Native Token Workshop: Token Registry - Notes

[stephen-rowan]

Native Token Workshop: Token Registry

Presentation from the Cardano Foundation - Notes

"Frederic Johnson, technical project manager at the Cardano Foundation, will join to give us a quick look at the newly released Cardano Token Registry. Come learn how it provides a place to add metadata for tokens written and deployed on Cardano, and how this betters the ecosystem.
It’ll help you understand why you as a developer may want to use the Registry. Fred will also give a quick walkthrough demo of submitting a token into the registry!"

There is now a section on Cardano docs on using-the-token-registry at ...

https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/native-tokens/using-the-token-registry/token-registry.html

An example of a pull request on the registry can be found at the cardano-foundation GitHub ..

cardano-foundation/cardano-token-registry#66

Notes -

Rationale

The Registry improves visibility of token metadata in the Cardano Daedalus wallet.
It acts as a validator organization prior to the introduction of smart contracts.

Progress

Cardano working towards automating the full process. But it is currently a manual process with some automated elements.
Ultimately the registry will migrate to a smart contract.

Features

The registry is platform agnostic so tokens from other chains can, in principle, register metadata as well.
It is possible to change metadata after submission. But a re submission will require a sequential number update.
Cardano Legal are in Progress on Due Diligence and Anti-Fraud measures to counter abuse of the registry.

[stephen-rowan]

From IOHK devcommunity Slack -

https://iohkdevcommunity.slack.com/archives/C01H5R737BP/p1619636671255100?thread_ts=1619545625.251000&cid=C01H5R737BP

TOPICS COVERED:

Introduction from Frederic

Frederic is a Technical Project Manager at the Cardano Foundation
he helps coordinate projects with IOHK and the greater community
some of the projects he’s worked are: the CIP (Cardano Improvement Proposals) platform and the Cardano Token Registry
About the Token Registry
it is a place for users to submit metadata
there are limitations to what you can append but it can be used for attributes like name and description of Cardano Native Tokens
note that its use (and registration of tokens) comes once the tokens have been minted and cannot be done before
the registry sits with CF but other entities/services can consume the information to feed into their own products (ie. explorers, wallets, dashboards)

Registry Walkthrough

-on the devcommunity call, Frederic gave a walkthrough on the documentation that shows users how they can register a token
-there are some automated tools in the registry that bundle the requirements
-but it will allows entry for things like the: URL, signature, public key, all linked to the policy ID and the forging script that was used to mint the token, the sequence number (to ensure proper entry time and order), and description to add other details on what your token is about
-in general, the process is that token creators will need to submit a single JSON file and submit a GitHub pull request for admission to the registry
-modifications to existing entries will also require a pull request
-and the approval of pull requests will be subject to both automated checking and human manual approval by the CF

Why register?

-Frederic also touched on the topic of why token creators should use the Registry
-main reasons being that it will improve visibility of your token in Daedalus and Yoroi
-in both places, end users can see this information
-it brings benefits both for the creators and the end-users as it’ll be a way to verify the authenticity of a token
Token Registries
-its important to note that the registry is opt-in basis, so tokens will exist no matter what and the registry won’t affect that
-and you can even register to other third party registries when/if they exist
-hypothetically, we can have a community-based registry and in fact encourage this

Shared Links

-the Cardano Registry repo: https://github.com/cardano-foundation/cardano-token-registry
-forum post (CF) on the Cardano Token Registry: https://forum.cardano.org/t/introducing-the-cardano-token-registry-for-on-chain-identifiers/57594
-blog posts (IOHK) on Native Tokens to learn more: https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/02/18/building-native-tokens-on-cardano-for-pleasure-and-profit/

more documentation here:

https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/native-tokens/using-the-token-registry/token-registry.html
-and step-by-step guides which can be found in the repo, in the Wiki section:
https://github.com/cardano-foundation/cardano-token-registry/wiki

CIP on NFT Standard

-since Frederic also helps manage the CIP platform, he also discussed one of the CIP’s which relates to tokens, the creation of an

NFT standard

-Read more on this CIP here: https://forum.cardano.org/t/cip-nft-metadata-standard/45687
-To learn more about the CIP process, join their biweekly meeting which is open (past meetings can also be viewed): https://www.crowdcast.io/cips-biweekly