad to have gotten to see what an unsolicited CAT reception looks like and you can check out the simple three step process I went through here below.
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