In the new era of NFTs, token gating has been proven as an inescapable feature in ecosystems. Token gating allows websites to see into the wallets of visitors and identify which CNFTs the visitor is holding. A custom experience can then be crafted for the visitor. We are talking here about an almost infinite number of new use cases such as giving users access to web content, using CNFT as a membership card, or providing customised perks and rewards to name a few. Token Gating even has uses in Self Sovereign Identity and Security. Despite the popularity of Token Gating on other platforms, we haven’t really seen it have an impact yet in the Cardano Community.

Token Gating Solutions

Everyone developing on Cardano is working toward the same thing, making Cardano a rich ecosystem of applications and projects and demonstrating that Cardano is the number one blockchain.

According to Fuix Lab’s CEO and Ex Googler, Tim O’Brien,

“If we build a solution to a use case that others may also need, we should build our solution in such a way that everyone can use it and not have to reinvent the wheel.”  

To set up Token Gating on a website, the webmaster must complete 3 steps (see Figure 1) which takes no more than 15 minutes. After these 3 steps, the user can:

(1) CNFT Collection registers their collection.

An owner of a CNFT collection, registers his NFT Collection with our DApp.

(2) Webmaster gets a Script from our DApp.

A webmaster, possibly also a creator of a CNFT Collection, logs into our DApp, fills out a form, and copies a custom script. Anyone who has configured analytics for their website will be familiar with this step.

(3) Webmaster adds a script to the website.

The webmaster pastes the script into the header of the site’s login page.

The Idea

Some of the best Catalyst projects come about when proposers experience the pain points first and while solving these pain points they build great solutions for the entire community. That is definitely the case with this solution.

In April, FuixLabs Launched a Token Gating pilot called Brand X with the idea of letting some brands reward holders of CNFTs they felt delivered a message consistent with their brand. The results were promising as Tim put it:

“Brands today are under pressure to demonstrate to their customers that they are committed to sustainable goals but would they be willing to “virtue signal” this commitment by Token Gating eco CNFTs. We used Brand X to prove to ourselves that our market assumptions were correct before going to Catalyst for funding. The second question was if brands would be interested in creating marketing campaigns that used NFTs to target specific customers.   It was clear to us that we hit on something valuable to the community and needed to make an open source Token Gating application that was free and easy to use”.

Token Gating on Cardano

Ok so assume you can forgo the time and expense of building your own token gating solution, what can you build. You are basically limited by your own imagination. Below is a list of applications that have used Token Gating:

• New digital economies such as Fly Fish Club that uses NFTs as membership cards that can be traded and gifted.
• Retail companies like shopify and Stoner Cats use token gating for customer rewards
• Security – Token Gating is very secure from many common attacks that plague logins that rely on a username and password.
• Self Sovereign Identity – Users can use NFT tokens to log into applications without revealing personal information. The NFTs they own can be used to voluntarily show their interests and suggest to retail organisations what products and services they are interested in hearing about.
• Website Login – Token Gating is to Web 3 what the username password login is to Web 2.0 world.
• Experiences and perks to visitors based on the NFTs in their wallets.

New Approach to Token Gating

Fuix Labs, the team behind this project seeks to build a dapp that lets website admins add information and generate scripts that can be copied to their website or dapp to provide token gating capability. This proposal’s approach is designed to make it very easy for developers to build applications that use token gating. Token gating uses CNFT tokens that provide a customised experience to website visitors. For instance, large brands and websites that want to add a page that provides perks to their customers who own a CNFT from a certain collection can use this project. Cardano builders that also want to use token gating for their dapp and community will highly benefit from this project.

With FuixLabs DApp using TokenGating can be implemented in 3 easy steps. Firstly, the owner of the CNFT collection registers the collection in the DApp. Secondly, the admin of the site that wants to use token gating logs in and selects the token collections(s) and a small snippet of javascript is generated. Finally, the admin copies the javascript snippet into his own website or DApp. That is all there is to it.

Once a website has been configured for token gating, users have an option to log in with a QRCode or use a Cardano wallet. After logging in, they see their perks received from the ownership of NFTs from a registered NFTCollection on the dapp. Perks may include access to exclusive parts of the website, the ability to purchase limited edition products, discounts, and vouchers. For developers, adding token gating to a dapp should take 2 hours. The process should be similar to adding an analytics service to a website.

Project Team

This project proposal is by FuixLabs, an active contributor to the Cardano community with notable projects such as No-Code Hackathon and projects across Asia and Africa. The team is made up of the following members: Timothy O’Brien (Principal), Su Tong Quoc (Product owner – Senior UI/UX designer), Nguyen Ha Thanh (Project manager – Scrum master), Nguyen Nguyen Thi Hanh (Quality Assurance Leader), Tam Nguyen Minh (Technical leader & Assistant – Senior backend developer), Huynh Xuan Bui and Truong Nguyen Nhut, Frontend Developers.

Proposed Budget

The proposed budget for the project is set at $50,150. The team has provided a detailed budget breakdown indicating all the expenses. The project is broken down into four milestones.

Milestone 1: $7,000

Milestone 2: $22,500

Milestone 3: $17,500

Milestone 4: $3,150

Looking Forward

Token gating is important in the NFT age. This project proposes to increase the number of dapps and products available for the community to use that help to enrich the ecosystem with new use cases. And allow the creation of different dapps and products that provide value to the Cardano community and wider ecosystem.

Token gating is an essential part of Web 3.0 and this product replaces the need of web developers to build their own Token Gating code with a simple 3 step process that takes less than 15 minutes.

The success of this project will be measured by the number of CNFT Collections that will sign up monthly, information that can be accessed by any user since the project will be open source. Other parameters will be used to show the progress and adaptation of the project by developers. The project is being directed and developed by a team that has been very active in Cardano, implementing other projects.

The experience of the team as well as their previous works can be used to gauge their ability to see this project through as well as to host it for years after its launch. The project comes at a time where such a feature is very crucial for the growth of Cardano, as the blockchain seeks to attract more NFT projects and developers. Its launch will allow more dapps development on Cardano and more NFT holders, who can easily access websites for exclusive perks.

Image courtesy of pixabay